101 WORD PRESS TIPS

1) Install TTFTitles You want to start a WordPress blog, but you only have a limited amount of themes and there's a limit to how much you can change quickly and easily. But you can use what you already have text, and change the fonts in order to make the blog your own. 2) Use Drop Caps Drop Caps allows you to make your blog posts seem more like a news article. People are familiar with that format and feel more comfortable reading text that is formatted that way. The capitalized letters allow the user to instantly focus his attention at the beginning of a post. 3) Use Gravatar to encourage participation By using Gravatar you are helping yourself and encouraging user participation. If posters will have a distinct photo it makes them look more like individuals, and their posts will be easily recognized, and they'll get due credit on their insight. It will also help you discover the usage statistics visually. 4) Display your categories like a website Websites display their pages and categories in a horizontal line. There isn't any excuse to not doing this. It will give your blog a much more professional and orderly look, and it will allow you to vacate the already cluttered side bar for more important links. 5) Venture outside of Wordpress for themes Everyone and their mother uses the same themes that Wordpress offers. It gives a slapdhash and unprofessional feeling to your website. You need to venture to website where wordpress themes are offered for free or for a small sum. If you opt to use the regular ones, at least change the colors personalize it. 6) Use an anti-virus plugin By placing an anti-virus plugin you are ensuring that your posts and les won't get infected with a virus. If you get infected with a virus and people download it, you will receive a bad reputation and be agged as a harmful website by various programs and search engines. 7) Keep your readers informed on your future plans By keeping your readers informed you are asking them to give you advice and to be part of the website. They will be able to dictate to a certain extant the direction of the website. They will be able to ask for posts on certain days, or for certain posts. 8) Host a month long posting marathon You can increase user participation by stating that you are going to hold a month long writing marathon. Make sure to start during the rst day of a month, rather than just choosing 30/31 days. Your users will expect those posts and will participate more you can also take suggestions of posts. 9) Take care of your weekly routine You need to write and write a lot. Make sure you write the things that aren't timely, or that will still be timely a month later. You can post them in WordPress using a future posting date, which means it'll get posted a while after you wrote it, leaving you room to take care of immediate posts. 10) Use a plugin that mails you your posts & comments By mailing you your posts you are automatically creating a backup copy of it on a professionally kept server, which in itself backs up the material on it, without your intervention. That way you know that users' comments and your posts are safe, no matter what happens. 11) Add co-authors By adding co-authors you are allowing your blog to be populated at all times. That way you can avoid having big gaps, and your users can enjoy a different focus and viewpoint. If you're hesitant you can always proofread the posts. Plus you can get a co-author for free from your users. 12) Have a submission week every month - where your users can send you posts and you will choose one and post it to your blog, with the credit going to the user who wrote it. It will encourage users to provide you with good free content and to keep reading your blog. 13) Sign up to a service that keeps track of logins By keeping track of which people visited your website, from where they visited it, what link referred them to your website, and how much time they spent on each post, etc, you can direct your attention to improving the less visited posts, and you can reward a user that refers people to your blog on a constant basis. 14) Don't mix trackbacks and comments A trackback isn't important for the users. It helps you by advertising your blog and a certain post in it, and helps you spread the word about your blog, but your users don't care. They just want to comment on comments, not be bogged down with dozens of trackback links. 15) Use an accordion sidebar You need to place an emphasis on design and ease of use. Having all of the links available to a user isn't very helpful, especially if you have a lot of links. Bundle links under certain descriptive categories, which the user will click on for those links. 16) Add tabs to your website like Twitter Tabs are an easy and recognizable method for people to surf your website. They will be able to easily reach certain locations, without having to reload the page. Use tabs for the more important and often updating things such as user comments, or for popular or recent posts. 17) Use a plugin to reduce the amount of comments per page When new users see a long list of comments and comments on comments, they get a headache and opt to not participate. You can avoid the clutter instead of loading all those comments, place a small amount of them with the original post it keeps the focus on the post itself. 18) Allow a hierarchy of posts By allowing for people to comment on other people's comments, you are encouraging discussion. By using a hierarchy of posts you are allowing people to quickly distinguish between a discussion and a comment about the original post, and users get to pick and choose what to read. 19) Use the Simple Pull Quote plugin The Simple Pull Quote is another way for you to both attract people to your posts, and to allow you to maintain a uidity in your posts. It allows you to post quotes in a noticeable newspaper way, and gives your blog a much more professional look that way. 20) Allow people to resize your posts Some web browsers already offer that feature to users, but some don't. Plus the web browsers that offer that feature sometimes hide it or make it hard to use. You can cut the middleman and allow people to resize the font size, making your posts accessible to people with eye problems. 21) Allow your users to become moderators You can use the "voice of the masses" to your advantage. If you opt to publish anything that reaches your blog, in order to allow a timely discussion, you might let trolls and spam in. You're not monitoring your blog 24/7, but your users are they can ag posts or bury them. 22) Add a spell-checker plugin By adding a plugin that checks your spelling you can easily write for a different crowd, or you can maintain a level of professionalism. By writing for a different crowd I mean English speakers from different parts of the world, who have different spelling. You can also address people that speak a language you're a beginner in. 23) Place an image captcha on posting By using an image captcha you are sifting the bots and spam that usually arrives with a popular blog or website. An image capthca isn't like a textual captcha it shows a picture of something like a dog, and the user needs to write what it is. Using OCR to decipher it is almost impossible. 24) Use colors to highlight portions of text It might sound simple, but by using colors to highlight certain portions of your text you allow for greater readability. They especially help if you post code examples or script examples. It allows your users to quickly read and understand them, and to keep track of who says what and why. 25) Add social networks links By adding a plugin that adds a preprepared link to social networks in all of your posts, users can recommend them and share them more easily. It also takes care of the hassle of posting links in social websites, and eliminates any excuses people might have. It is also a subtle hint for your users to share and support your blog. 26) If timely posts are important, change the visibility of the date & time stamp There are various plugins that you can download that will help you stylize and customize the "published on" date and time stamps. You can also increase or decrease them. This helps users to discover which posts are new or old, and it helps them nd posts in dates relevant to them. 27) If you have several recurring posts, stylize them If you offer recurring "segments" where you teach people things, or you comment on a certain thing, you can make them more attractive and visible by using a plugin that will allow you to stylize individual posts. It will reduce the amount of time users take to nd that advice. 28) Use a plugin to search for duplicate content You need to make sure your website or blog isn't cluttered with double posts and double comments. By having double posts you are separating the discussion regarding the contents of those posts, and you are separating the amount of exposure you'll get, since people link to two blog posts instead of one. 29) Use a plugin that detects ad blockers Part of making an income is by posting ads on your website. They are what help you to keep writing, and to keep maintaining the website. You can use a plugin that detects when your ads are being blocked, and you can post a message to the blocking user, asking him or her to refrain from doing that. 30) Reward user participation by giving extra access You can track who responds the most and recommends your blog or website the most, and you can send them previews, give them access to private content, or allow them to monitor comments. When other users will get wind of that they will be encouraged to participate more. 31) Attach your photo to every post It might seem narcissistic or too much, but if it's a simple photo of your head, and if it's small enough to not be an annoyance, you can use that to give your posts a more personal feel. It is much more important in website where there are several writers. 32) If you are in a website that has several contributors, use a bio line If you are one writer out of several in a certain website, you can use a bio line that you publish at the end of your posts. It needs to be separated from them and short, and it will help make you distinguishable from the others, and it will advertise your other works. 33) If you are one of several writers, advertise your other posts You can use a plugin in WordPress that shows people the most recent or most commented on posts that you wrote. It allows you to further advertise yourself if people like a post you wrote, they'll search for others, and this is a quick and easy way to help them. 34) Allow your users to share more information about themselves You can use various plugins that allow you to either keep track of your users and their personalities and habits, or that allow them to write those themselves. It allows them to be much more recognizable and allows for a more social-website type interaction, which encourages participation. 35) Allow your users to post private posts You can use plugins or add certain users to a higher user group, which will allow them to post responses and talk to you privately. It allows them to feel more free to share and gives them the sense that you pay attention to what they say that you care. 36) Add an RSS feed for your posts, and maybe for your categories You can allow users to easily track the things you write, to get noticed when you post something new, by adding an RSS feed for your posts. You can also add RSS feeds for the comments of your entire blog, or for specic posts, or for specic categories users can get notices when content they care about gets posted. 37) Use the Youtube method for creator comments By commenting on your posts people want to receive YOUR input and responses. In order to make it clear to them when the creator responds to them, you need to make your posts distinguishable from the others an easy way to do that is by changing their color. 38) Install an anti-spam plugin If your blog has a lot of spam in it, probably due to having a day job and not putting comments via an authorization method, it looks like you abandoned it like you're slacking off and you don't care. It will drive users away very quickly. 39) Add a submission form to your blog It might sound weird, but submission forms are a way for your users to interact on a greater level. They will be able to easily give you feedback, tell you of problems they found on the blog, and give you suggestions and requests, which you will write about. 40) Add a recommendation box A blog is a spur of the moment thing. You can communicate using it by simply writing a short post and posting it from your cellphone or from a computer. But it's also a "thought" piece. People need to know if you wrote other posts that are similar to the one they like. 41) Don't just add an RSS feed. Track it. There are various plugins that help you with tracking how many RSS subscribers you have. That way you will know if people just miss the RSS link, or if the content on your blog isn't good enough to track. You can encourage RSS tracking by simply placing a button on each of the posts. 42) Are you automatically uploading pictures? If you upload a lot of pictures taken from your cellphone to your blog automatically, you need to spruce them up. You can download various plugins that make a picture look better without compromising much. You can also have plugins that resize or crop your photos automatically before posting them. 43) Use images to make your text attractive This is 2010. You can nowadays add videos and pictures to your posts. As long as you avoid the "moving" pictures which are repetitive, you'll be okay. Even if it's a crude camera phone photo or a screenshot of something, it breaks up the text and makes it attractive at the same time. 44) Increase your exposure by using XML XML is similar to RSS but it is aimed more at search engines. If search engines have a hard time nding certain posts and places on your website, they won't show up on search engines, which essentially blocks a portion of potential readers. Install an XML site mapping plugin to avoid that. 45) Want to customize your blog? Write some code! It's a bit of a hassle, but if you are procient enough in a certain web based/aimed programming language such as PHP or ASP, you can write codes and execute them using a plugin, which will make your blog more unique. You can also get free codes you just need to tweak them a bit. 46) Automate the embedding process You can embed content from a lot of different websites in your blog and posts, but each website has a code of its own, which is sometimes hard to customize. You can download various plugins that will help you with automating the customization process of embedded material. 47) Add a built-in player If you release audio clips or if you use software to make your posts accessible to the disabled, you can add a built-in media player to your blog. It doesn't take a lot of space and it allows people to listen to your audio clips from almost any computer. 48) Allow users to respond to other users There are various ways in which you can increase conversation and take care of the mess that is uniform responses responses that all look the same. You can choose between various plugins which add some way for you to know who is responding to whom a la Twitter. 49) Allow users to register to get updates Some users don't understand RSS or don't want to use it. They prefer to have alerts regarding updates sent to their e-mail address or to their cellphone number. You can add a plugin that automates the process. Also don't forget to allow them to easily unsubscribe. 50) Encourage co-writers to write by giving them AdSense revenue You can give them a portion of it or give them occasional bonuses that arrive from the AdSense revenue, or you can use a plugin that separates and keeps track of which writer did how much AdSense-wise. It is another way to test how good or bad your co-writers are. 51) Use a plugin that checks if your website was linked to on social media You might not want to add the big bulk of buttons that encourage people to "digg" or recommend a website using social media websites. You can instead use a plugin that searches for existing recommendations and links to them, so that people will be encouraged to join the bandwagon. 52) Use Digg and other social websites as testimonials Why should people read your blog? People want good to excellent content. Why should they spend their time on your blog? Well, you can show them why be adding a widget that showcases your most talked about/dug posts. They will serve as both a pointer to quality content, and as a testimonial for your entire blog. 53) Write in one, write in all You can use various plugins that will synchronize or that will post something you wrote either in your blog, in a website, in a social media website, etc, on your blog or on the social media website you're on. This will allow for legitimate cross promotion and it will save you time. 54) Add your Twitter feed to your website You aren't always available on your blog it takes too much time administrating (deleting spam and harmful comments, writing and editing material, etc). One way for you to provide constant content on your blog is to showcase your Twitter feed it will ll in the days without updates or new comments. 55) Use a plugin to post links to your latest posts on various websites You can use a plugin that will allow you to publish an enticing text with a link to the latest post you published, in various websites. There are dozens of websites, and it will allow you to reach almost every type of internet user. Why force people to track an RSS feed when they can track their favorite website? 56) Allow users to e-mail and download your article easily Sometimes you need to let that trafc go. If people like something and they want to share it, you need to allow them to do so easily otherwise they might give up. Allow users to print, e-mail and download your article (in various formats) easily. You're investing in future trafc. 57) Do you use social websites? Allow your users to do the same If you already have a plugin that allows users to submit your articles to various websites and social websites, and if you already have a plugin through which you can submit your articles yourself, you also need to allow users to vote on already submitted articles without leaving your blog. 58) Track what people say about your blog People rarely comment on the quality of your blog "to your face". They usually post those reviews and comments on their own blogs and social media websites they rarely venture outside of those comfort zones. Use a plugin to keep track of those posts and reviews you will be able to perform a quasi-survey that way. 59) Interact with your readers on a more personal basis In order to attract new readers and to sustain and enhance the connection with your current readers, you need to interact with them on a more 1 on 1 basis. You can use plugins which turn WordPress to a social media website you'll be able to send private messages and friend people. 60) Keep people on your website supply what they need You can and should use certain themes and plugins which basically supply all of your readers' needs. You can be both MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon and a website - all in one. And the best thing about it is that it will create a tight-knit community, and allow users to create content. 61) Use WordPress' URL shortening service Shortened URLs are used by a lot of bots and spammers to make people enter websites they don't want to enter, so using shortened URLs sounds bad. But the new WordPress service takes care of spammers and allows you to get targeted trafc, while saving precious space. 62) Avoid bulky page management install a plugin Too confused and hassled by how WordPress allows you to manage your pages? You can install a plugin that will allow you to reorganize pages quickly and easily, using various categories or either via a WYSIWYG editor. It will allow you to move old "timely" posts to the front page. 63) Add a drop down menu to your admin area Managing your website is tough especially when you have a lot of users and a lot of different blogs, websites, and social media websites' accounts. WordPress' user interface isn't "bulk" friendly. A drop down menu will allow you to edit a lot of article quickly and without much hassle. 64) Add a user login to your website If you'll add a login interface to some pages in your website it will intrigue your users, and it will allow you to provide privileges to other users usually ones that advertise your blog plenty of times. There's nothing like a "Do Not Enter" sign to get people interested. 65) If you post a lot of videos on your blog, use a good theme If most of what you do with your blog consists of posting videos and commenting on them, instead of embedding them every time, you can install an interface/theme that will make your blog look like a video website, or a video rental website, making it more attractive and easier to use. 66) Use a theme that is content-specic Do you nd yourself doing the same thing over and over again? Are you posting or commenting on the same type of content all the time? Do you want to target the appeal of your blog? you can do that by using a theme that makes your blog look like it either a video website, news website, etc. 67) Do you want readers from a specic location? Use widgets & plugins If you are interested in readers from a specic physical location either a country or region, etc, you can use widgets and plugins that are tailor made for them. Things like a weather forecast widget for that specic physical location, new movies to see widget, event calender widget, etc. 68) Want to attract people to your articles? Use a magazine theme By using the tested theme of a magazine you are providing people with a strong and attractive title, an excerpt or summary of the article, and a big, crisp and attractive image that is related to it. It gives readers enough data to decide if they want to read your posts or not. 69) Want to merge your blog and your website? Now you can! Why get stuck with the hassle of taking care of two websites? You can just merge them and enjoy the best of both worlds. You can use a theme that showcases your bio and your companys' bio at the top, with eye grabbing photos, but users will still be able to comment on articles and interact with each other. 70) Want to grab people's attention? Use a news interface A news interface or theme allows you to showcase the beginning of an article and a small photo next to it. It is ideal for showcasing a lot of short articles per page, and for grabbing a user's attention. Deliver the users all the data that they need it's a fast world nowadays. 71) Someone is riding your wave? Use API to take care of it Some people use trackbacks in order to comment on a blog post it allows them to leave their content on their own blogs, and it allows them the freedom to control it. But they sometimes do it in order to get free referrals use Akismet or other programs together with WordPress' API to x that. 72) Make links understandable Avoid numeric URLs as much as you can. They tell the reader nothing. A descriptive URL can become a hassle length-wise, but if you keep it concise, it shouldn't be a problem. It will also allow search engines to give you a much more tting placement in results. 73) Stay ahead of the crowd Do you want to make your blog shine? Do you want to make your blog unique and attractive? Than you need to keep track of updates and new abilities, and use them to your best advantage. That way you will never get stale, and it will show users your blog is very active. 74) Exchange links with related blogs Check to see which users comment a lot, and if they have a blog. Also keep track on who trackbacks a lot to your blog, and if they provide good attractive content with those trackbacks. Ask them if they want to exchange links that way you'll achieve targeted advertising. 75) Submit your blog to search engines Don't wait for search engines to nd your website. It might take too much time. Submit them as long as you have decent content and you're not just trying to get trafc revenue by doing nothing, you will probably get included. There are a lot of search engines so they keep trying to be more extensive than the others. 76) Add basic website pages It might seem weird on a blogging system, but you need to add the famous website-specic pages. You're not the only content provider on the internet far from it. So you need to entice people make an FAQ page, an About page, a Contact page and a Help page. 77) Text? That's so last century Even with today's technologies and customization abilities, and the ability to embed almost anything, you're still blocked by one big hindrance text. You need to make your website available as an audio as well there are plenty of plugins that do that, or you can narrate your articles yourself. 78) Assist people with bad eyesight You don't want to alienate a certain portion of your readership or potential readership. There are a lot of people with eyesight problems all over the world. You can help them by installing a plugin that reads to them what they wrote as they write it. E.g. FlameReader. 79) Keep your site up-to-date even the comments You want to attract people to your newer timely blog posts you want to center the attention and the discussion to that place. One way of doing that is by disabling the ability to comment on old posts. Sometimes a post achieved all it could achieve comment-wise, and it's time to let go. 80) Don't overdue it You want targeted trafc not all of the trafc. Targeted trafc will stay longer and will be more benecial in the long run. If you post on various subjects, separate them into several blogs based on categories. Also never mix two languages unless you're teaching them using your blog. 81) Focus everything in your admin area You can use several plugins which allow you to administrate your blog from the admin area. Keeping it centralized helps clear the clutter and keeps things organized. You will be able to respond to all the comments from the admin area, instead of visiting each and every post and commenting there. 82) Use shortcuts and macros to automate things You can use macros prerecorded actions, and keyboard shortcuts in order to shorten the time it takes you to perform a certain action. Some things require attention, but not YOUR attention. Why spend time on the mundane day to day actions such as advertising posts and adding permalinks when you can do it automatically? 83) Mass edit Instead of editing posts individually you can mass edit your articles from within WordPress. You can also use macros for that. Do you want to change publication dates? Tags? Well, now you can. It will help you make the site dynamic and timely, and increase the potential of each and every post. 84) Use desktop blogging clients Desktop blogging clients come in various shapes and forms. Some are online, some for the desktop and some for a mobile phone. They offer you various interfaces and the ability to blog quickly without having to load up the blog. It will save you time and help you be the rst to blog about breaking news. 85) Have a terms of service page. Set the tone You want to attract a certain type of person to your blog, and you want the others to stay away. If you'll start censoring people based on what they feel is a whim, you will get a bad reputation. You need to have clear do-s and don't-s. 86) Add content. Don't just cover content. Websites that repost things or that just cover certain content are a dime a dozen. You don't want to just be another one in a pack invisible. You want people to be drawn to your website, even when you don't update. You need to create exclusive content like games, quizzes, etc. 87) Have a weekly or monthly summary Some people don't nd the time to read blogs until the weekend. You need to cater to those people you also need to cater to the people who aren't interested in reading a long post. Summarize your blog posts or the events you talked about at the end of the week or month. 88) Shorten your actual URLs Sometimes WordPress in order to be descriptive gives blog posts long URLs that resemble a le's location in a directory that is in a directory, and so on. You can use plugins that will shorten your URLs and make them more memorable making them easier to share or to go back to. 89) Don't rely on WordPress edit your meta-data tags Your meta-data tags are a descriptive way in which you can attract certain users and readers. But meta-data is generated automatically or not at all. Search engine bots will see that information you need to optimize it in order to achieve targeted trafc. You can do that by editing code or by using a plugin. 90) Organize your blog, so that a web crawler will scan it more easily You want to get as much trafc as possible preferably targeted trafc. To do that you need to take care of the clutter in your website, you need to organize posts by categories, you need to link posts that talk about similar subject together. "Pave" the way for the web crawler. 91) Give as little information about your system as possible By leaving standard information in your blog and in the WordPress code, you are leaving an easy opening for an attack. People search for certain strings and once they nd them, they search for certain holes and exploits. They are relentless in their attempts to harm blogs and websites. Don't give them that pleasure. 92) Protect your website You want to keep some data secure you want to be the only one that can see it, or you want only you and a certain select few to be able to view it. To avoid content leaks or exploitation you need to lock down certain folders change their properties. 93) Keep your privileged members area condential You need to keep the content you keep in your privileged-members-only area condential. You don't want regular users nding it just because you forgot to add a small text le to your blog the robots.txt le. There you need to specify to every web crawler what NOT to read/search. 94) Use thumbnails instead of full pictures Do you take pictures and when you post them in your blog you resize them? Why? Do you know that the entire high-resolution picture is loaded? If you're going to resize your photos, why not do it before uploading them to your blog? The readers will have less to download, making your website download faster. 95) Avoid HTML, BBCode and other scripting languages in your comments If you're trying to have a certain look or design in your blog, or even if you want to avoid security holes, you need to disable scripting languages in the comments as much as possible. It will also prevent people from abusing your blog for self promotion and attention. 96) Create a mobile version for your blog Nowadays when people are always on the go they want to have the ability to read your blog in small chunks, whenever and wherever. You need to accommodate that need think about using a software to automatically create a WAP website for mobile phones. Maybe just a bare bones one. 97) If you're using adverts, don't place them between the comments For advertising people that placement might seem ideal it sometimes looks like a real comment, it can't be avoided, it is in a location that people often read, etc. But those traits are the same ones that will drive people far away from your blog. Avoid obtrusive advertising. 98) Customize your error pages When users encounter an error you don't want to present them with a generic text especially if it's very long and lled with tech-speak. Customize your error pages with friendly "Don't Panic" style messages, with links that point to additional help either FAQs or e-mail addresses. 99) Protect your data against direct linking By directly linking to photos and other content that you created, people can use them without having to host or create them. That way you are left with the burden of trafc from people that never reach your website. People basically hijack your attractive features and steal the attention you deserve. 100) Use your RSS feed Don't just let your software automatically generate your RSS feed. Use it to give people updates and recommendations regarding other blog posts you have things you won't be able to post in your regular blog, because they would clog it up. Use your space wisely. 101) Make sure you have the most up to date version of Word Press Word Press is constantly upgrading and improving. Make sure you keep your version up to date so you can take advantage of ALL features offered.

Word Press Statistics

NEW WordPress Blogs created in 2009:

372,519
WordPress Blogs written in English:

66%
An average # of new posts everyday:

200,000
# of Comments posted on WordPress blogs everyday:

300,000
Total # of WordPress publishers:

18 million
# of people reading WordPress Blogs:

220 Million
Of the top 100 blogs how many are run by WordPress?

32
The most popular topic on WordPress Blogs:

News
# of Flickr Embeds Everyday:

20,000
# of Youtube Embeds Everyday:

30,000
#1 Searched Blogging Platform on Google:

WordPress