Beginner’s Guide to WordPress: 8 Tips and Tricks

WordPress is a wonderful platform for beginning bloggers to use as a tool. It is easy to set up, and right out of the box, it provides a straightforward approach to the publishing of material.

After more than ten years of development, the platform for blogging that is considered to be the most popular in the world also became the most prominent content management system (CMS).

There are several reasons why WordPress is a good platform for beginners. It is empowering to have the opportunity to generate content that is structured correctly for the web and then publish it with just one click.

This capability is accessible to novices as well as more advanced users. Because there is a reduced barrier to entry, beginners are more likely to commit frequent WordPress beginner blunders on their site. This is because beginners are equipped with this full web publishing platform.

It’s important to keep in mind, though, that WordPress web creation isn’t just a matter of putting in the software and putting in a theme.

Developing WordPress is all about securing and optimizing your site’s performance as well as ensuring that your code adheres to modern online standards.

Since most WordPress developers are self-taught or lack experience developing scalable websites, it can be difficult to hire one. In most cases, it’s safe to presume that they don’t know what they’re doing.

To get the best results, you need a specialist in coding, optimization, and security on your team.

A website that has bad performance and a low ranking can be the result of a lack of understanding of how to alter and optimise WordPress. Hackers target WordPress websites because they are aware that many of these websites were set up by WordPress users with insufficient experience.

The following are some of the most helpful WordPress tips for newbies that will assist enhance your website’s ranking in search engines, increase the number of conversions, and provide a more positive experience for users in general.

Invest in a High-Quality WordPress Theme.

This is without a doubt one of the most essential WordPress recommendations I can offer you. Free themes frequently have a fantastic appearance, and the most of them perform really effectively.

But when you install a free theme on your WordPress blog, exactly what do you get in exchange for your time and effort?

You are purchasing a theme that may or may not comply with all of the appropriate security standards. Because the developers have no motivation to continue maintaining the theme, you run the risk of having a website that is inoperable the next time WordPress receives an update.

Naturally, there is no theme that comes pre-optimized out of the box. You should prepare to invest a few hours, days, or even weeks (depending on the size of your site), in order to get the desired appearance of your website. Themes, or templates for those who aren’t familiar with the term, are simply beginning points that make it easier to go online. The expense of developing a theme from the ground up might easily reach thousands of dollars.

The best themes are the ones that have teams of experts working on the coding full-time. The majority of business owners do not have the financial resources necessary to lavishly spend money on a bespoke WordPress theme.

Checking how a theme appears on mobile devices is one of the most essential things to do before committing to using it. It’s possible that mobile users will account for the vast majority of visitors to your website.

The majority of internet users choose to do their browsing on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. You have to check that your website displays properly even on a mobile device’s screen.

Themes Available for New Users of WordPress

There are thousands and thousands of themes available for use with WordPress, and these themes may be purchased from a variety of different developers, theme resellers, and online marketplaces.

It’s not all about how something looks; many themes that have a stunning design take a long time to load and are difficult to navigate. As discovered by WPtavern, a number of them contain security holes, one example being certain themes available on ThemeForest.

The web marketplace is not to blame for the problems that occur in the vast majority of instances; rather, the problems originate with the plugins. There are variations in the quality of each individual WordPress template.

And a lot of people have the misconception that fixing issues with themes is as simple as installing a plugin that enhances the performance of their website. This is most certainly not the situation.

Sometimes the designers of a theme are too preoccupied, distracted, or un-engaged in sustaining a one-off theme to remedy any potential issues that may exist in it.

On sluggish connections, loading times will always be longer for themes that rely on a large number of javascript scripts, external style sheets, picture sliders, and other gimmicky features. Even those who have connections that are very fast may notice that loading times are very slow while using these themes.

If you don’t think what you’re about to read is significant, read this (internal link 40 percent of sites slow, etc). Google uses a site’s load time as a consideration in site rankings. When compared to faster sites, slower ones receive lower ranks.

If you don’t mind to be on page 400 of Google’s search results, then by all means, go ahead and use a theme that’s been described as a “beast.”

Employ A Reputable Web Hosting Service

One of the most typical blunders that newly established website owners make is selecting a web host that is not up to par.

In addition, picking a reliable hosting service is one of the most effective strategies to improve your website’s performance. If you just remember one thing after reading this post about WordPress, let it be this one piece of advice.

When looking at several hosting companies, there are three aspects to take into consideration.

  • Ease of operation
  • Performance
  • Security
  • Keep the number of plugins you use to a minimum.

When working with WordPress, plugins are what make life a lot simpler. Finding the appropriate plugin makes adding features that only a few years ago would have required an investment of thousands of dollars possible.

But some plugins are full resource hogs. You should not install these, despite the fact that they may provide certain useful features.

Installing Plugin Performance Profiler (P3) on your WordPress sites will allow you to analyse how well the plugins you use perform on those sites.

If you have recently installed some plugins and found that your website is particularly slow, be sure to use P3 to evaluate if one of your plugin is creating problems by identifying which plugin or plugins are causing the slowdown.

Maintain Regular Updates Of Your Plugins And Themes

This ought to be quite obvious, but it’s easy to disregard for whatever reason. In most cases, you can continue to use your website for a number of months without having to update the plugins and themes.

The functionality of the website is not affected, and it’s possible that you just do not have the time to complete the update procedure.

However, doing so would be a serious error. In most cases, plugins are not updated in order to increase their ‘features.’ Important concerns regarding users’ safety are typically the impetus for software updates.

From time to time, each and every software company issues a statement regarding the importance of patching their operative system or plugin. What first appears to be a straightforward improvement is frequently the patching over of a gaping vulnerability in the software.

Always be sure to keep all of your plugins and themes up to date by performing regular updates. Hackers specifically target outdated software in order to take advantage of security holes that have not been addressed.

If there is a new version of WordPress software or plugins available, WordPress will notify you. You also have the option of setting it to update itself automatically, saving you the trouble of doing it manually.

Use Permalinks That Are Friendly To Search Engines

A proper permalink structure is an essential component for effective search engine optimization. The structure of the URLs of your website is referred to as its “permalinks.” Use the domain/post-name standard so that search engines can index your content more effectively.

URLs generated by WordPress always follow a date-based structure by default. This is not the best approach for search engines to take.

The owners of many WordPress websites, unfortunately, do not modify their permalink settings, which means they are missing out on significant search engine optimization improvements.

However, the setting can be altered with little effort.

A word of caution: if you already have an established WordPress website, do not modify the permalink settings until you fully understand the repercussions of doing so. For each and every page and post that you have on your website, you will need to generate a redirect from the previous URL to the new URL.

In order to modify the permalink option for WordPress, navigate to the Settings > Permalinks section of the WordPress dashboard.

It is likely that the radio button labelled “Day and name” is selected inside the “common settings” section. To change the name of the post, select the corresponding radio button.

You can force WordPress to utilize just your new post’s name in the link.

Improve the Quality of Your Images.

Images that have not been optimized are frequently one of the primary causes of a website’s poor performance. The unedited versions of those truly stunning photographs that you captured with your SLR camera are not suitable for uploading to the internet.

On your computer, you might deal with image files that are 10 megabytes in size, and they might look wonderful.

However, if you upload the same file to a web page, it will significantly slow down your website. Google is getting ready to make load times an essential part in the ranking process.

Not only will users need to wait for the full content to download, but the bandwidth that your website hosting plan provides will be used up very quickly as well.

What is the remedy for photos that have not been optimized?

You can shrink the size of the image file by changing its dimensions and by lowering the quality of the image (making the height and width smaller). Both the image quality and dimensions can be decreased using Photoshop or one of the many free tools available online.

Don’t Use A Subdomain To Install WordPress

This topic is the subject of some controversy, and numerous persons have reported findings that are in direct opposition to one another. Moz’s team does not concur with Google’s assertion that selecting a subdomain such as http://blog.domainname.com makes no effect, despite the fact that Google asserts this to be true.

If you don’t already have a compelling reason to make use of a subdomain, it’s best to avoid doing so out of an abundance of caution. blog.mydomain.com may have a nice text appearance, but it is unlikely to be contributing to the traffic stats of your website.

Create Backups Of Both Your Website And Its Content.

One of the most helpful WordPress tips that I can provide you is one that you can quite literally just set and forget about. You are surely aware that the content you create for your WordPress site is the component that contributes the most value. What occurs when some data on your server are deleted inadvertently?

When it comes to retrieving a crucial page or post, you have a few different options.

  • Inquire with the company that handles your website hosting about the backup options they offer.
  • Check to determine if you have an up-to-date version of your files stored on your local machine.
  • Restore either the site or the files using the backup software you created.