5 Essential Tips to Optimize a WordPress Site

Use of WordPress platform increases with every passing year, as today, it empowers one-fourth of the entire web. The simple, efficient and wide variety of themes makes it a popular choice among entrepreneurs world over. In addition to being a dominant web solution, it still requires proper optimization to gain maximum visibility in the search engines. Here are 5 basic but essential optimization tips for your WordPress website, which will enhance your site’s performance in the search engines.

Pay Attention to the Website Hosting and Overall Speed Details

It is no brainer that every website requires a reliable web hosting provider to offer a smooth user experience. Different web hosting plans have different features and while selecting one, make sure to opt for a more advanced solution such as a Cloud or a dedicated hosting plan. Never compromise for a slow server, as website loading speed is a crucial element to the entire user experience.

For further enhancing your WordPress speed, try using an effective plugin for caching and optimizing your site images. You can also optimize your WP database and disable options such as trackbacks and pingbacks to increase its overall speed.

Select the Right Plugins

A number of free Plug-ins are available to enhance your site functionality without writing any code. However, not all Plug-ins maintain quality, since almost anyone can code a Plugin. Before selecting a Plug-in for a WordPress site, make sure to run it through the following list:

• Is the plug-in developed by a trustworthy developer?
• Is the troubleshooting guide available?
• Do you really require this plugin? Most of the plugins reduce website speed.
• Make sure to review all the plugins and deactivate those which aren’t required or replace with a better substitute.

Security

WordPress is notorious for getting hacked. In most cases, the user is to blame instead of the platform itself. Keeping a website out of date and using insecure plug-ins is a reason behind a lot of hacked WP sites. The plug-ins you install on your site must have a security guarantee by its developer. In short, fix all the WordPress issues, stay away from insecure plug-ins and run security backups and checks every month for avoiding security breaches.

Reduce Post Revisions and Spam

Post revisions, trackbacks, pingbacks and spam comments all contribute negatively to a site’s overall speed. So, delete all the post revisions and spam comments to free up your database. You can also use a plugin WP Optimize to have all the trash removed automatically.

Optimize for Search Engines

A well-optimized site performs extremely well in the search engines. To optimize your WordPress website, make sure to check the following list:

• Run Speed Test: Check your site’s speed using Google PageSpeed Insights  and fix all its issues.
• Opt for Search Engine Friendly URLs: Instead of using parameters or a standard permalinks structure, consider /%postname%/ or /%category%/%postname%/ to make your blog posts’ URL search engine friendly. This will also help the readers to remember a link.
• Check Images: Always check the image size and add relevant alt tags to all images. The addition of an alt tag helps the search engines to understand it better. Also, make sure if the visuals are optimized for Pinterest, a popular image sharing website.
• Optimize for Mobile Devices: Check your website’s responsiveness by running it through Google’s very own Mobile Friendly Test Tool.
• Check On-Page: Install an on-page SEO plugin for your website to optimize it further for search engines. Most popular on-page optimization plugins for WordPress include Yoast Plugin and All in One SEO
• Unique Content: Content is the backbone of any type of online marketing. Make sure your site contains only the most relevant, well-written and unique content that is optimized with proper keywords. Don’t over optimize keywords in your content and write it for your readers instead of the search engines.

If you have any more tips to share with us regarding WordPress optimization, feel free to comment below.

Author Bio:

Muneeza Shahid is a contributor at Medialinkers web design company. She loves writing on the Graphic design, WordPress and Digital marketing topics.