As of 2020, a staggering 455 million websites use WordPress to establish their online presence. However, having a website on WordPress doesn’t mean you have it all cut out for you. It takes a lot of effort and commitment for your website to actually become a hit, especially for business websites.
With over 50,000 plugins, WordPress beginners might find the platform a tad daunting. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a WordPress connoisseur to have a performing business website. All you need to know are a couple of WordPress tips and tricks and creating an effective business website will be a breeze.
One reason why WordPress is so popular is that it attracts both amateur and professional webmasters. However, even the most seasoned pros might have a hard time getting around WordPress. The good news is that you don’t need to know so much to get the ball rolling.
In this post, we’ll be highlighting some amazing WordPress strategies to help you make a killer WordPress business website.
1. Simplicity Is the Way to Go
The best way to approach WordPress, especially as a beginner, is slow and steady. It’s never a good idea to start with complex features even though you want a mind-blowing website. The proper way is to have the basics on lock before moving on to the more advanced features.
What’s more, a simple website has better loading speeds, which is another reason why keeping it simple works in your favor. That said, make sure you first have the themes and essential plugins down pat. Only then should you move on to the more complex WordPress features.
2. Invest in the Right Theme
Your WordPress theme is the backbone of your website. As such, you should be very keen on the theme you choose for your business website. Make sure you select a theme that reflects your company image and resonates with your target audience.
If you’re new to WordPress, avoid themes that are too outlandish and complex. Complex themes make the website design process much more complicated, plus they also hurt your site’s loading speed. Also, pick a theme that can allow you to make changes and improvements to your site without much of a hassle.
If you need a little help with picking a theme for your site you can hire a web designer to do your bidding. However, hiring one isn’t necessary if you know your way around the platform.
3. Don’t Forget the SSL Certificate
Once you’ve finished setting up your shiny new website, the next thing you should get is an SSL certificate. SSL or Secure Sockets Layer is a layer of code that encrypts data between the webpages and the browser. This layer protects sensitive data that’s transmitted to and from your website.
This sensitive information includes stuff like your users’ login credentials, addresses, and other personal information. If you want to have a trusted site, make sure you get an SSL certificate. What’s more, having an SSL certificate is an easy way to boost your SEO to draw even more traffic to your site.
4. Optimize Your Site’s Loading Speed
Did you know that 53% of mobile users leave a web page if it takes more than three seconds to load? That’s right, it takes only three seconds to lose more than half of your valued site visitors and customers, by extension. Next time, you want to overlook site speed optimization, you should keep this tiny fact in mind.
There are plenty of ways you can optimize your site’s loading speed. Here are some of the best ways to do so:
- Pick a simple theme and site design
- Improve your server response time
- Optimize graphics and images for your site (compress your images)
- Take advantage of browser caching
These are some of the many steps you can take to improve your site’s loading speed. There are plenty of other ways to do the same. It’s all on you to pick the most practical methods to optimize your site’s loading speed.
5. Schedule Regular Backups
Although it sounds like a no-brainer, you’d be surprised how many webmasters fail to back up their website regularly. Doing regular backups is the most foolproof way to protect against malware or sporadic hardware failure. Remember, a single malware infection can run down your entire website.
As such, you should do your best to back up your website as often as possible. You can set a reminder to help you schedule your backups appropriately. Alternatively, you can hire a WordPress maintenance service for the same and much more.
6. Remove Obsolete Plugins
Sometimes obsolete plugins may work to the detriment of your site. As such, make a point of deleting obsolete plugins whenever you can. Some of these inactive plugins may also compromise your site’s security.
To be on the safe side, remove all inactive plugins. Doing so also does wonders for your site’s loading speeds.
7. Create Seamless Permalinks
Permalinks or permanent links are permanent URLs on your website that redirect to blog posts or pages on your site. Permalinks also allow other websites and blog posts to link to your site, to attract even more visitors. With that in mind, after finding the right theme for your site, the next thing to do is to create clean permalinks.
On your WordPress editing page, you should see a box in the upper section. This is where you can input all your permalinks to various pages on your site. Make sure you keep the permalinks lean and simple for the greatest effect and user-friendliness.
What’s more, clean and simple permalinks are far less suspicious than long complicated ones. Web-users mostly relate long permalinks with jumbled characters to scam sites. If you don’t want to make the wrong impression, keep it short and simple.
WordPress Tips and Tricks in a Nutshell
The above WordPress tips and tricks should be sufficient to get your business website off on the right foot. Always try to make improvements to your website and switch things up once in a while. Remember, you can always seek professional help should the need arise.
Business websites aren’t our only area of expertise. For more informative reads on various business matters, check out the other pieces on the site.
