Imagine you just bought a new car. The day you release it you are very excited with your new vehicle, so much so that you drive it throughout the city, wash it every day and take care of the smallest detail so that it always looks flawless. We share some WordPress tips to have a super blog.
Gradually, with the passing of days and weeks, the initial emotion is disappearing and you realize that having a car means much more than taking care of it and driving it.
In addition to washing and cleaning it, it is necessary to take care of the tires (and buy when necessary), carry out the necessary registration procedures, process plates, fix any mechanical problem that arises, take it to check every certain time and many other activities.
Maintaining a car takes time and effort.
The same goes for WordPress!
When we launch a blog or a website we also feel motivated and excited. We take care of all the details and we are aware that it works well at all times.
And as with a car, as time goes by we realize that we also have to perform different maintenance tasks so that it can have optimal performance, design and can meet the established objectives.
What are these tasks?
In this guide, we will see some of the activities, best practices, and habits of WordPress. And no, they are as expensive as having a car
WordPress Tips – Habits and successful practices
1. Choose a quality theme
The first WordPress tip is related to Web design. Choosing a theme or template is one of the most important decisions when creating a site or blog.
The choice goes far beyond appearance since a good design provides security, structure, fast loading and great performance, which translates into many benefits. It is important best WordPress tips for a super blog.
Your theme will depend largely on the objective and type of site you want to create. Browse the internet and look for the design that best suits what you need.
There are free themes and premium themes. Premiums generally offer better support, design, options and higher standards.
2. Install necessary and appropriate plugins
Plugins are one of the main WordPress engines and their excellent performance. There are plugins for all kinds of needs, that is why we must be careful when choosing them.
There are “universal” plugins that work for all types of sites, regardless of category or niche. These work for aspects such as SEO optimization, security, eliminating SPAM, improvements in loading speed, etc.
There are also others that help meet more specific needs. For example electronic commerce, membership creation, sales, integration of other software, social networks and much more.
The most advisable thing is to always install secure plugins, from reputable, secure developers and that are well programmed. Much is said about the danger of installing too many plugins, however, it affects much more poor quality plugins than the excess itself.
Try to find a good balance between the quantity and quality of plugins you install, because too many may be able to make your site a little slower. It all depends on many things, that is why it is good to take care of all aspects of WordPress.
3. Protect the platform
Security is another of the pillars of WordPress and the best habits you can develop in the general maintenance of your site. Many times we trust each other because we think something will never happen.
However, for many, the day comes. We try to log onto our WordPress desktop and …
Surprise!
We have been hacked, our site is down, there are server problems, information is lost, the blog is full of malware or any other similar problem.
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What to do in this type of scenario?
If there is no support or prevention, it is very likely that such information will be lost and EVERYTHING must be done again. In addition to the hours and hours of frustration accompanied by extra work.
However, if WordPress is protected from the beginning, initially such scenarios would not happen. And if yes, you would have backups of all the information, posts, entries and database to solve the problem reload the information and thus save many headaches and early hours of work.
With WordPress, we have access to plugins that protect the platform and create automatic backups every certain time.
4. Constant update
With every WordPress update that comes out, important design, performance, functionality and security developments are included. That is why it is always best to quickly update to the latest versions of the platform.
This tip also includes themes and plugins, which many times are also constantly improving and optimizing.
An updated installation helps everything to work better.
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5. Cleaning
With the term cleaning I mean every certain time to maintain the platform, eliminate things that are not needed and that may be taking up space or affecting the performance of the site in some way.
This covers both plugins, themes, widgets, and even content.
We may need a plugin temporarily for a while. When finished using it, it is not necessary to have it installed and activated, the same with the widgets that we add in the different sidebars of the blog.
Check-in your WordPress installation what you don’t use. For example, if you are releasing a new template or design, it is good to delete the previous one. It is useless to have it installed and may even be a security vulnerability.
6. Content and sections update
Depending on the type of site you have and the theme, it is possible that the content you publish has to be reviewed and updated at some point. For example, in my case that I have a blog about WordPress, every time a new version of the platform comes out I check my published content and see what I can update that I include in the news of the update.
Without the new version of WordPress changes the interface to install plugins, I update my tutorial on how to install a plugin.
In the same way, it can happen in your industry or niche.
Also if there is any important news that has a strong impact on your market, do not hesitate to publish information about it. This will show relevance, authority and that your blog is always updated with the latest information – extra points for Google and SEO.
If any section of your blog has ceased to be important for any reason, update or delete it.
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7. Leverage Google tools
Google cares a lot for each Webmaster (and we thank him forever :)). That is why it offers us a large number of tools that we can take advantage of to get the most out of WordPress and our online productivity. Those are the best WordPress tips for a super blog.
Here are some of my favorite tools and that I use frequently:
- The search engine – With a good SEO positioning and strategy, the search engine can become a traffic generating machine.
- Google Analytics – To review how many people visit our site, where they come from, the language they speak, the device they use, behavior, time on the site and much much more.
- Google Webmaster Tools – Tools that help us monitor the performance of a website or blog on Google’s organic results, detect any type of error, suggestions for improvements, search through which traffic arrives and much more. To learn more, check out: Complete Google Webmaster Tools Guide
- Gmail – Although in general, it does not work directly with WordPress, Gmail is, in my opinion, the best email service available.
- Google Drive Excellent service to create and edit documents. I use it to write all my entries and content from WordPress sites.
- Google trends – Discover trends, topics and most searched terms in your niche by date. Very good to get content ideas.
- Google Keyword planner – To do market research and keywords. Useful for SEO and advertising. It is one of the WordPress tips for a super blog.
- Google Calendar – To plan and set important dates.
- Youtube – Upload your videos and generate traffic to WordPress
These and others are the tools that Google offers for an Internet business. I recommend using them every day to be more productive and effective in your daily activities.
They can make a big difference in your results and facilitate WordPress maintenance.
8. Go to the next level
This is one of the best WordPress tips and the one that you should always look for to put into practice. Never settle for what you have. You can always progress and move to a higher level in all aspects of WordPress.
If you have been with the same design for several months or years, why not try a new theme with different or more advanced functions?
Research new plugins and tools that allow you to increase effectiveness and achieve better results in less time.
For example, you might be using subscription forms provided by MailChimp.
Going to the next level would be to use exceptional subscription forms with an excellent design; for that, there are some plugins like Optinskin or OptinMonster, which offer quality templates, advanced functions and much more.
Do you still use All in One SEO Pack? Switch to WordPress SEO by Yoast, the quintessential SEO configuration and optimization plugin.
Like these, there may be many cases and scenarios where moving to the next level can give those results that we are looking for.
Remember that WordPress and its components are always constantly improving with new tools and resources always available.
All these WordPress tips will allow you to have a blog or website of the highest quality and also with great performance.
WordPress Tips – Do not stay only in theory
Installing WordPress is the first step. From there comes a series of tasks to complete the basics of the site or blog (information, creation of pages, sections, basic settings, etc.)
After creating the base and structure, you must always be maintaining, optimizing and improving all the important elements of the platform.
