Quick Ways To Improve A WordPress Website

You’ve already identified the need to improve your WordPress website, but something always seems to stand in the way. You are right – this task is neither simple nor quick.

And soon, you get stuck researching the internet only to find out that you need hours and hours of effort. An end-to-end revamp of the website may indeed take hours, but that is only if you don’t know how to do it.

Let us suggest some easy and quick fixups that can help you. 

Work On A Clean Dashboard

WordPress is a very robust platform, and it doesn’t take much to get lost among its features and functionalities. Therefore, make sure your dashboard is clean and don’t install any plugins you don’t need. Here are some suggestions:

  • Don’t get lazy with updates. There is an auto-update feature that keeps the core up to date, even if you are not.

  • The trackbacks and comments should either be published or deleted, no need to keep them around.

  • Uninstall the themes you are not using.

  • Update the themes you are using and focus on the WordPress visual editor.

  • Get rid of unnecessary plugins.

  • Update the plugins you are using (regularly).

It may help to keep the developer involved all the time, especially when it comes to custom plugins and themes. Instead of spending hours on improving these and changing the code of their respective extensions, ask the developer to build new plugins or child themes. Everything else is out of the question unless you have the necessary technical knowledge.

Here’s some bonus information: The dirtier the dashboard, the bigger the chance of a hacker attack.

Make Security A Priority

It is true – a website is never 100% secure. And yet, that’s no excuse for letting hackers access it easily.

security g2ae12151e 1280

WordPress websites are hacked very often, so don’t let this happen to your website. When it comes to these pesky attacks, prevention takes significantly less work than damage control. 

This is what we suggest for a safer, attack-prone website.

  • Secure information with an automated backup, so that no information is lost. 

  • Only create content using dummy admin users. In the best-case scenario, remove the original admin user and create a new one.

  • Only use strong passwords.

  • Use the security tools of your host, but also get a security plugin of your own.

  • Clean the hosting account of outdated WordPress installations. These are more vulnerable compared to their newer versions.

Of course, there are plenty more tips to add to this list but start small. Clean your current dashboard, and only rely on quality service providers to keep the site safe. 

Related:  Why Hire A .Net Development Company

Improve Speed

It is a fact – only a 1-second delay in the loading time of your site can cost you 7% fewer conversions. At the same time, the faster the site is, the more conversions you will get. 

In short, never get disengaged from improving the speed of your website:

  • First of all, you need a great host.

  • Use the speed tool Pingdom to check and monitor the speed. Everything less than 2 seconds is optimal. A speed of 5 to 7 seconds is also acceptable, but more than 7 seconds require immediate action. 

  • Why is speed affected? For starters, you may be using GAFs or large imagery. Both are disastrous to a website, so make sure you optimize them before you go live. This is another great feature of Pingdom – it identifies these issues and picks up on them. You can also consider WP Smush.

  • Make sure you have a caching plugin.

  • Use a CDN.

This will probably not be enough, but it is worth trying.

A Good Website Is Not A One-time Investment

Many website owners choose WordPress on the premises it is cheap, or even free to use. If you are a savvy business owner, however, you can’t expect WordPress to be as awesome as another prepaid platform and cover the features you skimped on. This is the only truth.

What we are trying to say is – you can (and should) invest small to make WordPress as functional as you need it. You will remain within budget, but the effects will be great.

Here are some tips on where to invest:

  • Get a dedicated hosting provider that can manage the WordPress site and deal with the shortcomings.

  • Buy better-looking themes.

  • Only install quality plugins from reputed sellers.

It is, indeed, as simple as that – you only get what you pay for. WordPress is no exception to this rule.  Both free themes and free hosting are good ways to launch a site from the ground, but the rest is on you.

Business websites need functions that are not available for free, and they also need to look at and perform more professionally. Security is another concern when it comes to free hosting. 

Learn And Apply SEO

Imagine how a Google robot works. It scraps and scrolls among millions of sites all the time. How can you make sure your website passes its performance criteria and get listed higher on the browser?

webfactory ltd MINfsRivuyg unsplash

For starters, you need to understand how these robots work. Their source of information is the information you provide, such as relevant and beautiful permalinks.

You can add these on your WordPress dashboard (Settings – Permalinks – Post name). Keep in mind that you can compromise SEO also by changing the links on your website.

If you need to do that, consult an expert in advance. For instance, the URL of all new posts you create automatically becomes the page title, and it needs to be changed manually.

Related:  10 Best LinkedIn Bots for Lead Generation in 2024

A good SEO trick to use here is to update it with relevant keywords. Last but not least, stay up to date with SEO rules.

They change all the time, and your strategies may become outdated without you even knowing it. The only core rule is to run a beautiful and useful website with quality content.

Speaking Of Content…

Never forget that WordPress was built around a CMS platform, and that remains its core value. It helps you share and manage content. 

It is (and never was) meant to ensure an online presence against the minimum effort. That is not how this platform works.

A good way to ‘deal’ with SEO is to hand over the heavy lifting to a marketing agency. It may cost more than you expected, but it will help you use the site how it was intended – to bring customers your way. 

Believe it or not, content is the main money maker.

This is what you can do:

  • Provide content that solves people’s problems.

  • Keep your goals clear at all times.

  • Start by planning your post with a heading and a list of notes, and work on it for as long as necessary.

  • All posts you’ve prepared in Microsoft Word should be checked in Notepad before you copy them to WordPress. This way, the formatting won’t be weird when you publish them. 

Your readers will appreciate the effort!

Conquer The Market

Now that your website is clean and fully optimized, it is time to get out there and show the world what you’ve got. If you followed our tips, it will be really easy to impress potential customers.

Next, you’ll need to compile a subscriber list. The larger this list is, the more people will hear about your work and trust what you do. 

WordPress allows you to capture email addresses in several different ways, such as:

  • Integration with Mailchimp.

     
  • Email capture forms for your customers.

  • A dedicated landing page where they can subscribe.

In the beginning, you’ll need to offer more than what you get. If the customer gives you their email address, give them some useful content in return. This can be an eBook, a guide, or even an email course. 

Remember – you haven’t won by leading the customer your way. You need to stay alert and improve their experience all the time so that they keep visiting your website.

Jonathon Spire

Jonathon Spire

Tech Blogger at Jonathon Spire

My diverse background started with my computer science degree, and later progressed to building laptops and accessories. And now, for the last 7 years, I have been a social media marketing specialist and business growth consultant.

Leave a Comment

Jonathon Spire

I blog about a range of tech topics.

For the last 7 years I have been a social media marketing specialist and business growth consultant, so I write about those the most.

Full transparency: I do review a lot of services and I try to do it as objectively as possible; I give honest feedback and only promote services I believe truly work (for which I may or may not receive a commission) – if you are a service owner and you think I have made a mistake then please let me know in the comments section.

– Jon