Are You Seeking Information About WordPress? Then Check Out Facts about WordPress You Never Knew

Are you intimidated by WordPress? Are you overwhelmed trying to figure out all of the different aspects of the site? If so, you are in luck. This article has some information to help you get started. Once you have read it, WordPress should be de-mystified for you. Then, you can start improving your site.

Create smart URLs! Don’t use a lot of keywords in the URL, and keep the whole thing simple and straightforward. Avoid excessive verbiage. You want to create smart permalinks that are easy to look at and easy to understand. This helps make your blog more user friendly and comprehensible.

|If you are doing a WordPress blog for professional or search engine optimization purposes, don’t let WordPress actually host your blog. Put your blog on a different host and then just use the WordPress application there. Blogs at WordPress’ website are sometimes deleted for being too commercial or deemed spammy in content.

When you are done with your site, check out how it looks from a visitors standpoint. Did you get across everything that you wanted? Go to your site from someone else’s computer to get their point of view and write down the changes that you will need to make to continually improve the aesthetics.

Remember that the title and description of each page on your site is what many other sites will use to categorize your link and share it with the world. For example, it will be what Google shows when someone searches for a site such as your own. Fill them with SEO key phrases and make sure there are no typos.

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.

Don’t forget to use spellcheck. It may seem obvious now, but many people forget to do it. When using the WordPress editor to post to your blog, make sure you take advantage of its spellcheck function. Even if you have already proofread your post, a quick and simple spell check couldn’t hurt.

WordPress has many keyboard shortcuts which make working with posts a snap. For example, ctrl-c allows you to copy text, while ctrl-x lets you cut it. Ctrl-v will paste it somewhere else. Ctrl-b is bold, ctrl-i is italic and ctrl-u is underline. These basic keyboard shortcuts will save you a lot of time if you memorize them.

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.

If you are new to WordPress, make sure to keep your sidebar simple. Make sure that it only has the essentials. Your visitors shouldn’t have to weed through a ton of ads and banners to find the links they want to click on. Try removing the items in Appearance & Widgets that don’t contribute anything to your cause or business.

Remember to make good use of the footer area at the bottom of your WordPress blog pages. In this area you can include additional information about yourself and/or your copyright. You can also add a link to another page if you wish. Different themes give you more use of this area, so choose your themes carefully to maximize the value of your page footers.

Get to know your WordPress WYSIWYG editor. When you write a new post, you’ll see a small bar that goes across the text input area. This is your WYSIWYG editor – meaning whatever you push will happen to whatever text you have highlighted. If you choose bold in the editor, the text you have chosen will become bold. It’s similar to using Microsoft Word.

Titles and targeted descriptions drive traffic to your site. These details are often seen first by users who may be using a search engine to find blogs like yours. Therefore, they are vital. You can use Scribe SEO software to gain control of these items. This will allow you to edit the items and, in turn, attract more visitors.

Your WordPress is nothing without plugins, and lucky for you, there are plenty to choose from. However, it is very important that you use caution when installing plugins and keep in mind that they aren’t disposable. You can uninstall them, but most of the time they will still affect your content and leave shortcodes behind.

Always back up your WordPress files and database regularly. Although your website has backups, they may not do backups as frequently as you would like. You can find plugins that can make the back up process much easier. When you have your files and database backed up, you can easily restore your site if anything happens to it.

Take the time to log out of your site every once in a while. Go back and look at it as a visitor. Doing so could allow you to see something that you are missing when you are logged in as an administrator. This step will not take very long, but it should set your mind at ease that everything is functioning the way that it should be.

If you want to have a landing page as the front page of your site, you will first need to create a “home” page and then a second page for your blog. Next, go into Reading Settings and click the static page radio button. Choose your home page for the front page and your blog page for the posts page.Make sure that you keep any plugins or themes you are using on your blog up to date. Exploits and general weaknesses in the security of a plugin or theme are almost always found eventually. Updates will keep them running smoothly and securely, but it’s important that you remember to keep them updated.

A great commenting plugin that is useful for WordPress is Disqus. This free commenting system works well with its API. You have the ability to import and back up your comments with it. It also adds essential SEO to your comments so that the search engines can index them easier.

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.

Your first WordPress plugin install should be Jetpack. The plugin extends the usability of WordPress in a lot of important ways. For instance, it gives you some basic analytics on the main page of the dashboard. It also increases your social media options for your website and adds in contact form options.

The plugin Broken Link Checker makes finding broken links on your site an easy task. Why don’t you want broken links? They make your content appear dated, and that can lose your reader’s interest. When you update or remove broken links, they’ll never realize how old your posts might be.

Running a great blog involves a blend of various tasks. Understanding what good content and plugins really area is what makes for a standout blog. Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of WordPress. Start using this knowledge to make your blog more interesting and appealing.