Have you ever come across a fantastic-looking WordPress blog and immediately thought to yourself – Wow, how did they do that? Is it some hack or plugin? How do I do it on my blog? Etc.
Well, if this sounds like you, trust us when we say this, you are not alone. Almost every WordPress user has at some point in time, or other has thought to himself, what if I could find some new ways to optimize my website and elevate the user experience.
Bearing all this in mind, we have come up with some helpful tips and tricks that can help WordPress users accentuate their blog and make it more out there. Let us get started and address these hacks, one by one.
#1. Always use a custom homepage
By default, the WordPress blog displays all your latest posts on your homepage. However, if that is not what you like, you can create a custom homepage for your blog or website.
For this, you will have to design a new page, which will open your website’s custom Homepage. So, title this as Home. In addition to it, create another page, and you can call, it says Blog or About Us, and display content accordingly.
Now, head to the Settings menu and select Reading from the WordPress admin section’s drop-down menu.
From under the Front Page Displays option, you have to change the setting to – A static page. Following this, you need to make a selection from the pages created as Home, About Us, and the Blog page.
Alternatively, you can even customize the homepage template that you want to employ for your home page. For this, you create the template on your desktop, and then save it on your completer, with the usual text editor, and add the code on top:
<?php /* Template Name: Custom homepage */ ?>
Now, you have to save this tailored homepage on your desktop as custom-homepage.php. Following this, you have to connect to the website via the FTP client and head to the wp-content/themes/your-current-theme/folder. Here in, you will have to upload the file that was created earlier. You can head bag to the WordPress admin section and edit the homepage as required. You can tap into your custom homepage template under the page attributes meta box.
#2. Lower the image size for fast loading time
‘Even though it is one of the most quintessential WordPress hacks to fasten the loading time, a lot of WordPress developers still do not cut short the image size,’ points out Chandler. He is a web developer who has designed sites, such as TAE, a Matlab homework help providing company.
Well, we agree with Chandler on this. Your image size is quintessential if you are aspiring for the shortest loading time. It would be best if you kept your pictures small by compressing them. It yields tremendous benefits for your website that you may have not even thought of. It helps you conserve your storage space and even makes the website load faster.
The image size can be reduced manually, but there are many tools, too, that can do the trick for you. Some of the best tools that you can use are Optimizilla and ImageResize. Another fantastic way to speed up the website loading time is by using a caching plugin.
#3. Use the custom permalinks
Back in time, WordPress’s default permalink had the ‘plain’ permalink settings.
It went something like – www.example.com/?p=xyz.
Now, the problem is this was bad for both UX and the SEO.
Thankfully, this has changed. So, if you have just recently downloaded WordPress, you may have noticed this. Now, the permalinks follow the date and name option.
So, now the permalink will look something like – www.example.com/2020/01/01/sample-post.
Of course, this is much better, but now there is one problem with it that many people tend to overlook.
Dan, a web-developer for TFTH, a platform that offers ‘do my programming homework‘ for students, points it for us. He says, ‘The problem with the recent permalink format of WordPress is the inclusion of the date in the format.’
Now, let us understand how this is a problem. See, it is okay for now. However, what if a visitor comes to your website, say two years from now? What will he think? When he sees the date in the link, he will think of your content as dated. So, even if you have updated the content, the date will make the reader feel otherwise.
Let us understand this with an example.
For instance, you create a blog, say – ‘Top 5 mobile phones of 2021‘ today. In 2023, when you update this content and add or delete some mobile phones from 2023, make the title ‘Top 5 mobile phones of 2023.’ Even when you have updated the content for 2023, your permalink will still give the 2021 date. This will make the reader feel that you are sharing outdated information and might not engage with your website.
So, how to overcome this problem?
You can use the post name permalink option. For this, you can go to the Settings menu, select Permalinks, and change your selection to Post Name.
It is the ideal selection for your SEO too.
#4. Duplicating the posts
Suppose there is a particular structure or a format that you really like. Now, you wish to stick to it throughout your website. Instead of developing a new draft, you can open any of your existing articles and then copy-paste the content from there to your latest draft. How can you do this?
James, who offers the best course to learn python online, shares the perfect WordPress hack for this. He says that when you want to clone an old post’s structure and format, you can use the Duplicate Post plugin and then make modifications as required.
Yes, Duplicate Post is a must-install plugin if you want to clone your existing posts.
#5. Install an SEO Plugin
For your WordPress website’s success, SEO is quintessential. If you do not do the SEO right, your site may not rank. You can, of course, manage the SEO by yourself, but this is possible only if you are a real tech pro. If not, the simplest way out is using an SEO plugin. This one plugin can simplify your life and make your website a lot more powerful. The plugin’s role is to analyze the keywords and content, and cater to all the technical stuff, such as robots.txt and sitemaps.
You can go to the plugin directory and look for an SEO plugin that works best for you. However, our obvious recommendation for this is Yoast SEO. It is the best one out there, and its 25,000 5-star reviews and 5 million active installations are enough proof of it.
#6. Install Google Analytics
Lastly, one of the most vital tools that you need on your WordPress website is Google Analytics. It can help you know where your users are coming from, which page they spend maximum time on, and what they do on your website. You can install Google Analytics by employing the MonsterInsights plugin.
So, these are the six most essential WordPress tips, tricks, and hacks that you should all know. Have more to add to the list? Let us know in the comment box below.
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