5 Unique ways to take your WordPress site to the next level
Today I am going to talk about 5 Unique ways to take your WordPress site to the next level. You have installed your theme your Website looks great now what?
There are a few little tweaks you need to make to your site to make sure that its optimally set up.
(If this post contains affiliate links please see our full disclosure policy although I have to say I tried really hard to make it interesting and even I struggled to write it so if you really must read it you can find it here)
Although these changes are small they are important tasks which will help you stand out from the crowd and grow your blog.
If you want more info see my post on how to not look like a newbie blogger.
Don’t forget these task that will make sure you have everything set up that needs to be set up.
Here we go 5 Unique ways to take your WordPress site to the next level :
1. Change your Admin name
2. Configure WordPress- delete default content, updated your WordPress email address
3. Modify your permalink structure
4. Add plugins to increase functionality
5. Create your specialist pages- Disclaimer and Privacy policy, Amazon affiliates page, About me page
Ok, let’s get to it.
1. Change your Admin name
I have put this under its own heading as its super important.
Don’t please please leave your username as Admin change it to something that is hard to guess as it doesn’t take much for hackers to use admin and then hack into your site even with security!
My username which I am not going to tell you for obvious reasons is entirely unrelated to my blog and would be really hard to guess!
2. Configure WordPress
- Under General settings make sure you add in your Site Title (make sure its SEO friendly! It is what is found under the google search results as you can see I have yet to add my title not great! Every day is a school day and if I wasn’t checking out this stuff I wouldn’t have realized! ) and add your tagline – don’t spend too long deciding on a tagline you can always change it if you are not happy.
- I have now updated my site title – have you?
- Update your timezone
- Delete the sample pages and posts just go into posts and tick all – and add to trash same with pages on the menu that have been preloaded
- Add in your categories to your site for mine – I have blogging, DIY crafts, Life hacks, as the default will be Uncategorized.
- Make sure your homepage settings are set to static homepage if you have blog.
Check mine out at:
Create a stunning website choose and install your perfect theme
- Consider the speed of your site – if you hosting has an add-on for caching luckily mine does and I have https://wordpress.org/plugins/sg-cachepress/ added as it’s included with my hosting on Siteground as I have Grow big plan that comes with caching included – Basically helps your site to load faster I couldn’t work without this as I have lots of pictures and hidden pins on my site which could basically reduce my speed you definitely need a cache plugin. If you are planning on a second website in the future for the extra you pay to get free caching and also the option to have a second website the Grow big plan is well worth it.
- Make sure you delete any unused themes but keep one for default just in case the reason for this is you will continually get updates otherwise which could potentially not work and cause issues with your site in the future only keep what you need.
- Make things are pretty if you have time- add a Favicon – you know that little picture that comes up in the google search bar beside your website link that’s your favicon and you can upload an image to your WordPress site this makes it nice and pretty when someone finds your website in the search bar.
- Add your image to your Gravator- that’s the little picture that appears beside your name when you add comments for instance.
3.Modify your permalink structure
The default permalink structure ie. how it shows your URL and posts in the search bar is just plain UGLY!
To help SEO and also you to name your permalinks to make sure you go in and change it to POST NAME!- go into settings permalinks and then post name to change things:
This will ensure your links come out like this
http://yourwebsite.com/yourfirstpost/
It also helps readers to understand what the post or page is about before they even get to your site.
NOTE – when you write your blog posts you will find that your permalink will just pull from your title its best to choose your SEO keywords for the permalink and shorten it as well.
Once you have published your post DO NOT change your permalink if you do that you will need to add in a redirect to your new page as google will keep trying to find the old permalink.
SO YOU CAN ONLY CHANGE YOUR PERMALINK BEFORE YOU PUBLISH YOUR POST FOR THE FIRST TIME!
4. Install your selected Plugins
There are some recommended plugins that you should install to increase the functionality of your WordPress site.
- Social media plugin- for example social warfare
- Security plugin
- Caching plugin
- SEO plugin
- Spam plugin
- WP smush plugin
These are a must in terms of plugins – make sure you only add ones you really need too many plugins can slow your site right down.
Install Google Analytics and Google console
My next post will explain these important analytic tools.
Monster insights plugin will help tremendously with installing Google analytics and I do recommend it.
5. Create one off Pages for your website
- Create your about page – not sure what to put in this see my post
- Create your Disclaimer and Privacy information for affiliate marketing make sure you also add as per the GDPR information – wanting the lowdown on GDPR then have a look at this post it explains it in simple easy to understand language and that’s how your Disclosure and Privacy statements should be written. Don’t worry it’s not that hard.
https://support.pipdig.co/articles/gdpr-for-bloggers/
Ensure your website is live – go into settings and reading and make sure search engine visibility allowed.
