WordPress has a reputation as the hot tool for bloggers right now. It’s impact on the realm of online marketing is unmatched. WordPress is fairly easy to use if you know what you’re doing. Keep reading for some WordPress tips you can start using today.

Make sure you choose a unique design instead of the same one as everyone else. Since it potentially saves you time it can appear like a good idea, but it won’t provide users with a great first impression. Creating a site that showcases the uniqueness of your business is critical.

Does one of your posts have a lengthy title? If so, use permalink to clean it up. Something like, “The Top 5 Ways Parents Discipline their Children” is a little too lengthy. Use just your keywords and improve your search engine rankings.

Get familiar with the tools on WordPress to help you blog. 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. Use this section to change many of your formatting elements.

Before installing WordPress, take some time for education. The more prepared you are, the simpler the process of setting up your page will be. Experiment with different plugins, research search engine optimization and learn how to write original, effective content to make using WordPress easier.

Get rid of special characters in the URLs of your WordPress blog posts. These characters are hard for search engine spiders to decipher. It is also a good idea to shorten URLs to keywords.

Do your posts have many comments? It may have become a challenge to sift through all of them. Install a plugin that can divide this into different pages. Navigation will be significantly easier, and the site itself will appear far more organized.

Make a schedule for your posts. You can stay motivated when you know how to post. You could write a lot of posts at once and then use the WordPress scheduling feature to post them for you.

Avoid common words and phrases for your user name. The more simple your user name, the easier it is for your site to be hacked. This is a major security risk. Go to your account page and delete usernames that are generic. Choose names other than these.

It is important that you securely store your password. Before installing plugins, make sure to read reviews. If you have a site that has malware or one that gets hacked, you may lose all of your data.

Organize that media library often. Direct uploading of images into your library seems easy and tempting, but it can get messy fast. Set up your folders from the beginning, even if you do not have content for all of them yet. This makes it easier later on if you’d like to reuse images.

Search engine ranks can be boosted with just a little more time spent while adding photos. Make sure to use alternate text and title tags. If someone pins you to Pinterest, for example, the title you put in will pop up.

Only use WordPress plugins that you absolutely need. Plugins are totally fun, but each additional one ups your blog’s load time. A slower website could also negatively impact your search engine rankings. A slower site generally ranks more poorly than optimized sites.

Using the most current version of WordPress is very important. Many updates have security updates to fix vulnerabilities. Older versions can make you vulnerable to malware. Therefore, always install any updates that WordPress rolls out to ensure that your site is secure and tight.

Do you want to be able to post without issues? The option to write ahead of schedule is available. This blurb can then be posted at a specific time and date. When you click to start a new post, you should have the ability to schedule it some time in the future. Writing ahead of time prevents a time crunch later.

Don’t choose a common term, such as “admin,” for your username. This can make you more susceptible to bots. Using these usernames can put your site at risk. Comb through your pages and delete any such user names right away. Use a different and unique username.

Don’t use the drop-down menu when you are selecting a header. Use keyboard shortcuts instead. Press CTRL, then pick a number between 1 and 6. For bloggers who always use headers, this shortcut saves a lot of time.

Rather than simply downloading a WordPress plugin as soon as you find it, look for reviews on that plugin first. Keep in mind that plugins can be developed by virtually anyone able to write programs. It is important not to use plugins with lots of problems and reported issues. Look for plugins that are highly rated and that have been downloaded many times.

Tired of WordPress clutter? Turn off a few boxes that are on the page. Look for your “Screen Options” at the very top of the page. When you click that, a menu will drop down with options to disable certain boxes.

Try keeping the plugin installations on your WordPress blog to a minimum. Remember that your site’s load time increases for every plugin you install. If your website is slow, it can affect your rankings with different search engines. Websites that run slow aren’t ranked as highly.

Blog Authoring

There are a variety of blog authoring tools; check them all out. Do you dislike the dashboard for WordPress? Consider Windows Live Writer or another program that does blog authoring. WordPress is compatible with a variety of tools that make it more efficient. Give some of them a whirl, and discover the one that is most suitable for your needs.

Keep in mind that a “read more” option is always a possibility. Nobody wants to see a page full of text that can be hard to read. Let visitors click on “Read More” to read long posts if they want to. Avoid over cluttering your blog and making navigation difficult.

Back up your blog on a regular basis. You need to to this with regularity. Try using a WordPress plugin like Xcloner. For added security, use plugins to make backup copies of your blog on several different locations. It would be very unfortunate to lose your entire blog.

Place images on your WordPress site. The cliche that a picture has the value of a thousand words still resonates today. Pictures add a lot of drama and excitement to your site. Search Engines and readers alike will appreciate your use of alternate text tags and titles.

Open your blog in another folder as a duplicate to avoid making changes that go live immediately. This way, if you make a mistake, it won’t wreck your site or embarrass you.

Similar to other tools, one needs to be educated on WordPress to use it properly. Once you know what you are doing, there is almost no limit to what you can accomplish with your site. To use blogging to your advantage, learn as much as you can about WordPress.

You don’t have to approve comments on your own anymore. Rather, Akismet can do it on your behalf. You can receive an email each time someone leaves a comment, but it’s more efficient to just forgo manual approvals. Pre-approving every post can consume large amounts of your time.