WordPress is the platform that most bloggers throughout the world rely on, and for very good reason. It is simple to use, extremely versatile and full of unique features. To start a great blog, make the choice to use WordPress. Read on to learn some of the easiest ways to make the most of WordPress.
If you have a long title on a post, be sure to clean up your permalink. For instance: “Ways Parent Can Control Their kids” is too long. Rather, try to shorten permalinks while retaining the same meaning.
Use Alt and Title when you are using WordPress. Use both title and alternate text when uploading your images to your site. This lets you add some phrases for SEO and it lets your readers know what the image is.
Choose an interesting and unusual design for your WordPress blog. You may be tempted to choose from the first couple of pages, but if you do, your blog will be very commonplace. You need to spend the time to create a design that evidences your own creativity.
Take the time to learn about WordPress before beginning to use it. You will be more successful if you make a good plan before you begin. Understand the basics of SEO and content creation before starting your site.
You may invest lots of time editing your WordPress site only to get the idea that none of it was saved. If changes are not being saved, there is probably a different problem. To remedy this, try clearing your browser’s cache. Press and then hold the shift key as you refresh the browser to make the changes show up.
Unless you change the settings, all your posts will be listed in chronological order. Change the dates to rearrange the posts. First, open the posts and look for the date in the top-right corner. Click the date, choose a new one and save the post to alter its position.
Put in some time to get to know all of WordPress’ bells and whistles. For instance, clicking the “kitchen sink” button gets you a multitude of formatting and importing options to distinguish your site. Use this section to change many of your formatting elements.
Do your posts attract a lot of comments? If that’s the case, it may be hard for you or your visitors to sift through those numerous comments. Install a plugin that can divide this into different pages. It will be easier to navigate your site, and it will look more organized.
Use targeted descriptions and titles. These are likely the first things visitors see when discovering your site from an Internet search. This makes these aspects very important. Use Scribe (a form of SEO software) to control these items even more. This helps you edit these items on your pages to attract more visitors.
Using the most current version of WordPress is very important. Updates generally include security fixes that you will want to have. You can be at risk for malware if you use an old WordPress iteration that hasn’t been updated. Be diligent about looking for and installing the updates as soon as they become available.
Moderate comments and content that add nothing of value to your blog. This keeps your site more user-friendly to visitors. One great plugin to help remove spam from your site is Akismet.
Back your blog up. Update it regularly. Xcloner is a great plugin that you can use. Use whichever plugin or website you feel comfortable with to keep your blog backed up, however make sure you use more than a single location. It would be a shame to lose your whole blog.
Publish Immediately
Schedule your posting times on WordPress. You can have a post added to your blog at any time, and you don’t even need to be near your computer. You find this on the edit screen. Look for the “Publish” button. There, you will find “publish immediately.” Next to it is a place to input time and date. Input your time in military format. Then, verify that you want to publish immediately. Check “Schedule For” and press “Schedule.”
Work on creating a better greeting for the top of your WordPress website. This will make visitors feel like your blog is more personal. This will allow you to have a page that isn’t too “robotic” so that things can be accessed using the WordPress Greet Box plugin.
Nobody needs to approve comments manually anymore. Rather, Akismet can do it on your behalf. You’ll be emailed once there’s a comment, but you should uncheck manual approval so that the authors get to post comments without delay. If you fail to do this, you will not save yourself any time.
If you’d like to choose a header, avoid a drop-down menu. You should use keyboard shortcuts instead. By depressing the CTRL key along with a numeric key between 1 and 6, you can get different options. This will save you a lot of time if you use a lot of headers.
Always look at user reviews before using plugins. Lots of people know how to create plugins. Check the reports on issues, flaws, and bugs. If a plugin has been downloaded a lot and has high ratings, it is probably a safe bet.
Always organize your media library. Otherwise, the images can get jumbled together rapidly. Instead, make folders and organize your pictures that way. Further down the line when you need to find the image, this will make things easier.
If you need a host to keep your WordPress blog on, pick one that comes with installation tools that are compatible with WordPress. That way you will not have to worry about creating a separate database. The host should be able to create your blog domain and its associated database through that one simple click.
Allow users to comment on your website. This will cultivate a community and it will give you an idea on the type of visitors that your site is attracting. Different plugins can help you weed through and figure out which are the “real” comments and which are just spammers.
Differentiate the author’s comments by highlighting them. The comment section is where many readers will leave comments or questions. Responding to one of these questions can easily be overlooked, swallowed up in a sea of comments. You should make the author’s comments a different color. These tricks will make it easier for users to find the author’s comments.
Nobody needs to approve comments manually anymore. Akismet is a helpful plugin that you can use. You can receive an email every time someone makes a comment, but it’s better to have manual approval unchecked and authors with comments already approved to post. Otherwise, you are not saving any time.
You will discover the reason so many people prefer WordPress as you become comfortable with it. Use the information from the article to help you learn how to develop a blog. The appearance of your blog is sure to be professional before you know it, allowing you to focus on writing rather than technical issues.