Are you ready to learn how to use WordPress, an incredibly popular choice for bloggers? If this is true, there is plenty of useful information about WordPress included here. Keep reading to learn the ways this tool can ease the process of blogging.
Use different designs than other blogs on WordPress. While it is tempting to save time, your viewers will not get the best impression. It’s essential to create a website that shows your business’ individuality.
Remember to clean up permalinks. For instance, an overbearing or difficult URL would be along the lines of “Top Tips For Parents of Unruly Children.” Use a few words that are descriptive of the blog.
Make it a point to become familiar with all options and tools that are available for working with WordPress. For instance, clicking on the visible Kitchen Sink button can offer more choices for formatting posts to make them more unique. There is also a Screen Options tab located on the admin pages of your site. This can be used to control several formatting elements.
Learn everything you can about WordPress choices to use it most effectively. For instance, clicking on the button called KITCHEN SINK provides you with many options with regard to formatting and importing that can help you to customize your posts. SCREEN OPTIONS is another tab you are likely to see on the admin pages. Use this for many formatting options.
When you are set to post, set a schedule. If you are aware of your posting time, your motivation will increase. You may even choose to dedicate time to creating content and then letting WordPress publish it at predetermined times.
Utilize Alt and Title. text when you upload images. This way, you can add a lot more keyword phrases to your content, and visitors who have images disabled on the computers will get a good idea of what is there.
Get rid of special characters from the URLs of your blog posts. This makes it harder for search engine spiders to index your site, so you should get rid of them. It is also a good idea to shorten URLs to keywords.
Get rid of special characters from the URLs of your blog posts. This makes it harder for search engine spiders to index your site, so you should get rid of them. In addition, make sure the URLs aren’t too long; you don’t want anyone to be turned off by the length.
You might spend some time making changes, only to see that they haven’t taken effect. This is probably not true. You might be able to solve the problem by clearing out your browser cache. Hold down the Shift key as you click Refresh to see the changes to your site.
If you spend more time on your pictures, your search engine ranking will increase. Always add in title and alternate text tags. When visitors “pin” something on Pinterest, the title you used is exactly what will show on their screen.
Do your posts have many comments? If they do, it is hard to go through all of the comments. Install a plugin that adds page numbers to the comments section. It will be easier to navigate your site, and it will look more organized.
Be sure that your readers can forward your posts to their emails whenever they desire. This is essential for sharing since many people can’t access many popular social networking sites when at work. They may wish to share articles with friends, regardless. Try using a plugin like WP-Email.
You can improve search engine rankings if you take some time with your pictures while you’re uploading them. Always add in title and alternate text tags. Remember, the title you select will be what your visitors see if they hover the mouse over your image.
Keep your plugins updated. The plugins are what makes WordPress so great. Just like any other software, however, they need to be updated. If you don’t keep up with installing the updates, you could miss out on key upgrades or you may even find that the plugin no longer works properly.
Write a personalized greeting near the top of your blog. A good greeting is more intimate for visitors and can relate to how this visitor found your blog. This males you appear less robotic and you can use the Great Box plugin for this.
Back up your blog on a regular basis. You need to to this with regularity. Think about utilizing a plugin such as Xcloner. Use the sites and plugins that you know for backing up your blog, just make sure it’s all in one location. It would be a shame to lose your whole blog.
Ensure that it is possible for users to forward articles from your site to their email easily and at will. This is important for sharing purposes as well, as many users may not be able to access Facebook or Twitter at work but may want to share your articles with friends. The WP-Email plugin is great for this.
To link your blog posts on your blog or website, make use of a plugin that will allow you to do just that. It will put a list of links under an article leading to relevant content.
Never use a word like “admin” as your username. Doing so can make your site vulnerable to bot attacks. That’s a security risk. Delete all users who call themselves “administrator” or “admin”. Choose a different username.
Approving comments manually is very outdated. Let Akismet filter out the spam for you. You can receive an email each time someone leaves a comment, but it’s more efficient to just forgo manual approvals. Otherwise, you are not saving any time.
Keep your WordPress password safe and to yourself. In addition, be careful which plugins you download; you don’t want to inadvertently harm your computer. If your site becomes compromised, you will have to begin again; therefore, it is important to do everything you can to keep your site secure.
Is it challenging to meet self-imposed deadlines for your posts? Write something well ahead of the scheduled time, but set the posting at the chosen time and date. You have the option to schedule a future posting when opening the new post page. This will reduce your stress of getting the content out on time.
Organize your media library. It’s tempting to upload pictures into the library directly, however, things can easily get disorganized. Create a folder structure when you begin and place images into the folders properly. In time, when you wish to go back and find something, it will be easy to do.
Rather than simply downloading a WordPress plugin as soon as you find it, look for reviews on that plugin first. Don’t forget, anyone who knows programming can build these plugins. You should stay away from plugins that are full of problems. A plugin that has numerous downloads and high ratings will probably be safe to use.
Try keeping the plugin installations on your WordPress blog to a minimum. Of course plugins are cool and fun, but each one that is added increases the time it takes your website to load. Plugins do slow down website performance, which can degrade your search engine ranking. A slower site generally ranks more poorly than optimized sites.
Are you sick of WordPress clutter? You need to turn a few of those boxes off that are on the page. You can do this with the top WordPress button labeled “Screen Options.” Click on that button and you will see a drop-down menu. Use this to control the various boxes.
Always back up your blog. You need to to this with regularity. There is a plugin called Xcloner that will make it easy to backup your blog. Your choice of backup website or plugin is at your discretion, but be sure you do more than one backup location. Losing every part of your blog would truly be a nightmare.
Be sure to let people comment about your blog posts. People will feel more involved and you can learn about them as well. There are plugins that will require comment approval before they show up on your site. This will keep spammers and advertisers away.
Use a plugin that builds internal links among your posts, thus improving the reading experience of your audience. These types of plugins add several links at the end of every post, depending on how relevant the tags of your posts are in your website.
Blog Authoring
Try scheduling your blog posts ahead of time in WordPress. This allows you to post any time of the day, even when you’re not near a computer. Find the Publish box on your Edit screen. There, you will find “publish immediately.” Insert military times. Also, make sure you include years, months, and days. Approve the selection. When you spot your “schedule for” screen, select it and then hit “schedule” if things look right.
Give various blog authoring tools a try. Is the WordPress dashboard not to your taste? Blog authoring programs, such as Windows Live Writer, can be of help. There are several WordPress compatible tools that can help you out. Try using a couple of them and find one you like.
Read reviews of a plugin you want to use. These plugins are not that difficult to create. If a plugin has a lot of flaws and bugs reported, don’t use it. You can usually use reviews to see which plugins are good.
Think about using the highlight feature for author comments. There are often concerns and questions in the comments. It is easy to miss something important as more and more people begin responding. Highlight the author’s comments as a different color. Using this method will make the comment section easier to read.
Does your WordPress page look cluttered? Turn several of the boxes off to clear it up. Do this by using the “Screen Options” menu selection near the top portion of the screen. Click that link to get a menu which helps you control which boxes appear.
Create a vision for your WordPress blog before you begin. Define what you hope to accomplish with you website and what you want your readers to know. This lets you start out great instead of having to make changes later.
Think about having author comments highlighted on a blog. It’s very common for users to express opinions and ask questions in the comment section. It is easy to miss something important as more and more people begin responding. Use a different color to highlight your comments. That way, these comments are easy to spot.
Some paid plugins may be worth your time. Consider how much time it will save you and determine how much that time is worth to you. It’s got many features at an affordable cost, so it is worth it to free up your time.
Make a plan of your site before you dive into WordPress. List the things you hope to accomplish and what you want readers to take away from your content. This will help you build a blog that covers your needs rather than you trying to tack a lot of things on at a later date.
Remember that you don’t have to do all of the work for your site alone. You could hire someone to help you make your website or blog.
Use pictures on your website. Picture can tell a lot about the information that you are trying to convey. This makes your site far more dramatic. Be sure that readers and search engines both notice your images through good use of titles as well as alt text tags in describing it.
Regularly save a back up copy of your site by using the Export function available in WordPress. That means you have a chronological database of backups that let you restore your content in the event of hack or server failure.
Keep a second folder for tests made to your site before putting them out for others to see. Once you know how a plugin will affect your website, you can decide whether or not to make it permanent.
Using WordPress for a blogging tool isn’t that hard when you are knowledgeable about what you you have at your arsenal. Keep in mind all that you have read from this article, and your blogging endeavor is sure to be fun and easy. Use these tips and you will be glad you did.
Use the Export function in WordPress to back up your site on a regular schedule. This will make sure that your site has a database of historical backups, allowing you to choose an older, clean copy of your site if you get hacked, or the most recent backup in case of a server crash.