You can be a newbie at WordPress as you have recently installed it for the first time or you have been using the most popular CMS out there for quite some time, making sure your wordpress blog is optimized is a mandate these days are you are not the only endorser of good content out there.
There is a plethora of content available on the internet and if your blog (or site) is not elevated up to the mark, readers and search engines will give you step motherly treatment and neglect you and your wordpress blog – irrespective of the fact that your content is awesome.
We, as evangelists of best WordPress practises, round up some tips and tricks to optimize your wordpress blog that’ll help you get noticed and get the right user to the right content.
Changing the general settings
If you have installed wordpress recently or still not made any changes after you installed it, you must change the “general settings” in wordpress in order to leverage the best of the platform.
Go to the general settings page located in the WordPress Admin dashboard and change some of the basic configuration settings on your blog / site such as:
Blog title: This is the name of your blog that is used to identify it in syndication feeds. Having a catchy and unique name which will ensure that it makes a mark on your user.
Tagline: A short sentence that explains what your blog is about. Make sure that it is catchy yet aptly describes what you are writing.
WordPress address (URL): Here you have to enter the full URL of the directory having your WordPress core application files.
Site address URL: This is the address that people will type into their URL bar to access your blog. Make sure some relevant words are there in this URL.
E-mail address: WordPress gets in touch with you through this address
Time Zone: From the drop down menu, you can select the timezone of the place you are residing at.
Date and time formats: You can personalize how the date and time appear on your blog.
Optimizing your title
The title acts as the basis for search engines to rank your blog. To ensure that your site is easily found have shorter tiles which are descriptive and call for an emotional response. A perfect title includes
- Your brand name at the end for recognition at reader’s end
- The most apt and important keyword for the current content post or page . Also it must be at the beginning of the title
- Catchy words that attract people or generate curiosity
Optimized images
When you optimize the images in your blog, you boost it’s speed and improve SEO rankings. Use apt names for your image. Name your pictures as keywords instead of nomenclature like PHOTO202 etc. Also, crop them to proper sizes (300×300) and add Alt and title attributes to images.
You can also install WordPress image optimization plugins such as EWWW Image optimizer, CW Image Optimizer, WP Smush.it, Lazy Load or SEO friendly images.
SEO friendly themes
A little investment in SEO friendly themes will work wonders for your blog’s visibility and optimization. Combining the efforts of SEO expert and a designer, an efficient SEO friendly theme can be built. Moreover it can be customized further as per your needs. Many of the off-the-shelf ones are available for purchase with the cheapest ones being around worth $50.
SEO friendly themes cut down time and expertise a blogger needs, to begin from ground level.
Thesis and Genesis are two SEO friendly themes that are commonly used by bloggers.
Conclusion
To leverage the best out of it, Bloggers must ensure that their WordPress blogs are optimized. The above mentioned basic tips are just some quick measures you can take in order to do that. Moreover, apart from creating quality posts, the frequency of your blog matters. Readers and search engines like to see fresh content. WordPress has been designed to make blogging easy but it’s the responsibility of a blogger to ensure that they follow the best practises for the same.
Karun Verma
Karun Verma is a perfectionist and an online marketing expert with keen interest in finding new ideas and innovations in internet. He is the founder of HTMLTUTS+, a blog based on inspiration in Development, Designing and Online Marketing Ideas.
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