Make sure your sidebar is not too cluttered. The sidebars on most WordPress blogs are a chaotic mess, full of social media icons and ads and links. Prioritize what goes in your sidebar. Make sure visitors to your blog don't have to search for anything they might be looking for.
Check out add-ons to find simple tools http://make.wordpress.org/themes/ which will make your site or blog better. For example, you could add a calendar to your side menu bar in order to share events which would be interesting to your readers. You can also find many great add-ons which provide control for advertising, turning your site into a revenue maker.
When you are done with your site, check out how it looks from a visitors standpoint. Did you get across everything that you wanted? Go to your site from someone else's computer to get their point of view and write down the changes that you will need to make to continually improve the aesthetics.
Make sure you have a landing page. This will ensure that visitors arrive at a specific page instead of directing them right to your most recent posts. A landing page will help your site gain an air of authenticity and helps it to look a little more professional than it would have otherwise.
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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 even include a short biography or other information you feel is pertinent.
Look into other themes for your WordPress blog. Sure WordPress comes preinstalled with a few excellent themes, but there are many more options out there. Many are free and then there are premium themes as well. These premium themes are very well designed and let you add more advanced aspects to your blog with ease, such as e-commerce plugins.
Do you have lots of comments? If you do, scanning through every comment can be hard on you and on your other readers. You can install a plugin that does this for you. That way, navigation will be simpler, and your site is sure to be well organized.
If you want a post to stay at the top of the page, there is no need to set it's date way in the future any longer. Instead, go to the post and click on Edit under Visibility. Choose the option which allows you to make the post sticky and enjoy!
You might believe that WordPress has not saved all of the changes you just struggled to make. This most likely is not true. Clear the browser cache to see if it helps. Save changes by holding the 'shift' key while refreshing the browser.
Make sure that you have the most recent version of any WordPress plugins you use. WordPress plugins are great for adding versatility to your site. However, as with any other software, there are updates. You might miss out on important updates that keep the plugin working properly.
Be sure to use a robust spam plug-in to filter out spam and bad content. People with ill-intentions are always looking for ways to spam a blog for link building purposes. This kind of spam will create a bad impression on your blog because your legitimate readers will think that your blog has security issues.
Use the Evergreen Post Tweeter plugin to promote your posts automatically. It can be a chore to choose which posts to retweet daily, so let the software do it for you instead. Once you have it in place, you can literally set it and forget it and then enjoy the visitors it brings in.
If you find that writing new posts is cluttered and confusing because of all the stuff on your page, clean it up! Use the Screen Options link to choose what shows up on the composition page and what remains hidden. Many of your plugins may add content you don't want, so remove it there.
Incorporate a social sharing plugin for your WordPress blog. Integrating social media with your blog will be a great boon to your traffic. Your users can instantly share your article through Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. Look for a plugin that will allow liking and sharing, since both will be beneficial.
When you are choosing a Wordpress template to use, pick something that gets frequent updates. You do not want to use a template whose creator has abandoned updates because sometimes you have to address security issues. A creator who is proactive in updating his template will give you a better product.
Looking for a way to increase your page views? Pick up a plugin in or widget that shows related posts. When your visitors are reading your current post, they'll be treated in the sidebar (or the end of the post) with a few related articles that they may love as well. This definitely increases your readership.
If you need to work on your site, be sure to turn on a maintenance mode so that visitors aren't surprised with the current state of your website. There are lots of maintenance mode plugins out there. And best of all, they are typically free. It's a quick button push to toggle maintenance mode on and off.
If you want to post on off-days, schedule them a few days before via WordPress. Have the articles posted at times when you are unable to post them. The option to publish now or later is available under the edit screen in WordPress. Find 'publish immediately' under this. Put the time you want the blogs to post in military time. Hit "OK." Check the "Schedule For" page and then hit "Schedule".
If you want your blog to be seen and visited by all sorts of users, make sure you can access it on mobile phones and tablets. Some blogs are not readable or do not load on these smaller devices. If you need help making your graphic design blog compatible, use WPtouch, a plugin.
By now, you should have a good grasp of the basic features of WordPress. You may even have learned some advanced tips and tricks that let you get the most from your blog. Remember to keep seeking out new tips about the program. Before long, you will have an amazing blog.
