Do you own a WordPress site or planning on developing one soon? We are a New Zealand web design company and part of our duty is to educate our customers on how to administer their new websites. Here are our most important WordPress techniques that we’d like to share.
This list is for you whether you’re in charge of your company’s website, your website, or just want to learn our secrets for faster, more effective content administration.
Suggestion #1: Use trusted WordPress plugins
There are A LOT of plugins out there! You will see these plugins in your WordPress Dashboard – Plugins – Add New. That’s not all of them! Some are sold on different platforms at premium prices.
It’s definitely tempting just to download any old plugin, but we recommend researching first.
Check the reviews and ratings. If a plugin has outstanding reviews, its most likely an outstanding plugin and used by many WordPress installations.
Make sure the plugin is constantly updated. This is important for security and safety of your website. If a plugin is not updated often, the software developer has probably abandoned the plugin, therefore we don’t recommend using.
Also don’t use HEAPS of plugins. This can clog up your website speed and also increase the chance of plugins clashing and causing problems. Use what you need to only and delete the rest.
Suggestion #2: Use a new tab to open links
To keep your reader on your site, external links should always open in a new tab. This is one of the most significant WordPress suggestions for both your user experience and your SEO. It’s critical to increase your site’s dwell time and session length in Google Analytics, as well as make sure you’re not driving users away with no intention of returning.
Consider using the “Open in a new tab” option when adding links to your content. Your site will stay open in the initial window if you configure all links to open in a new window, and they will have to return after seeing the link you shared.
This toggle may be found in the editor’s “Insert/edit link” option. This should also be used for links to pages on your website so that users are enticed to return and complete reading the initial piece of information.
Suggestion #3: Use a writing application
Don’t write original content in the WordPress dashboard — or any other in-browser platform for that matter. Your work might be lost if your internet connection breaks or your login timeouts. A WordPress site may be rolled back to undo changes, but not to recover material that was lost before it was saved.
Write on a word processing program like Google Docs that saves your work every few seconds. When it comes time to upload that copy to WordPress, remember to follow the following suggestion on this page.
Suggestion #4: Keep your image files clean
Before uploading your picture files to WordPress, give them a name for SEO purposes. Instead of leaving photographs with the default name of “IMG9434,” rename them to explain what they are and, if feasible, include your keywords. This will also make searching for them in the WordPress media gallery a lot simpler.
After you’ve uploaded your photographs, don’t forget to change the alt text properties! This is another SEO gain and can be done on the ‘Media’ page. Plus it makes your material more accessible to folks with visual impairments by using a screen reader to narrate the article.
Suggestion #5: Copy and paste as plain text
Don’t paste straight from Microsoft Word or anywhere else where you’ve produced copy into the WYSIWYG. It may add a lot of unnecessary tags and code, which can mess with style and cause weird formatting.
When you attempt to remove a line of text, everything goes to H2, or you have a paragraph that always begins one line below the field’s top, no matter how many times you erase that space and update/save? There’s some weird additional code going on there.
Always utilize the “paste as text” option, which removes all formatting from all of your content. This may be done by either memorizing the shortcut keys or picking the small “T” on a clipboard from the menu.
Suggestion #6: Checking your image size
Large, high-quality photographs are simple to post, but they may take a long time to load (particularly on mobile devices) and can affect your SEO because of Google’s mobile-friendly priority. Websites, which employ lower resolutions than print media, seldom need large graphics.
If you’re not sure how to accomplish it, several WordPress plugins can assist you, like WP Smush and Tiny PNG. Alternatively, you might enlist the assistance of your designer.
Image files that are also compressed, lower your file size which makes page speed faster! We use Tiny PNG online (not plugin) with our images. This technique also helps your Google Insights score.
For example we use this loot bags website we developed as it has image compression and alt text on images. All product images are small in file size but still maintain quality for customer viewing.
Suggestion #7: Security for annoying hackers
We commonly propose ‘Wordfence’, a free plugin that protects against brute force and insertion attempts by spambots. This is ideal for companies that often fail to update their information. Nothing is more frustrating than having your website hacked. More information about must-have plugins may be found here.
Suggestion #8: Page screen settings
“Screen Settings” (near the top) on the WordPress dashboard has several panel options that are hidden by default. Check Screen Options first if you can’t locate a tool you’ve used before to modify a section of your page or post. Also this can be handy on the ‘Menu’ page.
This suggestion is not necessary but does help if you can’t locate an option.
