Igor Zagradanin
Last Updated on
WordPress is a powerful content management system that allows users to create amazing websites. It offers a number of beautiful themes, premium and free plugins, as well as powerful and easy-to-use tools that even complete novices can master with ease.
With WordPress, you can give your website the professional look anyone should strive for without putting in too much effort. However, there are some cool WordPress tricks that not everyone knows about. They could turn your website from something ordinary to something amazing.
If you want to use WordPress like a professional and have a website everyone will envy, follow these simple tricks.
Compress your images
One of the biggest issues websites have when loading, apart from videos, are large images. This could be a problem because page speed is one of Google’s ranking factors. Also, visitors prefer fast-loading sites. People tend to lose interest in websites if they take too long to load.
That’s why one of the best things you can do to ensure speed is to compress your images and thus reduce overall page load time. It’s very easy to compress images. There are some free online tools you can use, but WordPress itself also offers some plugins such as Smush that will do the work for you.
Choose a mobile-friendly theme
The days of using only a desktop computer to browse the internet are long gone. People use their mobile phones to access the internet every day. In fact, in 2018, 52.5% of all website traffic was generated through mobile phones. That is why it’s important to ensure your website can be viewed on a mobile device.
Luckily, WordPress offers many mobile-friendly themes that can be viewed on desktop and laptop computers as well as all mobile devices and tablets. Most new WordPress themes offer this feature, but it is best to check if the theme you want to use has this option.
Optimize for search engines
Even if you put in a lot of time and effort into creating your website, it won’t mean anything if you don’t optimize it for search engines. If you want to get traffic on your website from various sources, SEO is your greatest weapon.
Some of the best ways to do this are:
- installing the Yoast SEO plugin
- using title tags
- including internal links
Install the Yoast SEO Plugin
Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin that will give you advice on what to do in order to optimize your content for search engines. It does this by analyzing your posts and pages, and suggesting what you can improve so that your website eventually ranks higher.
Use title tags
Images are an essential part of any good website. They help the reader understand the written content better or simply provide an aesthetically pleasing break from the text. However, just because a person understands what an image represents, that doesn’t mean a search engine does too.
That’s why image title tags are vital for SEO. After you’ve uploaded an image to your website, simply add a keyword related to your content to the image title and alternate text. That way, search engines will be able to understand the image and deem your website worthy of a higher position.
Include internal links
Internal links are among the most important tools you can use when boosting your SEO. They show Google and other search engines the structure of your website in a very simple way. All you need to do is add a relevant link that leads to a different page on the same domain.
With internal links, users can navigate through websites with ease and find everything they need. Best of all, it’s so simple to do this in WordPress. Just select the word in your text that will be the anchor and enter the selected keyword in the field that pops up.
Then, just press Enter/Return and voila! Just like that, you’ve included an internal link.
Back up everything regularly
One mistake a lot of people make while maintaining their WordPress website is taking security and data backup for granted. Unfortunately, you never know when something unexpected might happen and your website could crash altogether. This doesn’t happen very often, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Backing up your website’s file structure and database is one of the best WordPress tricks you can use. It could be a lifesaver if something unexpected happens.
There are some free and premium backup plugins that both beginners and experienced users find helpful. If you use this type of plugin at least once a month to back up your data, you can be sure that all of your hard work won’t be lost.
Monitor the speed of your website
As we’ve already established, speed is a very significant thing when it comes to websites. Not only is it important for your website to load quickly, but you need a fast-running website at all times. If you’re having speed problems, you could check what exactly is causing problems by using a speed assessment tool.
After you’ve run a test with this tool, it will show your website’s optimization rating and give suggestions about what you can do to improve speed. There are many things that can cause this problem, so it would be smart to check after every update and fix all problems as they occur.
Create short URLs
When you’re writing a post on your website, WordPress will allow you to set the structure of your URL. When this option appears, make sure to use a short URL.
There are a few reasons to do this:
- Short URLs attract more clicks than long ones.
- People prefer shorter URLs because it’s easier to find keywords in them.
- There is no risk of users breaking a link when copying it.
Long URLs look unprofessional, and that is why all high-ranking websites use shorter URLs.
Make sure to add security measures
A lot of websites are powered by WordPress, 34% of the internet, to be precise. It’s no wonder that hackers are targeting WordPress websites every day, and if you don’t think about security, you might be the next victim.
Luckily, there are a few simple things you can do to make sure you’re secure:
- Use a strong password that wouldn’t be easy to guess.
- Keep your website updated.
- Back up all of your data.
- Add a security plugin.
- Use a password to protect the WordPress admin directory.
- Limit login attempts.
Use Google Analytics
If you want a free tool that will help measure your website’s success, you simply have to download Google Analytics. This tool records data, tracks analytics, and gives you feedback about what people do when they visit your website.
With this tool, you will be able to update your site’s features and know which posts generate the best feedback thanks to the reports you receive from this tool. Also, you can select what type of data you want to be measured and check the feedback any time you like.
Google Analytics is easy to set up and use. In addition, there are a lot of online tutorials that explain all of its uses.
Find the right hosting
If you’re serious about achieving success with your website, you need to choose the right hosting provider. If you choose a reliable hosting provider, you will be able to avoid website crashes, have good speed, and everything you need to handle traffic coming to your website.
There are a few different hosting plans you can choose from, and all of them have different features. There are various hosting providers online, but there are also some hosting plans that are tailored specifically for WordPress websites. If you don’t have good hosting, your website won’t be able to grow, so take your time choosing the one which is right for you.
Avoid having clutter on your website
With WordPress, the sky is the limit when it comes to creativity. There are so many interesting features you can add, such as banners and widgets. But even though they are great, but they shouldn’t be over-used.
If your website is too cluttered, people won’t pay attention to your content because they’ll be overwhelmed with the seemingly endless amount of features. Pick those that you know will improve your website and stay away from the unnecessary ones.
Don’t install too many plugins
One of the best things about WordPress is that it offers thousands of interesting plugins. Plugins are great because they add useful features that can greatly improve your website. But just because you can use them doesn’t mean that you should go overboard.
Plugins are generally useful, but if you install too many of them, your website’s performance could slow down significantly. It might seem like a good idea at first to have so many interesting features, but in this case, less really is more. Choose functionality – if for nothing else, for your website’s speed.
