Have you been thinking of starting a blog but feel you are too technologically challenged to do so? Well, have no fear because you have come to the right place. The following article will point out the most important things you should know when working with the most popular content management system – 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.
Pay attention to your footer. The bottom of your page does not just have to be wasted space. Instead, put in an important link or work in a few words about who you are and what you do. You could even use the footer to tell visitors a little more about the site itself.
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.
Your post will automatically appear chronologically, unless you stipulate otherwise. Change the dates to rearrange the posts. To do this, locate the date in the upper right corner of an open post. Click the date, edit it, and save it to reorder its position.
If you haven’t customized your WordPress sidebar, it could be cluttered with useless items that are doing nothing but confusing your readers. Your sidebar should only contain things you actually want visitors to click on. Navigate to Appearance & Widgets to edit the appearance of your sidebar and remove anything there that doesn’t actually benefit you or your visitors directly.
Encourage your users to share your site with their friends, family and loved ones on the top social media sites. Twitter and Facebook are the most optimal sites that come to mind, as this can get your name across to millions of different people. A social sharing plugin can be used to facilitate this.
Regularly check your site and content. All your plugins and everything else you work with needs to be current. This will help ensure that your visitors have a seamless experience on your site. If you have trouble remembering to do this, consider setting your phone to alert you once a month to perform this task.
Always organize your media library. Uploading images quickly is tempting, but this can turn into a huge mess. Instead, create folders and place your images in the appropriate folders. You’ll be able to find what you need much more quickly.
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.
So, what is the difference between tags and categories and why should I care? Categories are broad and house many posts which fall into the same genre, such as “cleaning tips”. Tags are more targeted, detailed words which describe what is in the content of a post, such as “removing blood stains” or “getting out grass stains”.
Approving comments manually is an outdated practice. Install Akismet or something similar to do this for you. Allow comments to post without having to have approval in order to simplify things. If you don’t, you’re just wasting time.
Sticky the posts the you want to stay at the top of your page. If there are posts you want your visitors to see first, sticky them by going to the ‘visibility’ option on the ‘edit posts’ screen. Choose to sticky the selected messages to the first page, and that is it.
Read user reviews and feedback of plugins while searching for them. These plugins are not that difficult to create. You don’t want to install a problematic plugin. A high rating and a lot of downloads usually signal that a plugin is safe.
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 need a WordPress blog host, only choose from those that feature a simple click function to install WordPress. This can spare you the hassle of creating a database of your own. The host should be able to create your blog domain and its associated database through that one simple click.
Try out different blog authoring tools. Are you unsatisfied with WordPress’s dashboard? You may want to consider Windows Live Writer. There are a variety of efficient WordPress-compatible tools. Try a few of them out, and find the one that works best with you.
Try installing a caching plugin in your WordPress site. There are many out there, but a popular one is W3 Total Cache. This plugin simply caches the website and keeps it from reloading each time a page is reloaded. This makes your site faster. It speeds things up because every file isn’t being called every time a page reloads.
As you are learning how to customize a WordPress template, choose a template that is highly flexible and which is updated constantly. Current updates means that the developers are active in improving the template. If you choose a high-quality template for your foundation, you will practically have unlimited choices in how you can customize this into your own unique design.
The article you have just read covered a lot of very valuable information about using WordPress when creating a blog. Hopefully you learned enough from it that you now feel empowered enough to get out of your comfort zone and tackle WordPress. Take the knowledge you now have and let your creativity flow.
