WordPress is the most popular CMS across the world as it efficiently combines ease with efficiency by empowering users to build their own site with minimum efforts with the help of templates and plugins. Once you have created your WordPress website the next thing to think about is how to set it on a road to success. In this blog we will share some actionable WordPress website tips to ensure the success of your digital venture:
Smartly choose the right hosting company
Web hosting is the chief differentiator factor when it comes to your WP site as it is the quality of your hosting that determines your site speed, performance consistency, and scalability. So the very first WordPress website tips is to choose right hosting
While all WordPress hosting plans perform well under the normal conditions, the parameter of success is their performance during traffic surges and fluctuations. Be very careful while selecting the best WordPress hosting provider.
Pro Tip
Managed WP plans take the complexity out of the website maintenance process and automate the tasks
Ensure that your hosting provider doesn’t oversell the server space
Doesn’t place unreasonable restrictions on server usage as that can create performance bottlenecks or even downtime during high-demand situations like traffic surges\
Assures smooth scalability where the resource volume automatically increases/adjusts itself as per changing demands of the website
Supports smooth upgrading of your initial plan
Get optimum performance and speed from your site
Research studies show with improved connection the visitors are becoming more impatient and less forgiving when it comes to loading speed. The challenge is to speed up your site and maintain the same speed even during fluctuations like traffic surges.
Most of the time it is the traffic volume that directly influences your site reach, revenue, and reputation but if your site slows down by the burden of traffic you may miss lots of business opportunities. Your site must maintain a fast speed to tap the profit potential of peak traffic hours. The thing is even more difficult for big sites with much functionality.
So another major WordPress website tips is to monitor and optimize your site speed. Start by monitoring your site speed with reliable speed testing tools like Pingdom, Insights, and Load impact that shows exactly how your site compares against your competitors. They also highlight the issues and various areas that need improvement. With better clarity, you would be in a better position to optimize your site for fast loading.
Special WordPress website tips
Google Optimize is a reliable tool that utilizes multiple approaches to help you optimize your site speed by giving detailed insights of speed variations across different web pages. It uses multiple approaches to achieve the accurate results like A/B testing, split testing and multivariate testing.
Caching for quicker loading
Caching is a popular and effective way to speed up your site. It stores the static web page copies of your website which makes it much quicker for visitors to access the site. There isn’t any complex process required. All you have to do is to install the caching plugins like WP Super Cache and activate them in your WP dashboard. With just a few clicks you can easily boost WordPress site speed.
Tool to use
You can easily cache your website through these free but efficient tools:
- WP Rocket
- WP Super Cache
CDN for maintaining fast speed across different global regions
CDN is a powerful way to easily speed up your site without adding any extra dollars. This system includes a strategically distributed network of remote servers each one storing a copy of your WP site. These servers can instantly distribute those copies to global users based on their specific location and other criteria. To use the service, all you have to do is to install the Cloudflare plug-in and get started with a simple and quick process.
Tools to use
Here are 2 reliable CDN tools that are available for free:
- Optimole
- Jetpack site accelerator
Reduce the weight of media files
Media files consume a massive part of your disk space due to their heavyweight. One way to overcome it is to delete the images but that’s a less preferable route as a lack of graphics can severely impact the visual impression and branding of your site. Thankfully, there is an easy solution to this challenge. You can optimize the images to compress their megabytes without compromising on their magnificent appeal. For that, you can install image optimization plugins that automatically reduce the image weight without disturbing actual dimensions.
Take SEO seriously
While the backend factors like speed and consistency play the primary role in enhancing your site visibility, you need some more sophisticated ways to gain competitive advantages over other players in your field.
The quick results on SERPs that take a fraction of a second to appear, actually involve a complex science behind them. Some solid criteria determine the inclusion as well as the ranking of a site. In other words, an easy way to enhance your ranking is to optimize your site to these criteria which are technically termed as Search Engine Optimization- SEO in popular language. It ensures that your site satisfies maximum points of criteria that Google uses for determining a site’s relevance to a specific search query and its position on SERPs.
These criteria points keep on changing according to the different guidelines, trends, and new technologies. It could be too complex for a nontechnical user with limited time to understand all these concepts or the latest guidelines. So, you can use different SEO plugins to make things easier and more streamlined.
Here are a few SEO tools for WordPress sites that you can rely on:
- Google Analytics
- Ubersuggest
- MozBar
- SEOWorkers Analysis Tool
- Ahrefs
- SEMRush
Fortify your website against threat actors and malware
With better functionality and more flexibility, the large-scale WordPress also has a complex backend structure with more gateways for hackers. To encounter this heightened security risk you need to have solid security provisions in place.
Along with updating core WordPress you also need to update your themes and plugins regularly.
Start by creating a reliable automated alert system on the latest updates. Take prompt action and apply the latest updates as soon as they are available. Keep in mind that the latest updates are publicly announced along with the vulnerabilities in the previous versions which make smart hackers actively discover the sites that are still using outdated versions and exploit those vulnerabilities and attack the site.
For more advanced security you can consider using plugins like Sucuri which actively works to monitor the security, detect vulnerabilities and breaches and defend your site against malicious activities. Web Application Firewall is another solid plug-in to keep hackers at a bay.
Tools to use
Sucuri is no doubt the best tool for your site security. Besides, you can also trust BulletProof Security.
Create multiple backups of your entire site
How quickly your rebounce post-site-damaging incidents decide the business continuity potential of your site/blog. For that, you need to safeguard the important assets of your site- content, databases, and key files. Along with backing up your site you also need to have a reliable recovery option so that you don’t have to struggle for bringing your site back on track. It ensures agile recovery by saving you from additional time working on the recovery process.
WP Backup Plugins
There are various WP plugins for backing up your site and a few of them are fully reliable. One such plug-in is UpdraftPlus. Though available for free it is loaded with extended features to ensure complete and quick site recovery.
Along with backing up all the files of your site it also creates backups for the database
It is especially an asset for the heavy-duty sites loaded with product inventories, live forums, and other dynamic content that keeps on inflating and changing regularly. The WP sites with these elements need frequent backups during the day to ensure that in case of hacking or site damaging incidents they should have the most current data that saves them from the stressful process of rebuilding the complex site from the ground up.
Tools to use
Here are a few good backup plugins for WordPress sites
- Duplicator
- UpdraftPlus Backup and Restoration
- BackUpWordPress
Clean unnecessary data from databases
Along with gathering the crucial data the database also collects irrelevant or random information that doesn’t have any business value. Inflated databases are one of the major factors that make your site sluggish and annoy the visitors. Frequent database optimization trims the extra fluff and keeps your database in a good shape. By cutting down unnecessary data traffic it plays a vital role in speeding up your website loading time. The clean-up process however could be complex and time-consuming. Simplify it by using WP clean-up plugins that compress and automate the workflow.
Tools to use
Here are some quick tools that will automatically make your site lighter and offer it a lightning fast speed
- WP-Optimize
- Advanced Database Cleaner
- WP Clean Up Optimizer
- WP-DBManager
- WP-Sweep
Conclusion
WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world that powers at least 33% of the total websites. However, in order to gain the maximum potential out of your WordPress site, it is vital to take care of the technical stuff. Right from hosting to backups, updating and other maintenance, every single factor can have a direct effect on the user experience. So, the smart website owners don’t only limit themselves to the website design and marketing part but also pay attention to the technical well-being of their site.