This is a guest post written by Justin Osborne. I didn’t receive any compensation for it. You can find out more about Justin in the ‘About the Author’ section at the end.
If you are running a website, you are probably using WordPress, which is the world’s largest content management system, powering around 30% of the entire Internet.
However, this means that webmasters are having a hard time trying to stand out from the rest.
Here are some of the latest statistical findings, and you’ll get my point:
- Roughly 500+ new WordPress sites are being built daily;
- 17 posts are published every second on WordPress sites around the world;
- 22% of new domains in the US are run with WordPress.
In such circumstances, it is getting increasingly difficult to get your foot in the door and attract new visitors.
You need to understand how the system works and use state of the art tactics to increase website popularity.
This post will show you 5 smart tips to make your WordPress website site stand out.
1. Choose the Best Domain Name
Craig Johansson, a web developer at Resumes Planet, says that a domain name is the anchor of your online business:
It’s a mirror that reveals your field of work, but also the level of professional creativity and understanding of contemporary web development.
But the real question here is – how can I find the best domain name for my WordPress website?
First of all, it must be clear and easy to type. Bear in mind that domain names should generally not include words with multiple spelling options, and you should also avoid numbers and hyphens.
Secondly, you need to keep it short and use keywords that represent your niche.
Besides that, great domain names include more trustworthy extensions, such as .com, or .co, or .net.
Local businesses often add city or state names to mark the territory, thus making it easier for nearby users to find their stores or offices.
Once you’ve done with brainstorming, you need to make sure that the domain name is still available. After that, register the most effective solution and you are good to go!
2. Find the Right Theme
Choose a theme that suits your niche and needs
Before you choose a theme for your WordPress website, you have to be aware of your business objectives and which features are essential for your company.
This is important because you don’t want to select a theme cluttered with dozens of useless options.
Make sure it’s responsive
Pay attention to the theme’s responsiveness to ensure an easy website navigation on all devices, especially on smartphones.
This is essential because mobile devices generated more than half of the entire web traffic in 2017.
Don’t forget about branding
Colors represent another important aspect of the theme selection.
As a company, you probably have a set of branding rules that apply to web design as well.
Therefore, you should stick to WordPress themes that use the same or similar colors in order to match your branding.
Of course, you can also customize certain elements to find the perfect solution for your website.
Go for a premium theme
The last but not the least important thing is to buy a premium theme.
Although a free theme may seem like a good option, there are many things that could go wrong.
Webmasters who use free themes often experience coding problems, can’t reach customer support, and can’t find updates.
Here are some places where you can purchase premium WordPress themes:
3. Mind the SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the basic preconditions of website traffic increase, so you need to use the best practices to ensure higher rankings.
SEO is a broad topic that requires a lot of time and analysis, but I will focus on some of the most relevant features:
- Keywords: Search engines look for sites based on keywords, so it’s up to you to find and use industry-related terms and phrases throughout your website content;
- Content optimization: Add descriptive titles, structure your content with proper headings, optimize images, and so on;
- Internal linking: Whenever you write a post, you should add links to other articles on your website. That way, you will boost page views, increase time spent on your site, and can also boost your rankings;
- Use SSL/HTTPS: HTTPS is a ranking factor for Google, and it also provides more trust among the users. Also, Google Chrome will now mark HTTP websites as insecure. Here’s a detailed guide on how to move your WordPress website from HTTP to HTTPS;
- Comments optimization: Inspiring user engagement is great, but make sure you monitor and eliminate nonsense comments because Google penalizes spamming.
There are dozens of other valuable SEO tips to apply here, so the majority of WordPress webmasters don’t want to waste time learning about them.
Instead, they take the shortcut and use SEO plugins like Yoast SEO.
But note that, while this type of plugins are recommended and can be extremely useful, they won’t do the SEO work for you! They’ll just make some recommendations and make your life easier, but for real SEO you got to do a lot more work on your own.
4. Improve Page Loading Time
Most visitors expect a web page to load in less than two seconds. That’s why you need to optimize your WordPress website as well as possible.
It’s a technical process that can strongly influence the overall authority of your site, and can also improve search engine rankings.
The first thing to do here is to conduct a website speed test.
Tools like WebPageTest and Pingdom can help you by testing a page’s loading time from different locations worldwide and determine possible pain points.
That way, you will see the general performance grade, page size, requests, and comparison to other tested pages.
The test will give you more than enough details to work on.
For instance, it will tell you to leverage browser caching or remove query strings from static resources.
A quick and easy way to drastically speed up your WordPress website is to use a caching plugin like WP Rocket (here’s a WP Rocket review).
5. Write Blog Posts
According to these statistics, blogging gives you a 434% better chance of being ranked highly on search engines! Also, marketers who write blog posts get 67% more leads!
A blog is obviously among the most powerful marketing tools, and you have to add one to your WordPress website to stand out from your competitors.
However, it’s not an easy task. You need to write smart and entertaining posts to attract the target audience.
Modern consumers prefer longer and highly analytical articles, so you must keep coming up with trendy topics and cover them comprehensively.
At the same time, you should pay attention to many other elements, such as structure, keywords, multimedia content, emotions, humor, statistics, and so on.
Only the most prolific authors can combine all those elements into a meaningful unit week after week, but your job is to give your best, and the results will come soon enough.
Conclusion
WordPress is the largest content management system that allows webmasters to administer sites quickly and simply.
However, the platform powers so many websites that it’s getting increasingly difficult to get your foot in the door and make an impression on the target audience.
But by following these 5 smart tips, you can make your WordPress site stand out!
Don’t hesitate to give these tactics a try and let me know in comments how it worked out for your website!
That’s a wrap
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