One of the most popular blogging platforms for beginners and experts alike is WordPress. If you’re looking to get into blogging or are wanting to learn more about this specific platform, then this article can help you find out some great information. Continue reading so you are sure to have a great experience as you begin to use WordPress.
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 This is very important as viewers will tend to veer away from your site if it is outdated or pointing out very old information.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.
Do not let your theme get stale. The first thing you should do if you notice a decrease in traffic is check and see when you last changed your theme. As your site grows and changes, the theme should as well. Make sure that it accurately reflects your brand, and you should see a rise in traffic.
Don’t forget to use spellcheck. It may seem obvious now, but many people forget to do it. When using the WordPress editor to post to your blog, make sure you take advantage of its spellcheck function. Even if you have already proofread your post, a quick and simple spellcheck couldn’t hurt.
If you are new to WordPress, make sure to keep your sidebar simple. Make sure that it only has the essentials. Your visitors shouldn’t have to weed through a ton of ads and banners to find the links they want to click on. Try removing the items in Appearance & Widgets that don’t contribute anything to your cause or business.
You might spend some time making changes, only to see that they haven’t taken effect. That is usually not the case. See if clearing the browser’s cache resolves the issue. Make sure to press the shift key on your keyboard as you do it, and the issue should have been solved.
Make sure that your wordpress site loads as fast as possible for your visitors. This is vital, as a site that crashes or takes too long will discourage your users from visiting it. A fast site will put your users in a good mood when they come there on a daily basis.
Constantly work on improving your permalinks. As WordPress becomes more popular, your traffic may decline. Change the URLs of your WordPress articles and incorporate higher quality keywords. You can minimize the amount of keywords as long as their value increases. This can be a nice boost to the traffic you see.
Keep close track of visitors to your blog. This is the only way you will be able to improve it to please your reader more. Free WordPress bloggers can use Jetpack stats to do this. Both free and paid bloggers can use Google Analytics. Be sure to make good use of both services if you can because they offer slightly different advantages.
Choose a focused keyword for each post or page you create. What would someone be searching for if this is the exact content they wanted? Be sure to make your key phrases targeted as simple queries, such as “sailing tips”, are already overrun by thousands of competitors and their websites.
Make sure you are always using the latest WordPress version. Many updates have security updates to fix vulnerabilities. Using an older version of WordPress opens up your site to malware attacks. Therefore, always install any updates that WordPress rolls out to ensure that your site is secure and tight.
If your have opened up your Wordpress blog for comments, be sure to monitor and moderate the comments. You do not want any inappropriate comments to appear on your blog that can be offensive to your readers. When you moderate incoming comments, you can delete spam and anything that you do not want to display to your readers.
Be sure to use a robust spam plug-in to filter out spam and bad content. People with ill-intentions are always looking for ways to spam a blog for link building purposes. This kind of spam will create a bad impression on your blog because your legitimate readers will think that your blog has security issues.
Use a security plugin. Keeping your blog secure is important, and there are plenty of plugins out there that promise to do just that. Try a plugin you feel you can trust. Wordfence is a good choice. It offers a firewall, does virus scans, blocks any malicious networks, and is free.
Schedule your posting times on WordPress. You can schedule them to post at different times, and you don’t have to be around a computer. Locate the Edit screen, and find the Publish box. You’ll notice something that says “Publish immediately.” Set the times in military time and the day, month and year you want to post it. Press OK. When the dialog for schedule comes up, look it over and press “Schedule” if everything is correct.
When searching for plugins, check user reviews prior to selecting any. Anybody who understands how to program can create these plugins. You should be careful with any plugin you are installing. Look for ones that have high ratings and have been heavily downloaded.
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.
Try a wide variety of tools for authoring blogs. Are you not fond of the dashboard on WordPress? Try a program such as Windows Live Writer. There are a lot of tools that work well with WordPress and make blogging more efficient. Give some of them a whirl, and discover the one that is most suitable for your needs.
While there is much to know about this blogging platform, WordPress is very user-friendly. This article has provided you with helpful tips and tricks for being able to do things the right way. Be sure you apply the information you’ve learned, and get ready to start using a great blogging platform.
