Have you always wanted a blog? Maybe you already use WordPress, but want to learn more about it. There are some things you can do that will make it easier for your blog to attract more visitors. The advice here can help you make an impressive blog.
Take some time to familiarize yourself with all the tools and options available to you when blogging with WordPress. For example, if there’s a Kitchen Sink button you click, you’ll be able to get a bunch of other choices that allow you to format and import what you want so posts can be unique. You also may notice that there’s a Screen Options tab where your admin pages are. Using this will help you better manage any formatting issues.
If the title for a post is long, try cleaning up the permalink. For instance, if you have a long phrase in a URL, that can seem very long. You can simply shorten that to include only the keywords.
Alt and Title are two important things to know about. text as you are uploading images to your posts. This will let you add more SEO phrases and will let users that block images know what they are missing.
The title and Alt keys should be used. Use both title and alternate text when uploading your images to your site. You can put SEO phrases in these places, and those people that can’t see pictures on your site will know what should have been there.
Be sure to learn all you can before you even install WordPress. Increased planning leads to a better executed blog. Find out all you can about creating great content, powerful SEO strategies and the best way to work with WordPress to give yourself an advantage when you actual begin your work.
Learn about WordPress before you install it. Adequate planning will save you time in the long run. Research SEO, WordPress and content generation before starting to develop your site.
Have you even worked on your site and thought that the changes you made were not saved? That is usually not the case. Try clearing your browser cache to solve this problem. Hold down the Shift key as you click Refresh to see the changes to your site.
Special Characters
You can improve search engine rankings if you take some time with your pictures while you’re uploading them. Be sure to put in alternate text and title tags. Remember, the title you select will be what your visitors see if they hover the mouse over your image.
Omit special characters from the URLs of your blog posts. Special characters annoy search engine spiders, so it’s best not to have any. Your URLs should also be shortened to just include keywords, so they do not overwhelm your visitors.
Write a personalized greeting near the top of your blog. This makes your site more personal when trying to relate to the visitor. Access this option using the WordPress Greet Box plugin as it helps make your visitors’ experience less impersonal.
Are you overwhelmed by the comments on your site? If so, you and other visitors might find it difficult to weed through all of them. A plugin can separate your comments into pages. This makes for a more organized site that is easier to navigate.
Allow visitors to email your articles to themselves. Additionally, make it easy for your users to share with their Facebook and Twitter friends. Use a WP-Email plugin to make this happen.
If you have a WordPress website, be sure to have the most engaging greeting possible. This helps your visitors feel more welcome and interested, and the messages can be personalized depending on how the visitor got there. It will also make things look more human and less robotic.
It is important that you securely store your password. On top of that, only download plugins from sites which are reputable and check the reviews before you install anything. If your site becomes compromised, you will have to begin again; therefore, it is important to do everything you can to keep your site secure.
Keep your WordPress plugin installations to the minimum you need. When you add too many plugins, it can slow your website down. They can really slow things down, and that can impact how you rank with search engines. Slow websites do not rank very well in the search engines when compared to sites that are optimized to load quickly.
Always use targeted titles and descriptions. These are a few of the things your readership will see first when using search engines. That heightens their importance. You can use Scribe SEO software to gain control of these items. With its help, you can edit this sort of item within your pages to make them more attractive.
You can connect separate posts by using a plugin that allows for internal linking. This shows related posts on your website near the bottom of every post.
Make sure to always organize your media library. It’s tempting to upload pictures into the library directly, however, things can easily get disorganized. Develop a system of folders so that things go where they should. This will make searching for a particular image much easier.
Publish Box
Only install the necessary plugins that you need. Although plugins can be a lot of fun, the reality is that web sites load slower with more plugins. This can impact how your site ranks on search engines. Websites that are slow usually don’t rank as highly as sites that are optimized for speed.
Schedule blog posts beforehand with WordPress. For posts already written, you can set them up to post on different days and times, even if you aren’t near your computer. You can do this by tapping into the Publish box on your edit screen. Under the Publish box is a radio button that says Publish Immediately. Add the times you want, including days, months as well as years. Click OK. When you spot your “schedule for” screen, select it and then hit “schedule” if things look right.
Using the most current version of WordPress is very important. There are security patches in updates, which decreases vulnerabilities. Malware is often able to infiltrate WordPress sites that do not have the latest updates. Always make sure to install the updates supplied by WordPress to keep your site secure.
Don’t manually approve every comment. 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 don’t, you’re wasting time.
Back up your blog on a regular basis. It’s important to make sure you don’t lose any valuable information. Plugins, such as Xcloner, are important to use. Your choice of backup website or plugin is at your discretion, but be sure you do more than one backup location. It would be terrible to lose your whole blog.
When you looking for plugins, be sure to look at the user reviews of the plugin. Remember, these plugins can be created by anyone who knows how to program. A plugin could be full of bugs and problems that could damage your computer. Highly rated plugins with lots of downloads are generally safe.
Use a plugin to link your posts. This allows the reader to enjoy more content. These plugins add a list of three to five links at the bottom of each post based on the relevance of the tags on all of the posts on your site.
Do you hate how disorganized WordPress can be? Toggle off the homepage boxes you don’t need. Just go to SCREEN OPTIONS in the upper portion of the window. In there, you’ll see a full menu of boxes that you can turn on and off.
Use a variety of tools for blog authoring. Are you not pleased with WordPress’s dashboard? Give an alternate blog authoring program a try, such as Windows Live Writer. A lot of tools are out there that are WordPress compatible but far more efficient. Try several of them. Find one that works for you.
Let people comment on your site. People will feel more involved and you can learn about them as well. You can use plugins that filter out spam and allow you to moderate comments before they are published.
Think about highlighting comments on an article that are made by the person who wrote the article. There are often concerns and questions in the comments. If there is a response from the author, it can be easily overlooked. Highlight all author comments using a different color. This will make it easy to spot them.
Give various website posting tools a shot. Have you had problems with the dashboard on WordPress? Use something such as Windows Live Writer to help. There are a lot of tools outside of WordPress that work well with the platform and are very efficient. Experiment with different programs to find one that will work well for you.
Keep in mind that you need not handle the setup and maintenance of your site without any help. You can hire someone or get a volunteer to take care of some of the tech work so that you don’t go through a lot of trial and error.
Highlighting can come in handy, particularly when you are making note of an author’s comments. Comments are often filled with questions and concerns. With all of the comments in this area, you may not even see questions that have been asked. Highlight an author’s comments in a distinct color. These tricks will make it easier for users to find the author’s comments.
Prior to planning a WordPress site, find assistance and advice first. Some things you can do include looking up Facebook groups, WordPress forums, and blogs for advice. Whether your issue is with a theme, plugin, or general knowledge, they can help you figure your problem out.
Create a solid plan before you begin building your WordPress site. List your goals and what you think readers want to know about. This will give you a clear picture of what you want your site to look like from the get go.
If a particular post is not ready for publishing, it can be held in “unpublished” mode. You’ll be able to make some changes to it, and it won’t be seen when the public looks at it. Wait until your are totally satisfied with the post before you publish it.
Just because a plugin costs money, does not mean that you shouldn’t give it a try. Consider the value of your own time, and stack it up against the price of a plugin. If there are many great features and a low price, it may be worth it.
Using categories and tags will let you incorporate SEO key phrases wherever you see fit. The fact remains that distinct category names might just be exactly what folks seek when looking on Google. Think about the keywords you use to look up information and consider what users may be entering into a search engine to look for your website.
Use a second folder that contains a duplicate database to test changes to your site without having them go live. This can keep mistakes you could make from harming your site.
Back up your blog regularly by using the Export function. This is helpful for a variety of reasons. For instance, should your site get hacked, at least it has been backed up.
It’s not necessary for you to do all your site work alone. If you can recruit a volunteer or hire someone who has the skill to do the work, you will save time and money in the long run.
Make sure to backup all files on your site when you want to export through WordPress. Copy all of it from the control panel after you log in.
Utilize tags with your SEO phrasing for every page on your website. In fact, descriptive category names are usually what people search for in Google. For example, you might have found this article by searching “best WordPress plugins”.
Don’t jump on a new WordPress upgrade before considering what plugins you have installed. If your plugins are essential, wait to upgrade until more testing is done. Installing the new upgrades too quickly may end up causing your existing plugins to become unusable.
A successful blog is composed of a variety of elements. Know the capabilities, plugins and other things you need to make a blog that gets noticed. Hopefully, you’ve gained some knowledge after reading this article. Apply this knowledge to your website to increase your traffic.
Increase security by getting rid of unused plugins and themes. Many times people forget about plugins that have been installed in the past that they are no longer using. Code injections could occur and your site will be ruined.
The post WordPress 101: Everything You Need To Know appeared first on Web Republic - Online marketing.