Have you taken a look at WordPress in the past or used it before? If so, or even if you have not, you’re about to learn some great things about just how much WordPress has to offer you as a blogger. Read through these valuable tips to see exactly what you’ve been missing out on.
If you plan to start a WordPress blog, make sure that you offer readers more than just content. Even if you say many useful things, it may be quite difficult to engage readers with text. It would be a great idea to implement videos and pictures since this is a great attention grabber.
Check out add-ons to find simple tools which will make your site or blog better. For example, you could add a calendar to your side menu bar in order to share events which would be interesting to your readers. You can also find many great add-ons which provide control for advertising, turning your site into a revenue maker.
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.
The Title and Alt keys are helpful to know. text when you upload images. This will allow you to incorporate more SEO phrases.
Don’t include any special characters in your URLS. These characters negatively affect how a search engine crawls and indexes your content. You can also make the URLs shorter so they do not overwhelm your visitors, so just use the 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.
If you want to create a line break, but not a paragraph break, hold shift while you press the enter key. This moves the cursor down to the next line without including any blank space. If you want to put a letterhead-type address on your page, this should make it a snap.
Are you someone lucky to have a large number of commenting people on your posts? In these instances, it might be hard to navigate the comment section. Use a plugin to insert page numbers in the comments area. This will improve your blog’s navigation and give your website a more organized look.
Have an easy to find library. Time is money and you don’t need to check tons of folders to find one thing. It is easier to find things in your WordPress theme when everything is in one integrated folder. This makes searching through your Media Library much easier since it only involves inputting a keyword for what you’re looking for.
Create a suitable greeting and heading at the very top of your home page on your site. This will make your overall site look more aesthetically pleasing. This will make your site look much more inviting.
As you begin getting comments on your posts, consider allowing people to post with an avatar. It helps your site feel like more of a community, and it only takes a minute to do. Simply go to the settings area of your dashboard and then click on “discussion.” You should see the option there to enable avatars.
When you are choosing a WordPress template to use, pick something that gets frequent updates. You do not want to use a template whose creator has abandoned updates because sometimes you have to address security issues. A creator who is proactive in updating his template will give you a better product.
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.
To keep tabs on comments, you don’t need to visit each post separately. Instead, use your dashboard’s comments section to see what has been posted recently. You should check this page daily so that you know what people are saying and can reply if anyone requests more information or asks a question.
Your first WordPress plugin install should be Jetpack. The plugin extends the usability of WordPress in a lot of important ways. For instance, it gives you some basic analytics on the main page of the dashboard. It also increases your social media options for your website and adds in contact form options.
The Relevanssi plugin allows you to search your logs to find out what your users are interested in reading. Why does this matter? When you have writer’s block, you can check out the results it provides to know what you should be researching and posting about on your site.
Make use of the footer section of your site. Many blogger neglect this area, especially beginners. Put information about yourself in this area, links to any of your other websites and links to important pages in your blog. It is important to make use of any area in your blog.
In your wordpress blog, try to take advantage of all blank areas for advertising purposes. Focus your advertising towards the subject matter in your blog posts. Search out for reputable companies to become an affiliate marketer for. Make use of every single inch of real estate on your wordpress blog.
You are ready to take advantage of everything that has been provided to you here concerning WordPress. With such a variety of tools at your fingertips, there is always more you can learn. Get moving to see just what you can do now that you can be an experienced WordPress user.