For many years, WordPress has been a go-to method of creating blogs of various descriptions, and it has gained an impressive following across the world. However, WordPress has the potential to do some amazing things of which not everyone is aware. Keep reading to gain some valuable insights about the true capabilities of WordPress.
If you plan to use WordPress for your site, you should only do so if you plan to have a responsive design. People access websites from all types of devices, and you want to make sure that any person who wants to view your site will be able to without any issues.
If the title for a post is long, try cleaning up the permalink. This would be a URL that is too long: “Ten Parenting Methods For Taming Kids The Smart Way.” You can change that permalink to ” parenting-tips-unruly-kids” or similar based on SEO keywords.
Unless you dictate differently, your posts always show up in a chronological order. In order to rearrange things, dates will need to be changed. Do this by opening a post, and you’ll see the date in the top right-hand corner. Changing the date and saving it will re-position it.
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.
Your pictures are another way to increase your rankings with search engines. Be sure to add alternate and title tags to every picture. Your title will show up if someone “pins” that image to Pinterest.
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.
Be sure to back up your site often! The best way to do this is to have your host back up your site every day for you. If they don’t offer this service, instead back it up yourself. There are plugins which will do the job for you, or you can just download it to your own computer.
When looking for a template, look for one that has the basic layout and design that you desire for your site. This way, you would not have to customize it too much in order to give it the look that you want. This will cut down on your site development time.
Optimize your photo size before uploading them to your WordPress media library. Photos should be no more than 10 to 15 kilobytes in size. A website is no place for a multi-megabyte sized photo. It’ll slow down your website, which may cause some visitors just to surf elsewhere. Take the few minutes it takes to downsize that photo.
To link your blog posts on your blog or website, make use of a plugin that will allow you to do just that. Such plugins provide a list of 3-5 links near the end of every post that are related to the tags contained on all the site’s posts.
If you need to work on your site, be sure to turn on a maintenance mode so that visitors aren’t surprised with the current state of your website. There are lots of maintenance mode plugins out there. And best of all, they are typically free. It’s a quick button push to toggle maintenance mode on and off.
You can easily get rid of external text formatting in WordPress. You may need to copy text from Word. Many times, it inserts characters that don’t display properly, even with “Paste from Word” option. Select the “Show/Hide Kitchen Sink” option to show another row of buttons. Highlight the problematic text. Click on a button called “Remove Formatting” to fix it.
Use the Evergreen Post Tweeter plugin to promote your posts automatically. It can be a chore to choose which posts to retweet daily, so let the software do it for you instead. Once you have it in place, you can literally set it and forget it and then enjoy the visitors it brings in.
If you want to improve traffic to your own domain, you should host your WordPress blog in your web account instead of using WordPress.com as the host. When you install WordPress yourself, you have more control over what features you can install and customize. Any visitor will be counted as traffic in your domain and not in WordPress.com’s domain.
If you have made a mistake in spelling of a name in multiple posts, or just want to change a certain word across your site, use the Search and Replace plugin to do the job for you. The time it takes to do this manually is horrific, so instead let the plugin get it done.
The only way to learn WordPress is by practicing it. You can sign up for a free account in WordPress.com and start experimenting with its multitude of features. Change images, background color, font sizes, etc. The more you get your hands on it, the more comfortable you will feel about using it.
When you have a question about how to create something in WordPress, consider visiting one of the many user forums that have been set up on the web. These online communities are often created by WordPress experts who just want to bring together people with a similar goal. When you post a question, it is not uncommon that you will get several very helpful responses.
Bloggers of all stripes have long turned to WordPress as a helpful tool for creating just the sort of sites they desired. It is worth noting, though, that WordPress can do many things beyond simple content presentation. Use the tips found above as a reference going forward, and it will be possible to squeeze maximum value from WordPress every time it is used.
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