If you own or are building a website, chances are you are using WordPress, as there are more than 500 websites being built on WordPress every day, that’s 182,500 a year! Also, WordPress is searched on Google more than 37 million times each month these are just a few reasons why you should be using WordPress!
If you are in the early stages of building a website it can be intimating. If you don’t want to opt for an agency to help you (although we recommend mink media, no bias) and you would like to build it yourself we want to give you the top 10 WordPress tips to help make your life that much simpler! No matter what skill level you possess, whether you are a beginner or a WordPress expert, our tips will be able to help everyone in one way or another.
Tip #1 The Right Web Hosting Plan
WordPress is a tool that allows you to simply, create and manage websites, it can be used for a personal blog, business website or even an eCommerce store. However, one point to know is that WordPress does not host websites. This is quite a common misconception many websites or business owners have come across in the digital world. It is important that you select the right hosting for your business. Once you select your web hosting provider, you must identify the type of hosting that will suit your website. There is
- Shared hosting
- VPS hosting
- Dedicated servers
- Cloud hosting
They are among the most popular options. You must consider which hosting will provide you with enough resources for your website. If you select the wrong hosting plan, it can impact your entire online business, no one wants a slow page speed or website crashes. So be patient and take the time to select the right one for you, as changing hosting can be a pain.
Tip #2 Install A Plugin for SEO
Installing a WordPress SEO plugin will be one of the most helpful plugins you can install for any website. There are hundreds of SEO plugins, but the one we recommend and work with ourselves is Yoast SEO. No matter what website you have, if you do not have a proper SEO strategy, then your WordPress website won’t gain much traffic organically. It is imperative that you have a proper SEO strategy in place to be competitive in this era. Assuming content will be sufficient for SEO purposes; will impact your online presence in a negative way. SEO Yoast will be your best friend when running your online website. It will analyse keywords, and ensure your content is optimised for SEO, guaranteeing you are taking the right approach.
Tip #3 Select The Right Theme
Picking a theme is one of the more exciting parts of building a website on WordPress, however, it can also be the most stressful. With over ten thousand themes to pick from you could be there all day deciding! Many people will rush in and pick a theme they see right off the bat, but this is where they go wrong. You can select themes from other third party websites that are not offered straight from WordPress. Websites like ThemeForest offer almost 46,000 themes, but in order to get a high quality theme, you will have to invest some dollars for it. Don’t worry, most themes are reasonably priced.
There is a range of themes for specific industries or the type of website you have. There are categories for eCommerce website themes or personal blog themes. Try out the demo themes live and see what you like, you should take your time and make sure it will suit your type of website.
Pro Tip! Make sure the theme you select is mobile friendly.
Tip #4 Compress Your Images
Has your website loading speed slowed or you have run out of website storage once you uploaded a file of images? Chances are you have not compressed your images. Images can take up a whole lot of space without any visible changes. Fast site speed will be affected if you do not compress your images, a slow website will turn away users straight away since no one likes a slow website and no one has the patience to wait for your website to load. So speeding up your loading time can refresh your website and attract new visitors as users love fast loading websites. That’s why you must compress your images and videos.
There are a range of tools we love to compress images which are Krajen.io and image resize. Simply upload the image and compress.
Tip #5 Stay Updated
You probably are aware of how quickly Google changes, which means WordPress is constantly updating their software to ensure it keeps a secure platform for its users. Minor updates happen every 2 weeks while huge updates happen around once a month. They are not a big concern as they are updated for your benefit. But you should always be checking the minor and major updates to make sure you are on top of anything that may possibly impact your website. This will guarantee you have not fallen behind, otherwise, your website will become outdated and subject to possible website bugs.
All you have to do is check your WordPress dashboard and it will tell you what updates have occurred and what plugins you have to update yourself to stay current. This can be themed, or your version of WordPress. Always backup your site before updating and once after you have updated your site to give you peace of mind!
Tip #6 Set Featured Images
With every post on your website, it is recommended to set a featured image, this will appear as a thumbnail image next to your blog post, wherever it may appear on another site, or whether it is linked on other sites or social media. It’s simple to add a featured image, just take a look at the right hand side when you edit a post in WordPress. And select ‘set featured image’ upload your selected image and hit save! Don’t forget to add a title and alt text for the image.
Tip 7# Limit Your Plugins
Plugins on WordPress add great functionality to your website. However, unless your theme comes with a built in feature, you will have to install a plugin to obtain the feature. The most common features users typically install plugins for are contact forms, newsletters, or live chats. Too many plugins can slow your site speed tremendously and can even put your website health and security at risk. Be mindful when installing plugins to only install the ones that are important, as this will only benefit your website and users. Don’t give in to installing just about any plugin, just because they look ‘cool’ be smart about what you select.
Tip 8# infinite scroll trick
Automatically allow your users to scroll through content with automatic loading. As you approach the final paragraph of the blog it will continue scrolling with the jetpack plugin feature. If you have a well coded theme like the default WordPress theme, your theme will support the infinite scroll plugin. This is a cool plugin we thought we would share!
Tip #9 Disable Post Revision
Post revisions are possibly one of the best features there is on WordPress. Some users may not benefit from this feature, unlike others. If you are identifying limited database this will enable you to save on space of storing of revisions. To disable the revisions it will change the autosave interval from 60 to 120 seconds, meaning your post will be auto saving just every 120 seconds.
Tip #10 Show Related Posts
This is a great tip and one of our favourites to share. This will enable related posts to appear next to the current posts users are reading, you can do this without installing a plugin. The function uses tags to search for related posts and selects the first 5 recommended and shows the user their title.
We hope these top 10 tips on WordPress have helped you! Whether you are new to WordPress or are already running multiple WordPress websites and just looking for some new and unique tips to improve your website! If you are struggling with WordPress built websites, our team at mink media have the knowledge and skills to assist you with your website. Contact Mink Media and one of your friendly strategists will be more than happy to assist you with your WordPress site.
