It is tough to dispute the incredible popularity and widespread use of WordPress among bloggers everywhere. However, in order to really get the maximum utility out of this platform, it is necessary for newer users to spend some time educating themselves on it. The article below should provide a terrific starting point.
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.
Keep your permalinks clean and understandable. That means you should look at the permalink box every time you put up a new post. Does the title in the URL make sense? Does it help from an SEO standpoint? If not, click on it and alter it until it is perfect.
Make sure you have a landing page. This will ensure that visitors arrive at a specific page instead of directing them right to your most recent posts. A landing page will help your site gain an air of authenticity and helps it to look a little more professional than it would have otherwise.
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.
Get rid of special characters from the URLs of your blog posts. This makes it harder for search engine spiders to index your site, so you should get rid of them. Try shortening all URLs to avoid overwhelming visitors. Try using only keywords.
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.
At the very top of your WordPress page, create a catchy greeting for your visitors. This makes things a bit more personal with readers since you can make a message that shows how others found your site. This is much less robotic, which makes things accessible through the plugin.
Get to know your WordPress WYSIWYG editor. When you write a new post, you’ll see a small bar that goes across the text input area. This is your WYSIWYG editor – meaning whatever you push will happen to whatever text you have highlighted. If you choose bold in the editor, the text you have chosen will become bold. It’s similar to using Microsoft Word.
Provide a link that allows all your users to easily email themselves a copy of your articles. This is crucial for sharing as well, because many users may lack Twitter or Facebook access on the job, but they may want to share those articles. Use a WP-Email plugin to make this happen.
Organize your permalinks. You need to make your links easy for the search engines to find your important information. You should learn proper SEO to do this. In the meantime, you can use WordPress’s included permalink form to clean up links before publication. Cut words down to only the most important ones. Also, try cleverly adding your keywords to your descriptions.
Do not forget about Facebook. Visitors to your site should be able to leave comments or register with your site through their Facebook account. There are plugins that will help you getting things rolling on your page, and they are easy to download and use. Since so many people are on Facebook, it is important to ensure that your page incorporates the social media site in some way.
Security is key to a WordPress site, so be sure to keep passwords to yourself. On top of that, only download plugins from sites which are reputable and check the reviews before you install anything. If your site is hacked or gets malware, you will lose everything.
Make sure descriptions and titles are targeted. Search engines direct web traffic to these pages first. This is why they are important. Check out Scribe, which is an SEO software that gives you power on your site. This will allow you to edit these items and attract even more visitors.
There is little doubt about the utility that so many bloggers feel is offered by WordPress. To really get terrific results when using the platform, keep the information and advice found above close at hand. Doing so will ensure that the end result of WordPress use is valuable, appealing and seen by large numbers of web visitors.