6 WordPress Hosting Tips for Beginners
WordPress first started as a blogging tool but overtime has evolved into a website builder with tons of benefits and perks for the users. It also serves its part as a robust content management system (CMS). What makes WordPress special is the fact that it is flexible enough to make websites of various types.
Flexibility being one of the main reasons why WordPress became so popular in the first place. Statistics reveal that there are over 455 million websites that operate via WordPress. However, it becomes a little difficult to take full advantage of WordPress as a beginner. Using WordPress in the right way can help people make their websites look professional, efficient, and consistent.
Sorting out WordPress for your sites can be a big problem for beginners considering that a lot of them do not have an idea of all the options that WordPress has to offer. That still doesn’t mean that beginners cannot enjoy the full features of the application. Therefore, we have compiled a few WordPress hosting tips for beginners, which can help them enhance their website management and setup.
WordPress Hosting Tips for Beginners
Following are the top WordPress hosting tips for beginners that can help them improve the efficiency of their sites.
Register a Domain Name
If you are thinking of blogging professionally for your site, then it is going to turn out great for you. However, website owners must think for the long term and register their business under a proper name. Blog owners can attach the official domain name to their blog site and make it part of their brand.
You want to get a domain name that is going to fit your style of website. For example, if your name is Jane and you want to talk about clothes then “janetalksclothes.com” would probably be beneficial for you. This establishes who you are and what you’re doing at this website.
In addition to this, the domain names will help you with your SEO and site ranking too. You can usually buy a domain for around $20 or sometimes less unless you are looking for a mainstream domain name. Users need to pay up a premium or bid for the name online.
Nowadays, there are various types of domain extensions out there to help diversify the market. Allowing you to tailor your domain to your topic choice. This allows people to recognize your domain name worldwide. However, website owners can always go for a regional website domain name like “.co.uk”
Start with a Hosting Service
Although WordPress offers professional hosting, we suggest getting personal hosting. A common mistake that most new beginners make is that they let WordPress host their websites, and while that seems like a good idea, it isn’t the best long-term solution.
This is because your business can feel a little restricted as compared to exclusive hosting. There are several things like hosting affiliate links and partnerships that WordPress doesn’t let users do.
There is no other way to get out of this, rather than installing your site on an external server after redirecting. Understanding this little thing as a beginner can help you save on hours of hassle and issues. Most of the sites that offer WordPress hosting, do this at competitive prices. So, there is no point in spending so much on simple WordPress hosting.
Instead, users can achieve better results with exclusive hosting. Or, you can always go for a comparative analysis of the market prices and choose one that suits you the best.
Do not Compromise on Service Quality
Most of the new people on WordPress think that they need to stick to the template that WordPress offers them. The initial impression is that websites are supposed to make changes to the template and personalize it as much as they can.
However, that is far from the truth, considering that WordPress provides the most flexible solutions to individuals.
Keep in mind that changing your site’s look involves installing new themes. Now, we know what you are wondering, you can get free themes, right? While that is a good idea, it is best to invest in your website a little. You should go for a premium paid theme and make a small investment for your site. You can then download the new theme as a zip file and upload it to the WordPress dashboard.
Always keep in mind that you need to upload in the same format as WordPress. This is where the paid themes come in handy because they come with support and solutions in case something goes wrong with their theme.
Maintain Balance
A common mistake that most new bloggers make on their WordPress sites is getting too excited. For instance, new bloggers may see the widget options. These widgets can run along with your content and help you optimize it while you write it. Unfortunately, many bloggers go overboard with these widgets, to an extent that it becomes nearly impossible to view the site.
This not only stuffs up your blog page but also impacts its speed and optimization. Imagine your audience coming to the blog page and waiting extensively for hours only because your site takes forever to load. So, it is best to avoid such situations and stay cautious while using widgets and other helpful tools.
These tools help optimize websites, but they can become counterproductive if you overdo it. The best way to handle this is to do a need analysis and see what tools and widgets you need all the time. You should keep the most important ones only if you wish to make your site efficient.
Ensure adding Plugs-ins
Most beginners overlook the plug sections thinking they do not either need them, or the plug-ins are too complex to use. However, it takes time to realize how essential the plug-ins are on the site, especially when it comes to optimizing the site experience.
You are probably wondering which plug-in you should go for. Well, it depends on how your website facilitates the users.
For instance, PI is a great plug-in on your blogging site. It allows users to share your blog content via their social media accounts. This allows the traffic to share your content and reel in more potential leads. Similarly, it allows website owners to monitor their site data and the data that your site traffic comes with.
We suggest you check out Google Analytics as a beginner as it provides in-depth information on these plug-ins and how you can make the most out of them. It also helps you keep an eye on traffic trends and your site responses for better strategies.
Pick the Right Theme
One of the most loved things about WordPress is that it offers tons of high-quality paid themes but choosing the right kind of theme for your blog site plays a vital role. The theme will affect how your site looks all over and your user experience too.
Thus, it is important to pick a theme that blends with your blog page. For instance, you should consider the SEO friendliness of your site when looking for a theme. You can filter out the available themes with the tag “SEO friendly” and WordPress will do the rest. However, it is important to ensure that your theme has some other elements including:
1. A Responsive Design
A responsive design means that your blog site fits perfectly with all kinds of devices and platforms. This is something that all sites need to have these days because you never know what platform or device your visitors use. Thus, your site should reformat itself according to the user’s device.
In addition, mobile browsing is another must-have feature considering the latest trends in website development. You can also do this by running your site through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Tool, to assess what changes you need to make.
2. Speed
You should consider the speed of your theme when choosing one. This is because it will determine how fast or how slow your site loads, which is an important ranking factor.
A faster site will not only improve your visitor’s user experience but will also let search engines rank your site higher. Thus, it is important to choose a simpler theme and one that doesn’t have too many plug-ins.
Additional Tips
Add Easier Permalinks
Easy and simple permalinks are another important aspect of any WordPress site. These permalinks are the permanent links your site has when people access it. You will see a clean box on top of the pages and posts on WordPress on the editing page. This box lets you input the permalink you want before you finalize it.
Users must edit them in a way that they look simple and clean. This is because a simpler and cleaner permalink helps more than a complex one. For example
https://webwelp/ehocode235115/f57kfkss is far more difficult to comprehend as compared to https://webhelp/what-are-permalinks.
Easier permalinks aren’t just easier to understand, read and remember, but they also seem reliable. People usually stay cautious of weird-looking links. So, it is best to stay away from long, strange permalinks with loads of numbers and random alphabets.
Always Add a SSL Certificate
WordPress sites need to look trustworthy because there are thousands of websites out there. Reliability is the only thing that will assist you with bringing more people to your site. The SSL certificate is usually that small padlock that you see along with your site URL when you access a site.
The SSL certificate shows that the website owner has a secure connection, which increases the number of pages users visit on your site. This also helps minimize the bounce rate and helps your site rank higher in results.
In addition, Google now prioritizes the security of the sites through its algorithms to make the browsing experience more secure for other users.
It is why sites without an SSL certificate show up with a warning for visiting users. It is most likely that your traffic will move to other pages if your website doesn’t have an SSL certificate. So, technically, no matter how good your content, SEO, or backlinks are, you won’t get the traffic you are looking for without an SSL certificate.
Bottom Line
Using WordPress for your blog sites can help users greatly, as it is the most convenient and flexible option available. People who are new to using WordPress for their site should know that its applications are plenty and incredibly convenient, as long as users know their way around the platform.
Therefore, make sure that you have an SSL certificate, a good domain name, an attractive yet efficient theme, and most importantly, the right plug-ins.
You will have a much better experience once you incorporate these things into your WordPress site even at a beginner’s level. Sure, adding these elements correctly will take significant time, but it will be worth it.