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WordPress is one of the most popular ways of getting blog content onto your website. It’s easy to use, and around 35% of all content on the internet runs on the WordPress platform. It’s flexible adaptable and can be customised for your needs. Although there are lots of forums and sites giving tips about getting the most out of WordPress, the volume of information out there can be staggering. Here are the 12 top tips for WordPress.

Permalinks

Make sure the title of your blog page says what the page is about, rather than using a combination of letters and numbers. You can do this by going to the settings section in WordPress, and looking for the permalinks section to customise how your URLs appear.

Sitemap

Google needs a sitemap to make sense of your website, and it is easiest to do this using XML. WordPress offers a plug-in which helps make this task even easier.

Google Analytics

This free-to-use tool will help you get all sorts of information about traffic to your website and conversion rates. It’s worth checking in with the portal every week to keep an eye on performance.

SEO Themes

Rather than choosing a template or theme which looks great, try to strike the balance between a theme which loads quickly and is great for SEO, and one which is visually appealing.

SEO Plugins

A plugin is a piece of software you can add onto your basic WordPress site. An SEO plugin like Yoast or All in One will help you stay on the right track with SEO, making suggestions for how to optimise your content.

Don’t Forget Media

Text and content need to be optimised, but so does other media such as video or images. Tag and name your images properly with a simple name and description.

Shareable Content

WordPress offers the option to add share buttons onto posts and these allow readers to share content from your site onto their social media site. This can both raise the profile for your business and bring new customers in, if you manage to create content which is sufficiently engaging.

Anchor Text and Links

Most website owners know that adding links into their text is important, but links should only be added when they actually add value to the blog posts. Use a descriptive anchor text to tell the reader what to expect when they clock, rather than just having text saying “click here”.

Quality Content

High quality content is properly spelled, grammatically correct and appealing and relevant to the people reading your blog.

Heading Tags

Always use the H1 tag for the main title of your blog, and it should clearly describe what the post is about. H2 can be used for additional headings, and H3 and H4 for subheadings.

Review Content

Blog posts can date as legislation changes or fashions move on. Don’t be afraid to delete out of date posts as the aim is to keep your blog fresh and relevant to all readers.