WordPress is the most popular blogging platform on the internet. Knowing how to use the platform properly makes blogging easier and more effective. Follow these simple tips and tricks on using the platform to get the most from your blogging experience. Your readers are sure to thank you for it!
Make sure your sidebar is not too cluttered. The sidebars on most WordPress blogs are a chaotic mess, full of social media icons and ads and links. Prioritize what goes in your sidebar. Make sure visitors to your blog don’t have to search for anything they might be looking for.
If your title is long, clean up your post’s permalink. For instance: “Ways Parents Can Control Their Kids” is too long. Use a few words that are descriptive of the blog.
Look into other themes for your WordPress blog. Sure WordPress comes preinstalled with a few excellent themes, but there are many more options out there. Many are free and then there are premium themes as well. These premium themes are very well designed and let you add more advanced aspects to your blog with ease, such as e-commerce plugins.
WordPress has many keyboard shortcuts which make working with posts a snap. For example, ctrl-c allows you to copy text, while ctrl-x lets you cut it. Ctrl-v will paste it somewhere else. Ctrl-b is bold, ctrl-i is italic and ctrl-u is underline. These basic keyboard shortcuts will save you a lot of time if you memorize them.
If you want a post to stay at the top of the page, there is no need to set it’s date way in the future any longer. Instead, go to the post and click on Edit under Visibility. Choose the option which allows you to make the post sticky and enjoy!
Don’t forget to spell check your WordPress story. WordPress makes that easy through a spell check button on the editor itself. Look for a button that has the letters “ABC” on it. It’ll then scan your post for spelling and common grammatical errors. Check any word or phrase that has a red squiggly line under it.
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 get 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.
Organize your media library and keep it that way. You can lose track of your files if you upload them into the library directly. Organize your folders into different themes if necessary. It will make images easier to find when you need them.
Consider using a password manager. Choosing a secure password for your blog is important. It’s important that your password be difficult to guess and change regularly. Unfortunately, a password that’s hard to crack can be just as difficult for you to remember. Password managers can be used to randomly generate and keep track of your passwords.
Make sure you have the most current WordPress on your website. Updated versions will give you more security. Using an older version of WordPress opens up your site to malware attacks. Install all the updates to keep your site secure.
Approving comments manually is an obsolete procedure. Try using Akismet for this. You can set up notifications for comments, but manual approval usually deters commenters. If you don’t do that, there really is no point in using Akismet.
If you want to put two images side by side, try using an invisible table in your WordPress post. You can create a one row/two column table via your post editor and then embed a photo into each cell. You could take the next step and add another row underneath to add captions below each photo.
Try a wide variety of tools for authoring blogs. Are you not fond of the dashboard on WordPress? Use something such as Windows Live Writer to help. Many more efficient tools which are WordPress compatible exist. Try some of them to find one that works the best for you.
When you are designing your WordPress site, it is a good idea to take out any display of the word “WordPress” in the footer area or in the header of your code. A lot of bad web bots troll the web for WordPress blogs and find security holes. If you remove the word “WordPress” from your site, you have another layer of defense against these bots.
You need to make sure that your WordPress blog has some security installed. There are times when your blog may be vulnerable due to technical issues. Hackers love exploiting these weaknesses and wreaking havoc on your site. You can use plugins to prevent this. There are also plugins that can back up your data should anything happen to your site.
Use the “Read More” button for lengthy posts. This allows your visitors to view a few lines of a blog post before deciding whether or not to read the entire post. Permit visitors who want to read more to do so by clicking a link. You don’t want your landing page to appear cluttered and messy.
WordPress.com has limited functionality for its users, yet it does have advantages. When your blog is hosted on WordPress.com, WordPress will take care of spam filtering, backups and restores, and address any security issues on your site. However, if you are hosting WordPress yourself, you will have to deal with these issues yourself.
If you aren’t using a plugin anymore, deactivate it, but also consider deleting it. Even in a deactivated state, your WordPress website checks on that plugin upon page load which actually slows down your site. Instead, delete those unused plugins completely. If you’ve got a lot of them, you may see a nice uptick to your site’s speed.
As stated above, knowing how to use WordPress properly is a great advantage to you as a blogger. Even if you know the basics, it is important to learn all the aspects of the blogging tool. Remember the helpful tips listed above as you explore and use the popular blogging platform.
