What all do you know about WordPress as a blogging platform? Would you like to find out just why it’s perhaps the most popular platform in the world? This article is going to help lay that out for you, and you will understand why so many people use WordPress for their blogging.
If you plan to start a Wordpress blog, make sure that you offer readers more than just content. Even if you say many useful things, it may be quite difficult to engage readers with text. It would be a great idea to implement videos and pictures since this is a great attention grabber.
Make sure that all of the information on your site is current. This is very important as viewers will tend to veer away from your site if it is outdated or pointing out very old information. Spend time each week getting rid of the antiquated material on your website to improve how it looks.
Remember that the title and description of each page on your site is what many other sites will use to categorize your link and share it with the world. For example, it will be what Google shows when someone searches for a site such as your own. Fill them with SEO key phrases and make sure there are no typos.
One reason WordPress is so great to work with is that its plug-ins offer a dazzling array of functions. Be that as it may, you want to be careful when selecting plug-ins. Don’t just start downloading them willy-nilly. Begin with the essential plug-ins: WP DataBase BackUp, All-In-One SEO Pack and WP Optimize. Choose others with care to get precisely what you need.
You want no special characters visible within your URLs. They give search engines difficulty when they are spidering your site, so try to eliminate them altogether. Keep your URL’s short and to the point.
Regularly check your site and content. All your plugins and everything else you work with needs to be current. This will help ensure that your visitors have a seamless experience on your site. If you have trouble remembering to do this, consider setting your phone to alert you once a month to perform this task.
Be sure to choose unique, difficult to hack passwords and keep them secure. It doesn’t matter if you are a free WordPress blogger of a paid, self-hosted WordPress blogger: it is important to keep your passwords strong and secure. In this way, you will not have to waste valuable time cleaning up sabotage and changing passwords. This will help ensure that your blog is a success.
Think about scheduling post publishing in advance by using WordPress. It is possible to have posts published at specified times, no matter where you happen to be. Locate the Edit screen, and find the Publish box. Find ‘publish immediately’ under this. Select the time and date you want it to be published. Press OK. Read through your “Schedule For” screen, then select “Schedule” if everything is right.
Use the Comments tab in the Wordpress dashboard side bar to keep tabs on who is posting what on your site. This will save you the hassle of getting an email every time someone says something in reply to a post. In the end, you just don’t have time for that!
Try to manage your comments. No one wants to look at spam. Don’t let the spam in your blog’s comment sections get out of hand. Try to eliminate spam entirely or, at least, keep it to a minimum. Install a plugin that can cut down on spam. Delete any spam that slips through in your comments.
Is WordPress clutter bothering you? Disable some of the options you see. Go to “Screen Options” near the top of your WordPress window to do this. In there, you’ll see a full menu of boxes that you can turn on and off.
The only way to learn Wordpress is by practicing it. You can sign up for a free account in Wordpress.com and start experimenting with its multitude of features. Change images, background color, font sizes, etc. The more you get your hands on it, the more comfortable you will feel about using it.
Your first WordPress plugin install should be Jetpack. The plugin extends the usability of WordPress in a lot of important ways. For instance, it gives you some basic analytics on the main page of the dashboard. It also increases your social media options for your website and adds in contact form options.
If your imagery on your WordPress website is rather bulky and slowing your site down, try using WP Smush.It. It basically compresses all of those images down to much easier sizes for browsers to deal with. It can speed up your website quite a bit. The best part is, it can run in the background once you have it installed. So new images are always smushed!
Learn how to make your WordPress blog posts more SEO-friendly. There is a free plugin called Yoast that can do this for you. It does auto checks of your pages’ SEO, canonical, breadcrumbs, sitemaps, permalink, and more. Using the data that it provides, it teaches you how to optimize your blog posts properly.
Do not keep the default sidebar. Go in and customize both the titles and sections in the theme directory. This will ensure that your site is unique. In addition, while you can have different sidebars on different pages of the site, you may want to consider keeping everything uniform for your visitors.
If you aren’t into getting comments on your WordPress blog, you can turn comments off on any individual post or page. This is an excellent solution if you are creating more of a promotional website rather than a personal blog. WIth the comments off, you can solely concentrate on your post content without worry of spam.
Even if you had already been using WordPress and had figured out much on your own, there is so much more to know. Hopefully, this article has given you some helpful hints as to how you can take your efforts to the next level. Every good thing counts when it comes to making the most of your blogging experience.
