Wordpress 101: Everything You Desired to Know

WordPress is an extremely popular blogging tool these days. It is making an impact on the Internetmarketing world like no other. Learning more about WordPress may seem difficult at first, but withthe right knowledge, it will become easier. Read this excellent WordPress advice to use it to youradvantage.

Choose an interesting and unusual design for your WordPress blog. While copying someone else'sdesign is quick, it doesn't make a good impression. Your site should be unique and reflect yourpersonality.

Be sure to add an author biography to each blog post on boards where many bloggers are posting. Inthis way, each blogger gets proper credit and it is easier for readers to know who posted what at aglance. Furthermore, readers will tend to stay on your page if they can get all the information theyneed in one place.

Do not let your theme get stale. The first thing you should do if you notice a decrease in traffic ischeck and see when you last changed your theme. As your site grows and changes, the theme shouldas well. Make sure that it http://99designs.com/ accurately reflects your brand, and you should see arise in traffic.

Use your footers wisely. People often scroll to the bottom of a page to find out who runs the site,how to contact the owner or to see how fresh the content is based on a copyright date. You can eveninclude a short biography or other information you feel is pertinent.

If you haven't customized your WordPress sidebar, it could be cluttered with useless items that aredoing nothing but confusing your readers. Your sidebar should only contain things you actually wantvisitors to click on. Navigate to Appearance & Widgets to edit the appearance of your sidebar andremove anything there that doesn't actually benefit you or your visitors directly.

You might spend some time making changes, only to see that they haven't taken effect. It is probablynot the truth. You may have a full browser cache that is interfering with your WordPress website.Your changes will appear by simply pressing and holding the "shift" key and refreshing the browsersimultaneously.

Wordpress has many keyboard shortcuts which make working with posts a snap. For example, ctrl-callows you to copy text, while ctrl-x lets you cut it. Ctrl-v will paste it somewhere else. Ctrl-b is bold,ctrl-i is italic and ctrl-u is underline. These basic keyboard shortcuts will save you a lot of time if youmemorize them.

If you upload changes to your Wordpress site, but they don't appear to have taken effect, try torefresh from a clear cache. Hold shift as you click the reload icon in your browser, or hold shift-ctrl-rat the same time. This will give you a clean version of your site which should be updated.

Always back your files up! This must be a regular process for you. Consider a plugin such as Xclonerto assist you. Use whichever plugin or website you feel comfortable with to keep your blog backedup, however make sure you use more than a single location. It would be very unfortunate to loseyour entire blog.

Always use targeted titles and descriptions. These are the first impressions that your readers see.This makes them critically important. You can use Scribe, which will help you control this onWordPress. You can use this to make edits on your pages in order to bring more visitors.

Approving comments manually is very outdated. Let Akismet handle that task for you. Make surethat "manual approval" does not have a check mark beside it so that the comments go upautomatically. You are not actually saving time, otherwise.

Experiment with a variety of blogging tools. Are you unsatisfied with WordPress's dashboard? Youmay want to consider Windows Live Writer. There are a number of tools that work well withWordPress while working much more efficiently. You have to try more than one to really know yourpersonal preferences.

Differentiate the look of your WordPress blog. It may be tempting to just roll with the standardWordPress themes, but you'll look like many other blogs out there. Consider a few other themes.Even install them so that you can preview them with your current crop of content. It can make allthe difference to audience engagement.

Read user reviews of plugins. Remember, these plugins can behttp://orangesnowman.com/green-web-hosting/ created by anyone who knows how to program. Youwant to avoid downloading a plugin full of flaws and bugs. If a plugin has been downloaded a lot andhas high ratings, it is probably a safe bet.

Come up with a tagging and category strategy for your WordPress blog. Categories and tags willhelp you keep your posts organized. Plus, it'll make it easier for your visitors to find content thatthey're interested in. As well, certain search plugins let you weight those categories and tags insearch relevancy which makes your search much more targeted.

If you have made a mistake in spelling of a name in multiple posts, or just want to change a certainword across your site, use the Search and Replace plugin to do the job for you. The time it takes todo this manually is horrific, so instead let the plugin get it done.

If you just want to dabble in Wordpress without installing iton your web hosting account, consider opening an accountwith Wordpress.com. You will get a subdomain to theWordpress domain, and your blog is hosting by Wordpressfor free. This is a good way to get your feet wet intoblogging.

When you have a question about how to create something inWordpress, consider visiting one of the many user forumsthat have been set up on the web. These online communitiesare often created by Wordpress experts who just want tobring together people with a similar goal. When you post aquestion, it is not uncommon that you will get several veryhelpful responses.

Whether you read blogs, write blogs or just like to post onthem, WordPress can help you. When you know more about the program, you'll be better off. Whenyou are on the Internet, think about the information laid out here.