Making Your WordPress Site the Best it Can Be

When it comes to building a website, WordPress is one of the best tools available. With it you don’t have to worry about hiring someone to design your website or learning how to code yourself. Instead, you can quickly set up a great looking website in just a matter of minutes. But for many, a basic looking WordPress site isn’t enough. They want to take it to another level and provide an amazing experience to their visitors. If this is you, here are a few things you can do to make your WordPress site the best it can be.

Choose a Good Hosting Provider

One of the first things you should consider is where you’re hosting your WordPress site. You need to think about this before you do anything else and it’s one of the most important decisions you’ll make. The right WordPress hosting provider will not only ensure that your website remains safe, but your site will run faster.

You’ll also want to find WordPress hosting plans that fit your budget, as there are a wide range of options. Take some time to explore what’s out there, then choose something that is easy to use, fast, secure and affordable. This will get your WordPress site off on the right foot.

Picking the Right Theme

Your next major decision is the theme you’ll use on your WordPress site. Themes make it easy to design your site – you just pick a template that you like, download it, then activate it. You may have to do some minor tweaking after that, but the majority of the hard work is done.

There are a ton of themes out there, so you may have a hard time picking one for your site. The first thing you’ll want to consider is the layout of the homepage. Do you want a page that focuses around a large image? Or one that promotes your latest blog posts? How about one that looks designed for a business, or one for a personal blog?

Once you’ve found a good style of theme, then focus on the colors. Sometimes you can change these, but if you can find one with colors you like already, your job will be a little easier. Finally, choose a theme that’s up to date. You want one that’s mobile friendly and has been updated recently. Luckily, WordPress displays this information on the download page, along with helpful user ratings.

Essential Plugins to Get

After your theme, the next thing you’ll want to focus on is the plugins you use. Plugins can add a ton of features to your WordPress site – features that don’t come with the basic installation. To get the most out of your WordPress site, there are a few essential types of plugins you’ll want to get.

To start, add some security plugins. The last thing you want is someone with ill intentions accessing your site and changing things around or stealing your information. A good security plugin will let you know when bad actors are trying to hack into your site, among other security features.

After that, get some plugins to optimize your site. A plugin like Yoast can optimize your site for search engines, but you should also get a plugin to optimize your images. Large images can slow a website down, so to provide the best experience to your visitors you need to optimize them.

Next, get a plugin that will allow you to create better forms and tables. If you plan on having sections on your site for people to contact you, or join your newsletter, a good form plugin is a must. Besides that, if you want to display information in a more pleasing way, a good tables plugin will do the trick.

Finally, download a social media plugin. Find a plugin that will not only allow you to automatically share your new content to your social channels but will make it easy for visitors to do the same. Social media is a powerful marketing tool, so a good social media plugin is a must-have for any WordPress site.

Improving Your WordPress Site

Don’t settle for the WordPress site that comes straight out of the box. By spending a little bit of time, you can make your WordPress site the best it can be using the tips above. It’s just a matter of doing small things like finding the right theme, choosing a good hosting provider, and installing some essential plugins. Once you’ve done it, you’ll truly realize what a great tool WordPress is and wonder why people choose to develop websites any other way.