Welcome to WordPress.
Even if you’re not going into HTML or PHP to edit your site, there’s still a lot to do.
As a beginner, you may not know what is happening or what you need to do to make a good site.
But do not worry, this is a very basic outline of things you should do to give your site that extra boost.
1. Choosing the Right Hosting Provider
This can be pretty make or break or for site, before you’ve even had time to f*** it up.
Opt for a reliable service that offers excellent uptime, customer support, and scalability.
Many are optimised for WP, speedy and secure, so it’s a good place to start.
If you don’t really know what the right move is, Toast can fix you up with a reliable starting point, and even build your site for you.
2. Mastering the Dashboard
This is your control centre, make sure you get acquainted.
Learn the layout and menu options, including posts, pages, media, appearance and plugins.
The more you know, the easier it will be to manage your site.
3. Exploring Themes
Themes define how your site looks on the front end.
Choose one that’s responsive, fits your content and concept, and isn’t horrendous on mobile devices.
We have our own them at Toast, which works universally and gives our clients websites that they can be proud of.
4. Installing Essential Plugins
Plugins should always be included, in some capacity.
They basically make everything 100 times better.
Whether it’s content-based or functionality-based, it makes everyone’s lives so much easier.
As you become more familiar with WordPress, you’ll see which plugins fit your needs.
5. Crafting Compelling Content
Quality content is at the heart of any successful website.
Create posts that people actually want to read: keep people engaged!
Also, make sure to include multimedia elements like video and images.
6. Optimising for SEO
If you want your site to grow, set aside a chunk of time to take care of your SEO.
Or, get someone else to do it for you, but make sure it’s done well.
You could even use Searchworthy, an SEO-focused team of developers that will write blogs, improve meta titles and tags, and do all things SEO for your site!
7. Organising Content with Categories and Tags
Categories and tags help organise your content and make it easier for people to figure out what on earth is going on.
Give your posts relevant cats and tags to make everything easy-breezy.
If people can’t intuitively use your website, they’re not going to stick around for long on there.
8. Regular Updates and Backups
Keep it secure.
Remember to update themes, plugins, and general WP updates.
It’s also worth installing a backup solution to make sure your content is safe in case of errors or other issues.
Final Thoughts
Getting into WordPress is a really great thing.
It opens up creative opportunities and freedoms you may have not previously had.
As long as you maintain it well, and really look after it, there is no reason you shouldn’t be able to start things off with a bang.
And if you need the extra push, Toast has got you covered.
