What does it take to make a good WordPress site? Do I have to take a course or read a library worth of books? The fact is that reading this article will give you the base of knowledge you need to start your new site, so check out the advice below.
If you are doing a WordPress blog for professional or search engine optimization purporses, don’t let WordPress actually host your blog. Put your blog on a different host and then just use the WordPress application there. Blogs at WordPress’ website are sometimes deleted for being too commercial or deemed spammy in content.
If you want to easily be able to search through the media you upload, such as videos or photos, put it all into a single folder through WordPress. To do this, go into Settings & Media and then uncheck the box which sets WP to sort your media into folders based on the date.
Set a publishing time for your blog posts. When editing an article for publication, you can select when it will be published. It’s a good idea to set regular updates for a specific date and time. To really stay on top of keeping your blog up to date, put your blog posts in ahead of time and let WordPress post them to your blog for you.
When you are done with your site, check out how it looks from a visitors standpoint. Did you get across everything that you wanted? Go to your site from someone else’s computer to get their point of view and write down the changes that you will need to make to continually improve the aesthetics.
Allow all of the users that visit your site the ability to comment using Facebook. This is a very important tool that will get your name across to hundreds of thousands of people. The Simple Facebook Connect plugin can be used if you want to install this feature on your site.
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.
Most templates come with a landing page built in, so make use of it. This stripped down page allows you to focus their intention on exactly what you want them to look at, be it a sign-up form or a “Buy Now” link. This ensures they take the actions you want them to.
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.
Know that you can write posts and send them in the future via WordPress. All you need to do is change the post from “Publish Immediately” to a specific date and time in the future. This way you can write posts and have them set up to go out even while you are on vacation!
If you upload changes to your WordPress site, but they don’t appear to have taken effect, try to refresh from a clear cache. Hold shift as you click the reload icon in your browser, or hold shift-ctrl-r at the same time. This will give you a clean version of your site which should be updated.
Make sure plugins are always up to date. Plugins can add a lot to your site; they have many unique features. They will update just like normal software. If you do not keep your plugins current, you might miss major upgrades or discover faulty ones.
Remember that social media is integral to the success of both blogs and websites today, so you should install social networking plugins which allow you to share your content through your accounts. Facebook Connect is one example of an excellent tool to use to repost your content to your Facebook account.
Nobody wants to manually approve comments anymore. Akismet is great for this. 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.
Use the Easy Tweet Embed program to create links for readers to tweet the content of your posts to their followers. It does the work of creating the tweet content for you, so you don’t have to manually create it every time you draft a post, saving you a ton of time.
Now that you have this great advice in mind, your next step is to put it to use. Install WordPress and start to play with all of its features. Once you feel comfortable, publish your site and enjoy your new internet presence! Continue to read articles like this so you can stay on top of new advances.