You must have the proper knowledge. This is true in many situations, including starting a great blog. The more you know about WordPress, for example, the better off you will be. Here you'll find some top tips to help get you started. These tips can make using WordPress a lot simpler.
If your post has a long title, clean up its permalink. For instance, "101 Ways for Smart People to Manage Their Children" is way too long for a URL. Choose something simpler like "intelligent-parents-manage-children".
Take some time to familiarize yourself with all the tools and options available to you when blogging with WordPress. It's important for you to understand what the different features do and how each option improves your webpage. This can control an array of formatting features.
Title and Alt are both things you need to use. This allows you to add words to your images. These areas give you more space for SEO keywords for your site, while simultaneously letting visitors know what the images are, in case they do not see them.
Create a schedule for posting. If you know when you have to post, you'll be more motivated to get it done. You can actually make all of your posts for a week in one day. You can then schedule it so WordPress will upload some of these posts at a later date.
Make sure that your content is free of fluff. Your visitors will appreciate your efforts. The plugin "Askimet" can make the process of identifying spam quite easy.
Take out any special characters in the URLs of your blog entries. They can give search engines a hassle when trying to spider your site, so it is best if you remove them completely. Make your URLs short with a few keywords so visitors will get a sense of order when they visit your site.
Never share your password. Additionally, don't download plugins from unknown sites and read reviews prior to installing anything. If your site is hacked or gets malware, you will lose everything.
Make sure your media library isn't too confusing. You may wish to just put images right into your library, but this can result in chaos. Instead, make folders and organize your pictures that way. You will be glad you did this when you are searching for a particular image at a later date, as it will be far easier to find it.
Make sure you regularly update your plugins. One of the best ways to have a strong presence is through well-made, up-to-date plugins. Just as with regular software, they are updated. If you fail to update your plugins, you may miss key upgrades and the plugin may even stop working completely.
Don't install more WordPress plugins that you will be using. Some are enjoyable, but each ones adds to your site's load time. This means that the site will run slower for both you and your readers, and worse, it can make an negative impact on your search engine ranking. Slower sites don't usually rank as well as those that are faster.
Use an internal linking plugin to connect your posts together, giving the reader more content to enjoy on your site. These plugins add a list of three to five links at the bottom of each post based on the relevance of the tags on all of the posts on your site.
Schedule blog posts beforehand with WordPress. You can be sure that they are posted on a regular schedule even if you are away. Visit the "Edit" screen, and find the box for "Publish." Under that, you should see "Publish Immediately." Use military time to input the times, days, months and years you want your content published. Choose "O.K.". Check "Schedule For" and press "Schedule."
Approving comments manually is a thing of the past. Let Akismet handle that task for you. It is possible for you to receive an email whenever a comment is posted, but unchecking manual approval is the best course of action so that authors need not have their comments approved prior to posting. If you don't, you're just wasting time.
It can be difficult to keep up with scheduled blog posts. You can even write a blurb in advance and post it at a time of your choosing. You have the option to schedule a future posting when opening the new post page. Therefore, write away and get everything taken care of ahead of time.
You don't have to use the standard dro-down menu when choosing a header. Rather, use shortcuts on your keyboard. Depress the CTRL key along with a number between 1 and 6 to select one of the options. This is a time saver if you use lots of headers.
Are you over the amount of clutter you see on WordPress? Look at the page and turn off a few of the boxes. Go to: Screen Options on the window. Just click that button and access the menu that prompts you to turn the boxes you like on or off.
Make sure to pick a WordPress host that allows you to click a button in order to install it. That will help you to avoid the problem of dealing with a separate database. This one click can have the host create its domain for you and its database.
Make sure to place images on your website. The adage that a picture is worth more than a few words is still true today. It will give your site much more drama. Use alternate text and title tags with clear descriptions of each picture so that the search engines can crawl them.
After reading this piece, you should know a good deal more about WordPress. Begin using it with your WordPress page today. You will love how it works. Soon your traffic will start to rise. If the quality of your content is high, they'll keep on returning.