Successful bloggers everywhere are familiar with the ability of WordPress to provide an easy way to produce straightforward, valuable sites. However, if you are new to the world of blogs, you may still need to educate yourself on this particular platform. Keep on reading to get some great information on the fundamentals of WordPress.
Be sure to stay on top of updates! Many updates to add-ons or WordPress itself are security-based, meaning your site could be compromised if you don’t update the software. If it’s telling you a new update is available, install it as soon as possible to protect your site from harm.
Set a publishing time for your blog posts. When editing an article for publication, you can select when it will be published. It’s a good idea to set regular updates for a specific date and time. To really stay on top of keeping your blog up to date, put your blog posts in ahead of time and let WordPress post them to your blog for you.
Create a members only section to your website to make it more exclusive to the people who visit your site on a daily basis. This will allow them to actively engage in discussions with other members who have the same level of intensity. This will develop a solid bond between your top visitors.
You are unable to change the images sizes yourself if your site has its own gallery plugin. The gallery plugin automatically sets the sizes of the images, and you don’t actually have any control over this. If you really need the image sizes changed, ask your developer to help you change the settings.
Control unruly spam not by turning off comments, but by installing the right plugin. Aksimet’s anti-spam plugin is exceptional at keeping your site on the up and up. You can also add Recaptcha which adds a captcha to the comments box on your site, ensuring no bots can leave a message.
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.
Choose a focused keyword for each post or page you create. What would someone be searching for if this is the exact content they wanted? Be sure to make your key phrases targeted as simple queries, such as “sailing tips”, are already overrun by thousands of competitors and their websites.
Never forget to properly setup your WordPress page’s timezone. Under the General Settings page, take a moment and make sure that your timezone properly represents where you reside. This can be very important as the times and dates are published along with your posts. Not having the proper date stamp can leave you in a time warp.
Don’t forget to back up your blog. This should be done regularly. Try using a WordPress plugin like Xcloner. Pick whichever plugin or site you would like to use. However, have it backed up in numerous locations. It would be devastating to lose your whole blog.
Try a linking plugin to help join your posts so that readers see a greater amount of content. This type of plugin adds 3-5 links beneath your posts based on their tags’ relevancy.
If you are new to WordPress, explore the dashboard of your WordPress installation asap. It may feel daunting the first time you see that dashboard, but with just a little time you’ll get it down. Don’t be afraid to type in a few test posts and pages to see how things work.
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.
Read reviews of a plugin you want to use. Anyone who can program can make their own plugin. You don’t want to install a problematic plugin. If a plugin has been downloaded a lot and has high ratings, it is probably a safe bet.
Tired of the clutter on WordPress? You need to turn a few of those boxes off that are on the page. Go to “Screen Options” near the top of your WordPress window to do this. Click that link to get a menu which helps you control which boxes appear.
Bloggers have long seen the great value and utility inherent in the platform known as WordPress. If you are planning to begin blogging yourself, you owe it to yourself to take a close look at what WordPress can do for you, provided you understand how to use it well. The information above ought to have given you a great start.
