The main idea behind WordPress is to provide a user-friendly web content management and website creation platform featuring all the necessary tools in one package. Being open source has resulted in one of the largest active community and development of endless plugins which are designed to answer any issues identified by users. WordPress is free to use and hence is the most widely used website Content Management System (CMS), powering over 60 million websites.
The success of a tool is only as effective as its implementation, and WordPress is no exception. While it does provide a powerful CMS with all the tools and technologies required for users, mismanagement can result in chaos and the website from even being blacklisted on search engines. To keep your website secure and well ranked among search engines, consider the following techniques:
Select Hosting Wisely
Organizing security protocols for protection against cyber-attacks becomes pointless if the hosting services themselves lack quality. While the WordPress sites may remain secure from their end, security breaches in hosts lead to 41 percent of them being compromised. Opt for account isolation in case of shared hosting as it eliminates chances of sites being hosted on the same server from affecting the WordPress site. For selecting the most suitable hosting services, opt for those who are dedicated to WordPress websites since their servers, malware detection technology and firewalls optimized according to their requirements.
Managing the Dashboard
In case the website is managed by multiple users, enabling tracking of dashboard activity assists in systematically logging all events occurring on-site. Since the users are involved in various capacities and perform tasks which are unique in their aspects, noting the behavior allows backtracking in case an error is encountered. This permits accurate identification of how the issue occurred, which in turn can be utilized for precision repairs.
Moreover, tracking can be used to correlate user action and responses generated as a result. This enhances on-site security and management since the user actions can be separately classified and their behavior noted to recognize website areas prone to fault and actions which caused them.
Enhance Titles and Descriptions
When promoting the website content on other social media platforms, the title and description are selected to accompany them, so the users have a brief overview of what is being presented. In case of search engines, the titles and descriptions are viewed by users to decide whether the resulting page is relevant to their query or not. Instead of prioritizing SEO, add helpful and relevant keywords in title and description for facilitating the users in their searches.
Images are More than Meets the Eye
A single image is capable of conveying many forms of content and is just as crawlable for search engine optimization. The image tags and related text fields can be fitted with keywords for both relevancy and SEO, which organizes your images according to their relevancy as well as increasing visibility on search engines. In case the image is inaccessible for any reason to the viewers, the alternate text tag describes the image which should have otherwise been present.
This might not come as a surprise, but search engine algorithms (especially Google) are sufficiently intelligent to identify images and can detect whether the subsequent keywords are matching or not. To avoid penalization, enter keywords which are associated with the images.
Enhance Searches in Media Library
Instead of creating multiple folders, opt for a single one for your Media Library and add all media in it. Instead of searching folders separately, the files can be found from a single folder through keywords. To generate a single folder for media management, disable “Organize my uploads into month- and year-based folders” option from Settings and Media.
Declutter the Sidebar
A majority of web developers clutter their sidebars with everything, ranging from advertisements and tweets to links and images. Instead of providing the visitors with the intended information which should be prioritized, it demotivates the user from further navigating the website and even results in site abandonment.
Enter only the most essential data in the sidebar to ensure the visitor can easily access the required information. This allows a seamless user experience and exposes emphasizing elements to the user. To declutter the sidebar, go to Appearance and Widgets and remove unnecessary widgets to allow only the essential ones on the sidebar.
Readable Permalinks
Applying SEO techniques on website content can be further enhanced by optimizing the permalinks from the permalink field. Instead of featuring vague descriptions in the permalink, choose short and concise keywords which can be easily picked by both search engines and provide high readability for viewers, e.g., website.com/-10-techniques-to-better-optimize-your-website-content-and-increase-traffic can be changed to website.com/10-traffic-boosting-seo-techniques. The new permalink can be easily understood by users and search engines and organizes your permalinks in an understandable form.
Streamline Plugins and Extensions
Streamline the usage of plugins and extensions on the WordPress website to enhance performance and security. Select plugins which can execute multiple tasks instead of those which are task specific. Not only does this decrease the overall site loading speed, but it also reduces chances of security breaches as there are fewer areas for hackers to attack from.
Site Backup
Arrange site backups to create restore points which can be used in case the site encounters any internal errors, or the security is compromised. In such scenarios, the backups can be accessed to revert the changes and return the site to a point which was saved previously.
On-Site Security Checks
Hackers are always on the lookout for any security loopholes in site core files, extensions, and plugins and are quick to capitalize on such opportunities. To prevent such incidents, install a security scanner for the WordPress website which analyzes it and checks whether all website elements are normal or not. This helps to identify whether the site experienced unwanted changes and the areas which have been affected for implementing repairs on them.
Organizing WordPress Website Effectively
WordPress offers excellent features for setting up a website, but the quality and long-term aspects depend on how it is managed. By integrating the aforementioned techniques in WordPress website management strategy, the site organization can be significantly improved for better administration, strengthening security and obtaining higher traffic.
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