The Importance of Optimizing WordPress - How to Improve Your Blog"s Speed & Traffic
When installing WordPress and setting up a blog it is often overlooked at how important it is to optimize your blog, and by this I mean you need to make sure that whatever the purpose of your blog you do not lose sight of that and make your blog for that purpose, so that the right visitors come to your blog, the search engines can find your blog and that your blog loads fast enough so your visitors don't get bored and leave before you catch their attention.
I find the best thing to do before you start installing your WordPress blog is to write a list of what you are going to be using it for, as there are some aspects which need to be optimal for its purpose on install.
Think about what your blog is going to be about or what purpose it is going to serve.
What type of people you are going to be targeting, whether it's for business purposes or for friends and family...
you get the idea.
When you first install your WordPress blog you will first need to setup a domain name on which to install it on to and this is why you need to know its purpose before installing.
You will now be able to choose a domain name in keeping with your blog, if what you are setting up is a niche blog it is important to have done your keyword research and to choose a keyword related domain name with good search engine traffic and low competition.
Once you have your WordPress blog installed don't think 'That's it - I'm up and running', there is much more needed to have your blog optimal for its purpose.
Don't misunderstand me, it's all simple enough to apply, just a little time and effort and your blog will perform much better for you and your readers.
To help the search engines find your site easier and more quickly there are some simple tactics that you can carry out.
Changing the 'Permalink Structure' from the default setting to 'Custom Structure /%category%/%postname%' and installing the 'All In One SEO Pack' plugin - fill it in with all your site details and each time you make a post, will all help with your SEO efforts and make a difference to your rankings.
You need to make sure your blog is running as fast as it can as Google now take into consideration how fast your blog loads as to how well you rank.
Some of the things to consider are plugins, as having to many installed whether they are active or not can slow your blogs load time down, so analyze your plugins and only have installed what you are using and consider whether you need them at all.
Graphics are another aspect which you will need to consider, optimize them, make their file sizes as small as possible and host them on a service like Flickr or EZS3 and not on your own server - this will improve your blogs load time.
Changing the number of posts which show up on your blogs homepage or only showing an excerpt of each post can improve your blogs load time and increase speed.
Cleanup your database and changing the autosave function in the PHP will also help with speeding up your blog.
I hope I have given you something to think about.
It is very important when setting up your WordPress blog that you plan it and really think about what you are doing and by applying these and other simple strategies will, over time make your blog stand out from the crowd.
I find the best thing to do before you start installing your WordPress blog is to write a list of what you are going to be using it for, as there are some aspects which need to be optimal for its purpose on install.
Think about what your blog is going to be about or what purpose it is going to serve.
What type of people you are going to be targeting, whether it's for business purposes or for friends and family...
you get the idea.
When you first install your WordPress blog you will first need to setup a domain name on which to install it on to and this is why you need to know its purpose before installing.
You will now be able to choose a domain name in keeping with your blog, if what you are setting up is a niche blog it is important to have done your keyword research and to choose a keyword related domain name with good search engine traffic and low competition.
Once you have your WordPress blog installed don't think 'That's it - I'm up and running', there is much more needed to have your blog optimal for its purpose.
Don't misunderstand me, it's all simple enough to apply, just a little time and effort and your blog will perform much better for you and your readers.
To help the search engines find your site easier and more quickly there are some simple tactics that you can carry out.
Changing the 'Permalink Structure' from the default setting to 'Custom Structure /%category%/%postname%' and installing the 'All In One SEO Pack' plugin - fill it in with all your site details and each time you make a post, will all help with your SEO efforts and make a difference to your rankings.
You need to make sure your blog is running as fast as it can as Google now take into consideration how fast your blog loads as to how well you rank.
Some of the things to consider are plugins, as having to many installed whether they are active or not can slow your blogs load time down, so analyze your plugins and only have installed what you are using and consider whether you need them at all.
Graphics are another aspect which you will need to consider, optimize them, make their file sizes as small as possible and host them on a service like Flickr or EZS3 and not on your own server - this will improve your blogs load time.
Changing the number of posts which show up on your blogs homepage or only showing an excerpt of each post can improve your blogs load time and increase speed.
Cleanup your database and changing the autosave function in the PHP will also help with speeding up your blog.
I hope I have given you something to think about.
It is very important when setting up your WordPress blog that you plan it and really think about what you are doing and by applying these and other simple strategies will, over time make your blog stand out from the crowd.
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