There are thousands of blogs on the Internet on many different topics. Do you wish that you could be a blogger? If so, you should know how easy it is to get started. By learning a few of the basics of using the popular blogging tool WordPress, you can start your own blog today.
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.
Always upgrade WordPress as soon as possible. Hackers will target WordPress because of the large amount of users. Updating WordPress as soon as updates are available can be on of your most valuable security tasks. The longer you wait to update, the better opportunity for hackers to get into your business.
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.
When you use different tags for the topics on your blog, keep in mind that these are strictly for searching the content on your blog. These can't be used by search engines. If you want your pages to be searchable on Google, you have to install an SEO type plug-in such as Headspace.
Moderate comments and content that add nothing of value to your blog. This keeps your site clean and easier to use. Akismet is a great plugin that you can include that will help you to filter out the daily spam on your site.
Keep close track of visitors to your blog. This is the only way you will be able to improve it to please your reader more. Free WordPress bloggers can use Jetpack stats to do this. Both free and paid bloggers can use Google Analytics. Be sure to make good use of both services if you can because they offer slightly different advantages.
Take the time to log out of your site every once in a while. Go back and look at it as a visitor. Doing so could allow you to see something that you are missing when you are logged in as an administrator. This step will not take very long, but it should set your mind at ease that everything is functioning the way that it should be.
Connect posts together using internal linking plugins so that visitors can enjoy more content on the site. These plugins allow you to list three or more links to each of your posts.
Be sure to use a robust spam plug-in to filter out spam and bad content. People with ill-intentions are always looking for ways to spam a blog for link building purposes. This kind of spam will create a bad impression on your blog because your legitimate readers will think that your blog has security issues.
When you upload images into the media gallery, try to keep the image file sizes down. Large image files take much longer to upload. When you use an image like that in your website, it will delay the load time of your page. This may discourage your visitors to stay and browse.
Want to create a new link in your post? There is no need to click the link icon any longer. Use ctrl-shift-A instead to start the link creation process using the keyboard and not the mouse. When you create many links within your content, this can shave time off the creation process.
Are the pictures on your site too big? Or, are you concerned that your visitors cannot see them clearly? Click on "settings" and then on "media." You will be able to adjust the default size of your pictures. Spend a little time playing around with this to see what suits you, and your site, the best.
If your WordPress site is running rather slowly, consider adding in a caching plugin. These plugins speed up page loads by caching pages that are rarely changed. This means that your site can increase in speed by 20% to 30% just with the plugin installed. There are a few different options, but W3 Total Cache is very popular.
Do not keep the default sidebar. Go in and customize both the titles and sections in the theme directory. This will ensure that your site is unique. In addition, while you can have different sidebars on different pages of the site, you may want to consider keeping everything uniform for your visitors.
Only install the plugins that you really need. When you have many plugins, you have to keep up with installing updates for them. Old plugins can be a security risk. Sometimes an update can conflict with another plugin and cause problems. The more plugins you use, the higher the risk of some plugins not working well together.
Put images to work on your websites. The cliche that a picture has the value of a thousand words still resonates today. This will give your site a lot of interest. Be certain to utilize title as well as alternate text tags in order to make pictures and their context clear to search engines and readers alike.
Seek out resources before working on your WordPress website. For instance, the Internet is rife with blogs, social media communities and forums dedicated to WordPress. These sites will help answer any questions you have concerning themes or plugins.
Using the WPTouch plugin lets you create a mobile-friendly website without doing any extra work. All you need to do is install a second, mobile-friendly theme which the site will automatically switch to when someone arrives at it via a mobile device. Your content will stay the same, of course.
You have seen how easy it is to get started using WordPress. This powerful software makes blogging a snap. Of course, there is always more to learn about getting the most out of WordPress, so don't stop here. Keep looking for new tips and tricks to make your blog even better.
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