Nine WordPress Tips and Tricks

By Technology Ally

WordPress is one of the most popular open-source content management systems. It allows users to easily set up their websites in a few hours, removing some of the complexities of building a site from scratch. Below are nine tips and tricks to make WordPress work for your site.

1. SEO

Search Engine Optimization helps your site appear as a result of certain keywords on a search engine results page. Improper SEO setup affects the website ranking. WordPress offers multiple SEO plugins in order to make things easier for the user and also look after general tasks. Some popular SEO plugins available include Yoast SEO. It helps focus on keywords in a blog post.

Other options are available like adding meta descriptions, titles, and tags. Moreover, the plugin also includes page analysis through which the user can easily improve their content and make it more SEO friendly.

2. Setup Permalinks

Permalinks are a type of URL that refers to content that doesn’t change. They are normally used in blog content to refer to posts and entries. The benefit of permalinks is that they can be named something convenient and easy to remember, as well as easy to type. These links can also include keywords that search engines look for when ranking your pages.

Make sure you set up your WordPress content with permalinks. This can usually be found under the settings in WordPress.

3. Create an XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap helps Google index your website so it can display your pages in its search results. The sitemap also shows Google your website’s structure and ensures your pages are indexed properly.

To create an XML site map in WordPress, use the Google XML Sitemap plugin to automatically create a sitemap that Google can index. Be sure to link the sitemap on your pages so Google can find it.

4. Use Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the most popular tools Google offers. Its free version is robust and is perfect for small- to medium-sized companies. It has tools that help the user record traffic, and integrates with AdWords.

Analytics can track traffic from the source, their behavior on the site, and various other metrics that help site owners target their audience. It also has a number of other tools that can analyze broken links and errors, among other things.

5. Shareable Content

Shareable content brings more traffic to your site via social media. Making your content sharable allows users to post your content on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

You can easily make content sharable by adding social media buttons to your content that prepopulate with the URL and a blurb about the content. WordPress offers various plugins to help you make your content sharable.

6. Optimized Themes

Make sure your theme is optimized for speed and aesthetics. Google can easily crawl the code of a well-optimized theme. In addition to being visually attractive on a desktop, the site must be functional on a mobile device. To make WordPress sites optimized for mobile, look into the WPtouch Pro plugin.

Different themes have different features. Make sure you use a theme that has the features your business or site will need as well as one that offers a solid foundation.

7. Web Hosting

A professional WordPress hosting platform provides a fast and secure environment. Platforms like WP Engine provide staging sites, automatic backups , and point and click restore features.

There are some key considerations regarding hosting environments like up-to-date maintenance of WordPress Plugins, themes, daily backups, disaster recovery, security, speed, performance, and its restore process. It is very important to use a good quality hosting environment in order to save time and unwanted headaches.

8. Security

Maintaining a secure website should always be a high priority. WordPress is a safe platform, but it is still liable to human errors. Some basic security measures include using strong passwords, mandating that passwords include numbers and special characters, and locking out IP addresses after a set number of failed login attempts.

9. Quality Content

High-quality content is an important factor in building a credible and trustworthy website for your business. This takes the form of informative pages, blog content, images, and other items you place on your site’s pages.

The content must be appealing to your target audience and be updated regularly. Some things to consider while developing content are uniqueness and whether it is sharable, informative and actionable.

Wrap Up

Using some of these WordPress website development tips and tricks can ease your use of WordPress and enhance the traffic you see to your site.