With nearly 55 thousand plugins, you can hardly find a single WordPress function that can’t be updated or improved; however, it is necessary to understand the most important functions.
1. MAKE USE OF ONLINE LEARNING SOURCES
There are plenty of websites that can help you learn WordPress back-to-back, such as WP Beginner.
2. KEEP THINGS SIMPLE
You don’t want to start out with complex features right away – just take care of basics before you move on to advanced functions.
3. CHOOSE A GOOD THEME
Find a WordPress theme that blends with your branding strategy and gives you the ability to make changes easily and adapt it according to your own needs.
4. REMOVE SPAM COMMENTS
A WordPress site’s not going to look professional with spam messages, so just go over to “comments” (right under “pages” in your WordPress dashboard) and delete any spammy comments.
5. UNDERSTAND THE FUNDAMENTALS OF SEO
Search engine optimization is what’s needed for higher ranking in Google searches, so you’ll have to understand keywords, slugs, and meta-descriptions.
6. INCREASE YOUR MEMORY LIMIT
Plugins can slow your site down by draining memory, so simply open the wp-config.php file and enter the following line of code:
define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ’64M’);
7. TAKE CARE OF WEBSITE SECURITY
Don’t jeopardize months or even years of content creation. Create strong passwords and use a reliable security plugin such as “All-in-One WP Security” or “Wordfence”.
8. DELETE OBSOLETE PLUGINS
Sometimes inactive plugins can also increase the risk of a website hack, so just delete the ones you don’t use or don’t plan to reactivate.
9. HIGHLIGHT AUTHOR COMMENTS
Your content needs to hook the audience to your site, and one trick is to highlight authors’ comments. Write this simple code in the CSS file:
.bypostauthor { background: #eee; }
10. MAKE SIMPLE SITE STRUCTURES
Make your site easy to navigate by making a simple site structure with up to 6 main categories.
11. INCREASE LOAD SPEED
You can do it using online tools like “Pingdom”, a site that shows what’s fast or slow and what can be done in terms of improvement.
12. ADD SOCIAL ICONS
This’ll help visitors spread the word about your site through their accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
13. SET WEBSITE BACKUPS REGULARLY
This keeps your content safe and sound in spite of potential site hacks or technical issues like a sudden 500 error.