5 tips for having a successful WordPress blog
So, you have finally decided to start blogging. Yayyyyy! You are excited and pumped. The endless possibilities lie ahead. But…so does a quagmire of problems. You wonder instantly, where will I start? You do not know of anything at this stage, but that’s not a point worth scratching your head over. Everyone who went on to make hugely successful blogs, also did not have any idea, they started from scratch. The bloggers at a website designing firm were at loggerheads when they started out. They had to learn all the basics from trial and error. But that is what we are here for, so you don’t have to go through the same process all over again.
1. Perfect the basics
First things are always a first. Straight away, you need to choose a blogging platform that suits you. There are many out there but Google’s Blogger and Auttomatic’s WordPress remain the most popular yet. Blogger offers up a simple outlook to its site which is easy to use, plus it integrates directly with your Google account and AdSense account. Then move on to select a proper domain name, to get rid of the wordpress.com or blogger.com handles at the end of your site. Keep it unique, but try to make it appropriate for your blogging platform. These services themselves sell their domains so you do not need any third-party assistance. You also have hosting options as well, especially for WordPress, where you can buy a domain and pay regular fee for its usage.
2. Design your blog using a simple theme
In today’s world of technology, design matters to a great extent. Especially when you are dealing with the software side, the visuals can either attract or distract your potential followers. Make sure that you stay simple, since you want the focus to be on your words. Keep the colour scheme light with pastels and dark bold colours, just like every website design company do. Google has a whole repository of its modern Material Design library on their website, which includes colour palettes, design tutorials and info on integrating them into a responsive website.
3. Select the best plugins for your blog
Plugins are the absolute necessary after-market parts for your website blog. They give you the extra utility you would need. Using small social plugins like those for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram immediately gives the users the ability to share your content on social media. This enables even greater reachability to your audience. If you are onto selling stuff on your website, then use appropriate plugins which enable you to monetize things on your website. You can find a ton of exciting looking and extremely useful plugins either from WordPress or from the open source GitHub platform.
4. Select the best plugins for your blog
Plugins are the absolute necessary after-market parts for your website blog. They give you the extra utility you would need. Using small social plugins like those for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram immediately give the users the ability to share your content on social media. This enables even greater reachability to your audience. If you are onto selling stuff on your website, then use appropriate plugins which enable you to monetize things on your website. You can find a ton of exciting looking and extremely useful plugins either from WordPress or from the open source GitHub platform.
5. Make sure your site loads fast
Site speed depends on many factors. But if you have a reliable hosting solution the only things that would improve your load times are fully in your control. Consider using a caching plugin to serve static content to your visitors and be conscious about the size of the images your upload. Fortunately, plugins like ShortPixel can do a great job with optimizing and compressing your images without any loss in quality.
6. Managing subscribers and comments
Slowly but surely you are getting into the groove. You are starting to have a following and they are increasing by the day. Make sure to have a subscribe plugin on your main page so you can regularly get in touch with people through email newsletters. The next time a reader will visit your website is most likely through your newsletter they subscribed to. Managing comments is the other essential. Initially, you would want to answer and acknowledge as many comments as you possibly can. Gone are the days of being a passive observer, you need to be active to show your readers your human side. Plus, any feedback they have can be addressed immediately.
Keep sticking to these essential tips and tricks, and you will find that your blog will soar to new heights. Just make sure to keep your head high and work consistently, since blogging takes quite some time to develop an audience.
Junaid Ali Qureshi is a digital marketing specialist who has helped several businesses gain traffic, outperform the competition and generate profitable leads. His current ventures include Elephantation, eLabelz, Smart Leads.ae, Progos Tech and eCig.
