WordPress is the most popular blogging platform on the internet. Knowing how to use the platform properly make blogging easier and more effective. Follow these simple tips and tricks on using the platform to get the most from your blogging experience. Your readers are sure to thank you for it!
If you plan to start a WordPress blog, make sure that you offer readers more than just content. Even if you say many useful things, it may be quite difficult to engage readers with text. It would be a great idea to implement videos and pictures since this is a great attention grabber.
Spend some time learning about the tools and features WordPress offers bloggers. For instance, the button “kitchen sink” gives you a plethora of choices for formatting and importing content into your posts. Also check out “screen options” for admin functions. Using this will help you better manage any formatting issues.
When you use different tags for the topics on your blog, keep in mind that these are strictly for searching the content on your blog. These can’t be used by search engines. If you want your pages to be searchable on Google, you have to install an SEO type plug-in such as Headspace.
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.
You can insert media into your posts just by pasting the URL where you’d like the media to appear. For example, paste in a YouTube video just by putting the URL within the text where you want the video to play. Be sure that the URL doesn’t turn blue – if it does, highlight it and click the unlink button.
Constantly work on improving your permalinks. As WordPress becomes more popular, your traffic may decline. Change the URLs of your WordPress articles and incorporate higher quality keywords. You can minimize the number of keywords as long as their value increases. This can be a nice boost to the traffic you see.
If you want a post to stay at the top of the page, there is no need to set it’s date way in the future any longer. Instead, go to the post and click on Edit under Visibility. Choose the option which allows you to make the post sticky and enjoy!
If you upload changes to your WordPress site, but they don’t appear to have taken effect, try to refresh from a clear cache. Hold shift as you click the reload icon in your browser, or hold shift-ctrl-r at the same time. This will give you a clean version of your site which should be updated.
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.
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.
Back your blog up. It’s important to back your blog up regularly. The WordPress plugin Xcloner can make this task easier. Use whatever site or plugin you’re comfortable with to back up your blog, but make sure you back it up in more than one location. It would be pretty depressing to lose your blog.
So, what is the difference between tags and categories and why should I care? Categories are broad and house many posts which fall into the same genre, such as “cleaning tips”. Tags are more targeted, detailed words which describe what is in the content of a post, such as “removing blood stains” or “getting out grass stains”.
Be sure to use a robust spam plug-in to filter out spam and bad content. People with ill-intentions are always looking for ways to spam a blog for link building purposes. This kind of spam will create a bad impression on your blog because your legitimate readers will think that your blog has security issues.
If you find that writing new posts is cluttered and confusing because of all the stuff on your page, clean it up! Use the Screen Options link to choose what shows up on the composition page and what remains hidden. Many of your plugins may add content you don’t want, so remove it there.
Did you spend a lot of time making changes to your blog, only to check it out and see none of the changes took effect? Do not fret, you just need to clear your cache. Find out how to clear the cache on the browser you are using, clear it and the changes should show up.
If you just want to dabble in WordPress without installing it on your web hosting account, consider opening an account with WordPress.com. You will get a subdomain to the WordPress domain, and your blog is hosting by WordPress for free. This is a good way to get your feet wet into blogging.
When you have a question about how to create something in WordPress, consider visiting one of the many user forums that have been set up on the web. These online communities are often created by WordPress experts who just want to bring together people with a similar goal. When you post a question, it is not uncommon that you will get several very helpful responses.
As stated above, knowing how to use WordPress properly is a great advantage to you as a blogger. Even if you know the basics, it is important to learn all the aspects of the blogging tool. Remember the helpful tips listed above as you explore and use the popular blogging platform.
