WordPress Tips

Hi Paul,

Jump in, the water's lovely

The benefit of using a popular platform like WordPress is that you're never too far away from help. I hear YouTube is good for tutorials.

Oh, and don't add too many plugins just because you can...

Hey Paul,

Some answers to question 1:

Know what the distinct purpose of your site is, refined down to one or two primary goals and make sure everything on your site is aimed at that goal. Keep everything refined and focused.

Know exactly who the audience is for your site, make sure they match with your goals, and then ensure every element of your site from content to design is targeted at that audience.

Always use SEO & security plugins amongst the others you may use for enhanced function.

Use latest comments widgets, most commented posts widgets and comment subscriptions to engage readers. Use popular posts and related posts widgets to promote site stickiness and keep people browsing.

If you will have a lot of content, have a plan for organizing into categories and tags that will make it easy for people to navigate. Use a theme that supports custom menus so you can setup navigation how you like.

Choose a theme that aligns with your goals. Your theme always effects the response of your readers, it's just a matter of how.

Learn to install WP manually through cPanel asap. It's not hard, takes about 5 minutes and makes your site much more secure and stable.

Resist the urge to plaster your site with unsightly ads. Place ads in a targeted tactful manner for best response.


Some answers that helped me when I was dealing with question 2:

Wordpress.org, Google and YouTube are your friends. You can go from noob to pro purely via the free information online without ever needing to ask for help if you are willing to look around.

Create a mind map that steps through your personal site installation process. Use it to record all your essential plugins, your pinging services, your permalink structure and follow it every time to make sure you don't miss a step.

Just because something worked for someone else somewhere else, doesn't necessarily mean it will work for you. Approach every new site with a fresh perspective and ask what this unique project needs.

Be your audience. Make a site that you would personally bookmark and come to visit over and over again.


I have lots more, but I'll stop there before reaching "wall of text" point.

Thanks for the replies! This great stuff. I have been learning so much from fellow Warriors - and there is still so much to learn! Taking things one day at a time and having fun!

I know that I have not 'taken seriously' tags very much! I think that it would be a good idea for me to go back and properly tag my posts.

I see video posts from YouTube and Vimeo get embedded into posts - does anyone have a preference? I guess I should qualify it with, 'for your own produced videos'? So far I have not created any videos, only used what I found on YouTube and Vimeo and utilized their embed code.

Thanks again! This is by far the best membership money ever spent!

Be Well!
Paul.

Customized metadata of your websites for every individual posts, if you want impressive look then don't use tags because i prefer to attract users who will read the content, keep keyword friendly title to your blog.