If you’ve ever wanted to make your blogging experience a little easier but still maintain a professional-looking blog, then WordPress is for you. And, there are many strategies that you can learn about to help develop your WordPress skills. So join up by reading the following information to help you find out how WordPress can be the answer to your blogging needs.
Be sure to choose a design that is not the same as those chosen by others who have WordPress sites. It can be tempting to do this since it saves lots of time, but it will not give users the best impression of you. Take the time to create a unique site that reflects you and your business.
Create smart URLs! Don’t use a lot of keywords in the URL, and keep the whole thing simple and straightforward. Avoid excessive verbiage. You want to create smart permalinks that are easy to look at and easy to understand. This helps make your blog more user friendly and comprehensible.
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.
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.
Download Akismet immediately with a fresh WordPress install. Akismet is a plugin for WordPress that basically blocks spam comments as they come in. If you don’t have it installed, you may be inundated with tons of spam. You’ll need to get a free key from the Akismet website to finalize the install.
Make use of a landing page. Instead of coming directly to current posts, users will pass through this landing page first. You can use this for a variety of reasons, whether for promoting a product or promoting yourself. Many themes feature a landing page; however, there are also paid options.
If you want to create a line break, but not a paragraph break, hold shift while you press the enter key. This moves the cursor down to the next line without including any blank space. If you want to put a letterhead-type address on your page, this should make it a snap.
Create the best greeting for the top of your WordPress website. This can make things more personal with your visitors, as you can create a message that relates to how the user found your blog. Use the WordPress Greet Box plugin to keep your website looking less robotic.
You are unable to change the images sizes yourself if your site has its own gallery plugin. The gallery plugin automatically sets the sizes of the images, and you don’t actually have any control over this. If you really need the image sizes changed, ask your developer to help you change the settings.
Be sure that your readers can forward your posts to their emails whenever they desire. This is critical when it comes to sharing too, because those who do not have access to social media at work may still want to send your articles to their friends. This is accomplished by using the WP-Email plugin.
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.
Does your WordPress dashboard look like a cluttered mess? Want to clean it up? Use the Screen Options link on that page to choose which boxes you want to appear and remove those which aren’t helpful to you. This will ensure that your dashboard experience is streamlined in the future.
Are you having a hard time making your posts on time? You can even write a blurb in advance and post it at a time of your choosing. When you start making a new post, you have the option to schedule a future publication. So go ahead and write your posts when you want and have them post when you want.
Make sure that your blog is compatible with mobile phones. By failing to make your blog compatible with mobile phones, you will be missing out on a lot of traffic. Make sure that your page layout will work with mobile phones or use a plugin like WPtouch for the job.
Try installing a caching plugin in your WordPress site. There are many out there, but a popular one is W3 Total Cache. This plugin simply caches the website and keeps it from reloading each time a page is reloaded. This makes your site faster. It speeds things up because every file isn’t being called every time a page reloads.
Always extensively examine your blog before and after adding a new theme or plugin. New plugins can have some nasty and unintended side effects. Identify these before they cause you any issues. After installing a new theme or plugin, look your site over carefully. Make a few test posts to ensure that your blog is functioning as it should.
Discovering the world of WordPress as a blogging platform is a wonderful way to get started. There are so many things available to you through WordPress, and this article has discussed a variety of tips and strategies. Continue finding out just what WordPress is able to help you do when blogging.
