Since its launch in 2003, WordPress has evolved from a humble blogging platform to a robust content management system that powers millions of websites around the world. If you’re just starting out with WordPress and want to learn more about this powerful platform, you’re in the right place! In this post, we’ll look at 20 tips and tricks that beginners can use to get started with WordPress in 2024.
30% of the Internet is powered by WordPress. This shouldn’t come as a surprise as WordPress is one of the most powerful platforms out there. You can create your own website, customize it to your exact specifications, and add any features you want. Whether you’re a blogger, a business owner, or an online seller, WordPress is the perfect platform for you.
Now that you’ve got WordPress in your corner, it’s time to start building and publishing your site. But before you get started, you may need a few tips and tricks. Here at WordPress, we’ve put our years of experience, expertise, and top-notch WordPress knowledge to good use. We’ve compiled a list of 15 WordPress tips for beginners.
1. Choose a Reliable Hosting Provider
2. Keep WordPress and Plugins Updated
3. Install an SEO Plugin
4. Install Google Analytics
5. Install your Theme Carefully SEO friendly
6. Compress the Size of Your Images
7. Not use too Much Plugin
8. Setup Your Author Profile
9. Stay Updated
10. Managed your Coments Section
11. Keep Your Content Clutter Free
12. Always Edit Your Parmalinks
13. Put always Your Safety First
14. Use Tittle Tag and Alt Tag in your Post and images
15. Set features images
16. WordPress Tips Roundup
1. Choose a Reliable Hosting Provider
This is a long list of tips, but one of the most important ones is choosing the right WordPress hosting provider.
Without hosting, your WordPress site cannot run on the web.
But hosting isn’t the only thing that matters.
Your hosting provider must provide you with enough resources to manage your website traffic, minimize crashes and downtime, and provide you with fast site speeds.
First, you’ll need to decide on the hosting plan that’s best for your site. There are several types of hosting plans available, with different tiers of features.
WordPress hosting plans are designed with WordPress in mind. They’ll help you set up and manage your site more easily.
If you’re looking for a hosting provider, we highly recommend Bluehost. It’s the best WordPress hosting provider out there.
2. Keep WordPress and Plugins Updated
WordPress and its plugins need to be updated on a regular basis to maintain their security and performance. Old software can expose your site to security risks and can cause compatibility problems.
It’s also a good idea to use theme demos when you’re selecting your theme. That way, you’ll be able to see and sometimes even try out a theme before you commit to it.
Your theme shapes the design of your website, so you want to pick one that you love, that’s right for your project and that you’ll actually enjoy using. You can customize WordPress, of course, but unless you know how to code or you’re working with a developer it’s probably a good idea to start with a good theme.
All you have to do is select the theme you want to use, click View Demo or Live Demo, and you’ll be able to see what your demo would look like online. If you love the theme and want to import it, just edit the demo content and you’re good to go!
3. Install an SEO Plugin
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most important aspects of any website. If you don’t have SEO, your website won’t show up at the top of the search results – which isn’t good for your audience growth! Unless you are a tech expert, and maybe even then, you will probably need some help with SEO.
By installing an SEO plugin, you can make your life easier and your website much more successful. SEO plugins analyze your content and keyword, and manage all technical aspects such as sitemaps, robots.txt, etc.
Browse the WordPress Plugin Directory to find the SEO plugin that is right for you. Yoast SEO is one of the best SEO plugins out there. With over 5 million active installs and 25,000+ five star reviews, we can't recommend Yoast SEO enough!
4. Install Google Analytics
Google Analytics is one of the most popular tools used to track performance, record data, and get an idea of how people are using your site. It is therefore one of the most important tools for measuring the success of your site.
The easiest (and most straightforward) way to use Google Analytics is to install the MonsterInsights plugin. You can use either Google Analytics or MonsterInsights, and both come with a free version.
You will need to use the tracking code that you get when you sign up for a Google Analytics account. The MonsterInsights plugin will show you how to install it.
Installing Google Analytics allows you to view your data directly from your WordPress dashboard. This means you can see how many people visit your website, how long they spend on your website, and more.
With Google Analytics, all this valuable data is right in front of you.
5. Install your Theme Carefully SEO friendly
With so many themes out there, it can be hard to know where to start. Our top advice is to only look at high-quality themes.
Read the reviews carefully, choose a theme that fits your project and do not hesitate to pay for premium themes. It is very important to choose a mobile responsive theme, otherwise you will face issues with Google in the future and your mobile users will have a bad online experience.
Some themes will come with all the bells and whistles. While this may be tempting, be aware that these themes can slow down your site’s speed, which is something you want to avoid at all costs. Be choosy, keep the features to a minimum, and at the end of the day, you should be satisfied with your theme! If not, you can easily change your theme later.
6. Compress the Size of Your Images
Image compression reduces the size of the file, making your site faster and saving you space.
The ultimate goal of any website is to have a fast loading speed. A fast loading site can give new life to pages that have been dead for a while. Visitors and search engines alike love a fast loading site.
That’s why it’s important to always compress images and videos. There are many online tools that allow you to compress your images at no cost. Some of them include:
✅ Kraken.io
✅ ImageResize
✅ Optimizilla
All you have to do is upload your desired images and wait for them to be optimized. Once they’re optimized, you can download the final versions.
It’s fast, easy, and there’s no software to download.
7. Not use too much Plugin
Plugins are used to add features to a website. Unless the theme comes with a built-in feature, plugins are needed to add features such as contact form, newsletters, live chats, etc.
Too many plugins slow down your site and can even compromise your site's security.
Install only the plugins you need, which is good for your users and good for your website.
Don't be tempted to install as many cool plugins as possible.
The extra code that comes with plugins can weigh down your site and slow down your site's loading speed.
Since plugins are created by anyone and can be of any quality, there is a wide variety of plugins available.
Although plugins are officially reviewed, they are not quality-checked, so it is always a good idea to read the user reviews.
8. Setup Your Author Profile
What is Gravatar?
What is Gravatar, and how does it work?
The acronym Gravatar stands for “Global Recognized Avatar”. Gravatar is a WordPress-based service that provides the user picture associated with your Gravatar account.
Having a custom, one-of-a-kind image helps you stand out from the crowd and gives you an identity that’s recognizable on different websites.
Your Gravatar image appears alongside your author bio when you post, and your image appears alongside your comment when you leave one.
To use Gravatar on WordPress, go to the Profile section of your WordPress site, scroll down to Profile Picture, and click on the link.
Once you’re on Gravatar’s site, you’ll be able to upload any image you’d like to use. Once you’ve done that, you can link the image to the email address you used to register your WordPress account, and the image will be automatically pulled into your account.
9. Stay Updated
WordPress updates are a well-known feature of WordPress, but what exactly are they?
WordPress updates its software on a regular basis to maintain the security of its platform. There are minor updates every two weeks, and major updates every month.
Don’t worry too much about these minor updates, as WordPress is just making small tweaks and fixing small bugs. However, it’s important to check for updates regularly to make sure you don’t miss anything new. Otherwise, your site could become outdated and prone to bugs.
To update your WordPress plugins, themes, and version, simply go to the WordPress dashboard. You’ll find a “Update now” button to keep things simple.
Always back up your site before updating and again after you complete the update.
10 Always Managed Your Coments
Comments are one of the best ways for your readers to engage with your content and interact with you. You can create a community on your site with comments.
You can manage your comments via your WordPress admin. For some pages, you may not need to enable comments. For others, you may want to manage which comments are published on your site.
Google crawls comments and your content at the same time. Therefore, spam comments should be avoided.
How to manage comments?
Go to your Settings, go to Discussion, and select your options.
11. Keep Your Content Clutter Free
It’s easy to get caught up in all the bells and whistles that you can add to your site, from widgets and banners to ads and more. But while it may be entertaining for you, it isn’t nearly as fun for your audience.
Having too many widgets on your site can take away from your content, or worse, make people feel like they don’t want to be on your page in the first place. Take a look at your sidebar and your footer, and see if any widgets are adding anything to your page. Most of the time, less is more!
12. Edit Your WordPress Permalinks
What are Permalinks?
Permalinks refer to permanent links, such as your website’s address, or the address of each of your blog posts.
WordPress automatically generates permalinks for each new post you create. However, the default settings for permalinks are a bit clunky and not as SEO-friendly as you would like. If you leave the default settings as it is, you will probably end up with a date included in your permalink, which is not ideal for SEO.
How do I change my permalink settings?
To change the permalink structure, go to the dashboard, type “Permalinks” in the search box, and select “Change Permalinks”.
There are several options to choose from, but we strongly recommend the Post name setting. Save your changes to the bottom of your page!
13. Put Safety First
When it comes to managing your WordPress website, security should be at the top of your to-do list. While we’ve talked about updating your site regularly to keep bugs and hackers at bay, there are a few other things you can do to ensure your site is as secure as possible.
But don’t take our 13th tip to heart! Here are some concrete steps you can take right now to ensure your website is as robust as possible:
Get an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate
✔️Why SSL Certificates? SSL certificates protect sensitive data that passes through your site, such as payment information and login credentials. Visitors are warned not to visit sites that do not use SSL, and Google will avoid sites that don’t use SSL.
✔️How do I get a free SSL certificate? Most good hosting providers, such as Bluehost, offer free SSL security as part of their hosting plans. If they don’t, you will need to do this on your own. You can obtain a free SSL certificate via Let’sEncrypt, or you can pay for a more expensive SSL certificate if you’re looking for more advanced security.
Backup Your Site Regularly
Why is it important to back up your WordPress site? If something goes wrong with your site, backups have your back – whether you get hacked or accidentally delete 50% of your code, you'll be glad you backed up.
How do I back up my site?
Good hosting providers offer free site backups as part of their hosting packages. However, it's never a good idea to rely solely on hosting providers.
The best way to back up your site is to choose a backup plugin that you can use to create and store your site backups. A popular backup plugin is UpdraftPlus which is used by more than 2 million websites.
Install a Security Plugin
Why? Well, it’s better safe than sorry. These plugins can provide firewalls and malware scanners to protect your site.
How to install a security plugin?
Simply select a dependable security plugin and install it to your site.
WordFence is one of the most popular and highly rated security plugins with an all-around security service.
14. Use Title Tags and Alt Text
Images are the lifeblood of a website. They engage readers, highlight important content, and generally bring a page out of darkness and into light.
But images don't just look good. They can also do a lot of work for your site in the background.
Add a title and some alt text when you add images to your site.
This might sound confusing at first, but it shouldn't be too difficult to understand.
Alt text tells visitors what an image is showing if they can't see the image for any reason, such as if they're using a screen reader or the image just didn't load.
Both titles and alt text need to be clear, not overly long, and provide enough detail to inform your readers – and, importantly, Google – about your images.
Keep in mind that Google can't see your images, so it relies on your title and alt text to tell your readers what your image is about.
15. Set Featured Images
Don’t forget to include featured images in your posts. A featured image is the thumbnail image that appears alongside your blog post every time it’s shown on another page or linked to on another website or social media.
Adding a featured image is as simple as this. Check the right sidebar of your new post draft when you open it in WordPress. There should be a link that says "Set featured image", click on it, upload your image, and you're good to go!
You'll still need to include a title and an alt text.
If you have a lot of images on your website and you're constantly having to sort them, you may want to install a plugin that does this for you. FileBird, Premio's Folders, and WP Media Foldsers are some of the WordPress plugins that do this.
WordPress Tips: Roundup
In this article, we’ve given you 15 best WordPress tips to get you started.
We’ve gone over SEO basics, images, content clutter, and more.
Now you’ll feel a bit more like a WordPress expert.
Let’s take a quick look at those 15 best WordPress tips.
Even experts need to be reminded sometimes.
1. Choose a Reliable Hosting Provider
2. Keep WordPress and Plugins Updated
3. Install an SEO Plugin
4. Install Google Analytics
5. Install your Theme Carefully SEO friendly
6. Compress the Size of Your Images
7. Not use too much Plugin
8. Setup Your Author Profile
9. Stay Updated
10. Managed your Comments Section
11. Keep Your Content Clutter Free
12. Always Edit Your Parmalinks
13. Always Put Your Safety First
14. Use Tittle Tag and Alt Tag in your Post and images
15. Set features images
While all these are helpful for any WordPress writer, we would have to choose the following as our top tips:
👉 Select the Right Hosting - Choosing the wrong hosting provider for your site is like planting your garden in a hole – it’ll take a lot of work and you won’t like the outcome.
👉 Install An SEO Plugin - Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a complex concept that can be difficult to understand at first. That’s why it’s a good idea to install an SEO plugin such as Yoast SEO, which is still used by SEO professionals today.
👉 Stay Up To Date - Don’t miss out on WordPress updates – your site can easily become infected with all sorts of nasty stuff. You’ll also have to keep your plugins and themes up to date to keep your site running smoothly.
WordPress is constantly evolving, growing, and changing, which means that you are always learning, growing, and learning. You will share your knowledge with the first-time users of WordPress before you know it. In the meantime, follow these tips and no one will know you are a beginner!
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