Besides applying for other jobs, learning a new skill is one of the activities that will keep you occupied and help you boost your resume. So, stop wallowing on your bad luck and start doing something to take advantage of this free time. These are the skills that you can learn if you find yourself unemployed during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Programming Language

The first skill you could learn is a programming language and this could help you improve your way of life by finding a new career path in the tech industry. Technology is part of our lives now and the need for tech professionals will only grow. If you learn a programming language, you will even be prepared for the time when robots replace a lot of the jobs humans do. 

There are many options and it depends on what you are interested in. For example, Java is a good option as a first language. It is used mostly for mobile development, being the official language for Android development. You can learn any coding language at your own pace or with a course, and the best Java courses are online for anyone to access at any time. 

JavaScript is another example of a programming language that is used mostly in web development. This language is mainly used to create animations and interactive features for websites, but it has other uses like to make blockchain applications. It will probably ensure you a job in the next few years, and you can learn it on your own. For example, a Kenzie Academy review revealed a free introductory course to JavaScript. 

WordPress

WordPress allows people to manage websites and blogs without having any programming or coding knowledge. You could learn WordPress basics, which includes how to use the software. WordPress offers a user-friendly and intuitive interface that makes it easier for the user to create a website.

It has the option of using pre-established templates so people can just put in their content and have a website in seconds. But it has tons of plugins that enable other functionalities. The other option is to go deeper and become a WordPress developer. In this case, you will be the one creating plugins and templates for other WordPress clients to use.  

Skillcrush has a very comprehensive WordPress development course that can be taken part-time and online. These developers have one of the most complete sets of skills in the tech industry. And the course teaches everything you need to know to create unique websites and start your path as a WordPress developer. 

Digital Marketing

Digital is the new way of marketing and companies are implementing all kinds of digital techniques to reach their customers. TV and radio are in the past. The Internet changed the marketing industry entirely and the future is digital. Digital marketers are experts in creating campaigns that bring the best results. 

Digital marketing is one of the most desired skills in the world we live in today. The best part is that all companies, no matter the industry, need marketing. You will be widening your possible market, and you could work in the marketing industry directly or for other companies to help them build their online presence. 

Digital marketing can include many niches like SEO, email, social media, or even design and advertisements. The best way to learn is by enrolling in courses online that teach the basic skills that give you a professional certificate when completed. 

Personal Finance

Personal finance is something that many people never learn throughout their lives. Most careers don’t teach personal finance, and people have economic struggles throughout their lives. If you are unemployed and don’t have savings that you can fall back on, it is probably due to your lack of financing knowledge. 

There are some things that everyone should know, like how to do taxes, keep good credit scores, save money, calculate best loan options, or how to invest. The reality is that most professionals don’t understand these definitions and terms. So, by learning about personal finance and how to manage your money, you will probably be able to have a comfortable lifestyle. 

Something as simple as creating a monthly budget could help you to survive the next few months. Many universities offer free resources like guides and online courses for anyone to use. This is a must-have skill that if you don’t already have, then you should learn it. 

Second Language

A second language is a superb skill for anyone to learn at any age. You can start by researching which other languages, besides your mother tongue, is most spoken in your city or country. Knowing a second language will open many job opportunities, like teaching, translating, transcribing, or even any other job for a company that has international clients. 

English, after all, is the language with most native speakers in the world. The second and third being Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. And in the US, the second language most spoken by Americans is Spanish. So, it doesn’t matter which language you learn; you will have new opportunities. 

Keep in mind that if you are doing it to further your career, then learning a language that will put you closer to that goal will be better. For example, if you are a mechanical engineer that wants to work for BMW in Germany, it will be a better option to learn German than Spanish. 

In Summary

It is crucial to keep yourself motivated, especially in difficult times. By keeping occupied, you will maintain an active mindset and avoid depression. Learning a new skill is a great option to take advantage of your free time, plus you will be opening new doors for your professional life.

The post Five Skills to Learn if You are Unemployed During COVID-19 appeared first on Acme Themes Blog.

This is especially important if you run an e-commerce site. Nothing ruins the customer experience quite like a website suddenly becoming inaccessible, or being down for an extended period of time. Before you do anything else, it’s time to sort out a backup solution.

What is a Backup? 

A backup is, at its simplest, a copy of all relevant files saved in an alternative location. It’s the equivalent of saving an important document to both your personal laptop and cloud storage. Having a backup means that if something goes wrong with the original document – or, in this case, the WordPress site – you have an alternative, recently up-to-date source from which you can download it.

With a WordPress site, it’s a little bit more complicated than a simple document. There’s a lot of different ways the site could go down – from poorly managed updates to hacking. You can reduce the chances of these by having a static IP address, a dedicated cybersecurity staff member, and by staying up to date on the latest scams, among other things. However, you’ll never be completely safe from potential mistakes – and there are a few important things you need to ensure get backed up.

Database

The database is where the important information about your site is stored. WordPress uses MySQL as its management system, so whatever backup method you choose must be able to interact with this.

The database is where you would find usernames, passwords, and email addresses. You don’t want to make your VoIP customer service team’s life harder when they suddenly can’t send out password resets. But, more importantly, it’s where you’ll find everything you’ve posted! Whether you use WordPress for blogging, hosting products, or showing off media files, a lot of the information behind your activities will be stored here.

Plugin and Themes

This category is where you’ll find that beautiful minimalist theme that you spent weeks thinking about and making sure was perfect. While you could redownload it again, it’s much easier to keep backups – especially if you’ve customized it at all. If something does go wrong you can simply re-upload it from the most recent version saved, rather than starting from scratch.

This applies to plugins, too. Especially if you have quite a few running. Usually, plugins are responsible for allowing certain features to work. That means, if your site did go down and you didn’t have backups of them, it might not work as intended when restored. 

Media

Any image, gif, or audio file you’ve uploaded counts as ‘media’. Ecommerce websites rely on this category – imagine browsing a site with no product images! Depending on how image-heavy your website is, this could involve weeks of restoration if you don’t have a backup of the site. Even if you have backups of the media saved elsewhere, you’d still have to re-upload it and make sure it’s assigned to the right places. Far easier to have the whole site backed up!

Doesn’t My Host Do It?

Your host might backup on your behalf – but it’s not worth relying on them. Some hosts offer backups in their plans, but you need to look for the fine details on a few things:

• How frequently do they back it up?
• How many versions do they store?
• What’s the maximum file size?
• How easy to access are these backups?

Frequency

You want your website to be backed up regularly. For some people, that means weekly, and for others, it may even be daily. Many hosts are a lot less frequent than this, leading you to potentially lose a lot of work. You also have no manual control over the backups, so you can’t make one before a big update or after a lot of important work has been finished.

If your product is something technical – a VoIP server, HR software, or cloud storage solutions – then it’s vital that you have the most up-to-date technical information available. If you rely on your host’s backup system, you could end up restoring data that gives instructions for your product that don’t work anymore. This will cost you a lot more work in the long run.

Equally, if you have a site devoted to the latest fashion, you probably update your stock very frequently. Imagine if during next Spring it rolled back to Fall the year before – you’re likely to lose a lot of customers and need to spend a lot of time fixing it.

Versions and Size
Ideally, you want a couple of versions of your WordPress site saved. If the site has gone down due to a plugin incompatibility, or a security breach, you won’t know for certain how long ago the issues that led to it were introduced. Having only one version locks you into a backup that might still contain some issues. 

Trying to keep a recent one, a less recent one, and even a simple starter one based on your initial set-up can reduce this risk. Most hosts, however, will only store the one version – and you can’t guarantee it’s the version you want.

As for file size, they usually have limits. If your site goes over these, then you’re either out of luck or have to pay a lot extra – which is something you don’t need on top of an already stressful situation.

Easily Accessible

If you’ve backed up your website yourself, you can access those backups on demand – however is best for you. If your host has been doing the backing up, though, you’re reliant on them and their timescales. In an ideal world, they would have excellent communication and get back to you as soon as possible, but that often isn’t the case.

This is often worsened when the loss of the site comes from an issue on the host’s end. If there’s been a security breach, or they’ve been hacked, then they’ll be dealing with a lot of people’s requests for backups. No matter how good their call centre solutions are, the sheer number of other clients contacting them is going to slow down their response to you. It’s far easier to be able to restore it yourself.

How Do I Do It?

Luckily, it’s quite easy to backup your WordPress site. There are a lot of plugins designed specifically for that purpose. It’s worth reading around and seeing what functionality they offer and for what cost, but some of the top recommended ones are:

• UpdraftPlus
• BackupBuddy
• Snapshot Pro
• Blog Vault
• VaultPress (now part of Jetpack)

Some of these do have free versions, but those versions don’t have quite as much functionality as the paid ones. Ideally, you want something that lets you back up to multiple locations – both a cloud storage system and a local one – or download the backup yourself. This gives you an extra layer of safety. Think of it like any business solution, from technological ones like VoIP to people-based ones like external HR. You can go cheap, but it’s usually better paying more for quality.  

Let’s have a quick look through how to use Updraft, as an example. To install the plugin, simply log in to your WordPress site and go to the plugins menu. Then, search for the one you want to install.

That’s the easy part. Once you’ve installed it and activated it, it’s time to customize the settings. As you can see below, there’s quite a lot of them. The most important ones get decided by your backup schedule, and how many of those backups you want to store. Then you need to decide where to store them – it’s worth having a dedicated section to it so it’s easy to refer to.

You can also include or exclude certain things from being backed up (useful if you need to save space), and receive an automatic email whenever a backup is done.

Next, it’s time to press ‘backup now’!

In the image above you can see where the existing backups – once you have them – are visible, and how easy it is to press restore. You can also see that the backups don’t necessarily contain everything, and this is selected after you press ‘backup now’.

Simple, right? And if something does go wrong and you need to restore any older versions of your site, you just go to your existing backups and press ‘restore’.

It is possible to get more into the detail of this, but it’s not worth it unless you have a solid technical understanding. If you have a dedicated development team, give them access to these more detailed settings, but otherwise, being able to save a backup and restore it is all you need to keep your website up and running. 

Is It Really Worth It?

The short answer is yes.

The long answer? No matter what your website is for – whether it’s for an up-and-coming start-up selling ATS software, a recipe blog that’s still finding its feet, or a graphic designer’s resume and portfolio – there’s a lot of important information on it that you don’t want to lose.

Installing a plugin to keep secure backups is the work of less than an hour (though you can and should spend longer!). Compare that to the weeks and even months of making that website in the first place – and it’s clear to see that keeping your WordPress site backed up is worth it.

This is a guest blog post from:

Sam O’Brien – RingCentral UK

Sam O’Brien is the Senior Website Optimisation & User Experience Manager for EMEA at RingCentral, a Global VoIP, video conferencing and Cloud PBX provider. Sam has a passion for innovation and loves exploring ways to collaborate more with dispersed teams. He has written for websites such as G2 and Hubspot. Here is his LinkedIn.

The post Your Guide to Thoroughly Backing up Your WordPress Site appeared first on Acme Themes Blog.

With such a huge variety of WordPress sites – covering everything from office technologies to collaboration tools – there are a lot of potential targets for would-be hackers. And, indeed, more WordPress sites are getting hacked daily. So you need to ask yourself: what measures are you going to take if yours suffers the same fate? WordPress is the most hacked content management system (CMS) on the internet, so you have to be prepared. Of course, it’s important to have robust security measures in place. But hackers are remarkably resourceful, and can always find new loopholes and weaknesses to exploit.

Moreover, being hacked can do potentially immense reputational damage, especially if you’re trying to run an online shop. If your landing page gets hacked and used to promote other sites, sell illegal supplies, or simply redirect to another site, that can only do you harm in the eyes of customers. After all, consumers are a watchful and wary bunch – anything that suggests your website isn’t reputable (even if it’s no fault of your own) is likely to take a big toll on their confidence. This means they’ll most likely take their custom elsewhere, costing you valuable revenue.

So, let’s say the worst has happened and your WordPress site has been hacked into. What do you do next? Well, to help you get a better idea of what steps to take, we’ve assembled this handy guide providing some top tips. Read on to find out more.

Signs your WordPress site has been hacked

Before we do anything else, it’s worth listing some tell-tale signs that your WordPress site has been successfully breached by a hacker. It’s not always immediately obvious (at least, not as obvious as you might think), so it’s a good idea to be aware of the likely signs that your site has been hacked. Here are some giveaways to watch out for:

• You can’t log in. If you find that you can’t log in to your WordPress site, it’s possible that a hacker has got in and changed the password. But it could be, of course, that you’ve just forgotten it (easy to do if you haven’t had to enter it for a while). So, make sure it isn’t just that! Try resetting your password and see if you can gain access to your account that way. If not, you may have been hacked.

• Your site is redirecting elsewhere. Hackers often redirect to their own sites once they’ve gained access to other people’s. If your WordPress site is redirecting people somewhere else or there are dubious links you haven’t inserted, this may be a good indication that it has been hacked. Make sure you check with any other site administrators that they haven’t made the changes themselves, however.
• Your site looks different. If you find that your WordPress site suddenly looks completely different to how you left it, it may have been hacked. Again, if anyone else has administrator privileges for your website, then ask them about the changes before leaping to conclusions. It may be that they’ve changed the design without telling you.

Alternatively, your browser or Google may display a warning to advise you that your website might have been the subject of a security breach. You may also suddenly find that the site is running much slower than it would normally; this again might be an indication that a hacker has breached its security arrangements.

How to Fix a Hacked WordPress Site

We’ve heard a lot in recent years about the digital transformation that’s been taking place all around us. We’ve all seen for ourselves the rapid changes to the way we do business and communicate with one another as a result. If anything, this makes it doubly frustrating when you do all the right things to reach a wider consumer base, only to find yourself undone by the malicious intentions of a hacker.

But even if you are unlucky enough to have your site hacked, there’s no need to panic right away. There are steps you can take to bring the situation under control and regain the upper hand over the hackers. Here’s a concise, step-by-step run-through of what to do.

Keep Calm and Identify the Hack

As we’ve noted, the first thing you need to do is keep a cool head. It’s easy to let your imagination run wild when you suspect you’ve been hacked, but it won’t help you in your efforts to get a grip on the situation. Even if your site has been hacked – and that’s what you need to establish before doing anything else – that doesn’t necessarily mean that everything is lost.

So, the next thing you’ll have to do is identify the nature of the hack and how it’s taken place. Think about the points we’ve already addressed about how to know when your site’s been hacked into. Can you log in? Is the site redirecting elsewhere? Does it look different? Are you receiving any warnings from Google or from your browser? Make a note of any relevant information, as you’ll need it later on.

Get in Touch with Your Hosting Company

Once you’ve got more information on your suspected hack, the next thing you need to do is contact your hosting company. They’ll be used to dealing with situations like this – don’t forget, hacks are all too common – so you should find them to be very helpful and knowledgeable. Explain the situation to them and ask them for more information about any next steps you should take. They might ask you to share screen online, so follow whatever instructions they might give you.

In cases where your website is hosted on a shared server, you should be able to establish whether the hacker has accessed your WordPress site via another site on the same server. Your hosting company should look into the matter for you, and from there they should be able to provide you with information on how the breach came about. This may include where to find the backdoor to your site through which they gained access. Call them via their contact center solution urgently if you suspect you’ve been hacked.

Restore an Older Version of Your Site from Backup

Any security expert worth their salt will tell you (probably until they’re blue in the face) about the importance of making regular backups. These are vital because they could allow you to restore your site using an older version, from before your site was breached. In the event of a hack, this is likely to prove invaluable in helping you get everything back on track. If you don’t have a backup you can use, then you might be able to manually remove the hack. This, though, is a time-consuming procedure – so making regular backups is hugely important.

Restoring from an old backup will mean that the entire site reverts back to that version. Any changes you’ve made between the time you created the backup and when your site was hacked will be lost. This is why it’s so important to create backups at regular intervals, so you can minimize any disruption should you have to restore your site after a hack. Restoring your site doesn’t eliminate the vulnerabilities which the hackers exploited, so once you’ve completed the restoration you’ll need to beef up your security measures.

Scan and Remove Malware

Outdated files can provide hackers with relatively easy access to a website. Once they’ve gained that access they can create a backdoor (allowing them to bypass normal authentication) which they can then continue to exploit in the future. The most effective way of preventing hackers from gaining access to your site in this way is simply to keep your files properly up to date. Make sure you regularly delete any inactive or outdated WordPress themes and plugins; this will provide hackers with less of an opportunity.

Check User Permissions and Change Passwords

Once you’ve regained control of your site, restored it, and cleared it of any malware, you need to check exactly who has access to it. Make sure that only people who need administrator privileges have them. Change all passwords and security keys associated with your site. Ensure that any video conferencing security arrangements are robust so that communications between you and any other administrators are kept safe and confidential. 

You’ll also want to make sure that when choosing new passwords, they’re suitably strong and robust. A password generator should help you come up with a combination that’s strong enough to bamboozle any would-be hackers.

(This is a guest post contribution from John Allen of RingCentral US.)

Bio: John Allen – RingCentral US
John Allen is the Director and Global SEO at RingCentral, a global UCaaS, VoIP and teleconference services provider. He has over 14 years of experience and an extensive background in building and optimizing digital marketing programs. He has written for websites such as Hubspot and Toolbox.

The post What to do When Your WordPress Site is Hacked appeared first on Acme Themes Blog.

Although it was primarily famous for the blogging platform, now we can build any type of website using WordPress. Popular companies like CNN, TechCrunch, SONY, New York Times, TED are also used WordPress software to build their website.

I personally in love with WordPress from the day I come to know about it. Statistics show that the popularity of WordPress is growing rapidly.

With its popularity and growth, security equally comes as a vital challenge for website owners. Keeping safe from unauthorized access, manipulation, malicious attacks, and hacking become a crucial job for you. Especially if you perform an online transaction through your website, it is compulsory that you need to keep your website safe.

Or even you do not have a financial transaction, you still need to keep your website safe from any type of security breaches.

In this article, I am going to share 7 actionable techniques for securing your WordPress website.

7 Techniques to Bulletproof Your WordPress Website

1. Install SSL

Installing SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is a very first step to keeping your website secure. Today, most of the hosting providers offer free SSL along with the hosting service. Depending on your hosting provider, you may need to obtain an SSL certificate and then install it. Just ask your hosting provider to enable SSL for your domain.

In the secured website, a browser, and a server attempt to connect to a website securely by encrypting data. SSL helps to keep an internet connection secure and safeguarding any sensitive data that is being sent between two systems (server and client). SSL uses encryption algorithms to scramble data in transit, preventing hackers from reading it as it is sent over the connection. So, only encrypted data are transferred over the internet on the SSL website.

Here are a few plugins that can help you install SSL in your WordPress websites.

1. Really Simple SSL
2. SSL Insecure Content Fixer 
3. WP Force SSL

2. Keep Strong Admin Password and Keep it Secret

Admin passwords are the primary key to get access to your website dashboard. You need to set a strong password so that someone can not easily guess it. Some people keep easy to guess password which is a blunder mistake. An advanced user or can easily crack your password and get into your system easily.

Generally, a combination of characters, capital letter, numbers are considered to be the strong password. A plain password like 123453 or password as an example of an insecure password.

A strong password can be something like –  P@s5w0rD#453. You also need to change the admin username to something different.

As we all know a password is everything for a business. Your password should be secret that no one knows except your business partner or trusted friends.

3. Keep Updated WordPress Version

Keeping up do date WordPress version also helps to secure your WordPress website. It is good practice to keep your website up to date with the latest security features. Developers keep in mind that with every new update, they put extra effort into security. You can be safe from pre-identified loopholes and exploited hackers, which, a hacker uses to gain access to your site.

Also, you need to regularly update your plugins and themes as they are coming up with extra security features in each update.

You can check the update option from the Dashboard>Update

WordPress automatically suggests you update a newer version of the software. But it is important to know that before proceeding for big updates, you need to keep a safe backup of your data. It is because in some cases, you may lose your data.

4. Setup Double Authentication Login

Two-factor authentication allows you to set up a two-step login attempt. After setting up, you have to provide two logins credentials to be able to login to the dashboard.

WordPress plugins like Google Authenticator by miniOrange let you set up double authentication for WordPress website. It provides two-factor authentication (2FA, MFA) whenever login to your WordPress website ensuring no unauthorized access to your website.

This is one of the best ways to protect your website from unauthorized access. Only those who know the password and extra secret question will have access to the admin login.

5. Change Admin Path

Changing the Admin URL is another best practice to keep your WordPress website secure. This practice protects your website by changing the login URL and preventing access to the wp-login.php page and wp-admin directory while not logged-in.

Normal URL – www.website.com/admin . or www.website.com/wp-admin 

Changed URL – www.website.com/miksi3221

In WordPress, the default admin URL can be accessed by /admin or /wp-admin. But once you customize it, you can put any words in the admin URL section. This helps in preventing the third person to get accessed on the admin login panel.

WordPress plugin like WPS Hide Login by WPServeur help to set up a login URL. It doesn’t literally rename or change files in core, nor does it add rewrite rules. It simply intercepts page requests and works on any WordPress website. The wp-admin directory and wp-login.php page become inaccessible, so you should bookmark or remember the URL. This plugin is super easy to set up and use.

6. Install Security Plugin

There are plenty of trusted plugins that guards your website against unauthorized access. A security plugin takes care of your website’s overall security from scanning malware, to blocking malicious attacks. You do not need to manually check the status of your website, instead, these plugins keep monitoring everything things you should do.

Wordfense includes an endpoint firewall and malware scanner that was built from the ground up to protect WordPress. This plugin arms with newest firewall rules, malware signatures and malicious IP addresses it needs to keep your website safe. Rounded out by 2FA and a suite of additional features, Wordfence is the most comprehensive WordPress security solution available.

Sucuri Security, on the other hand, is a WordPress security plugin that offers security activity auditing, file integrity monitoring, remote malware scanning, blacklist monitoring, effective security hardening, post-hack security actions, security notifications, and even website firewall.

7. Monitor Your Website Performance

No matter how secure your WordPress website is, there is always room for improvement. Relying only on the plugins and tools does not guarantee that your website is 100% risk-free. You need continuous monitoring of the website with a periodic report. Besides the above-listed tasks, some important task includes the regular backup of the website, perform a security audit, keep track of website performance and many more.

Lastly,

It is always crucial to keep track of your website security and monitor it as it goes. website security is one of the crucial parts of a website. Above mentioned techniques are free that you should not pay a single penny.

So, why shouldn’t you give a little time to make your website secure?

Other SEO Articles:

✅WordPress 301 Redirect – Step By Step Guide 
✅Outbound Link | No Follow vs Do-Dollow Links
✅15 White Hat SEO Techniques To Drive Organic Traffic

If you liked this article, then consider following us on Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn.

The post 7 Techniques to Bulletproof Your WordPress Website appeared first on Acme Themes Blog.

WordPress powers more than a quarter website in the world. And the number is growing day by day. It is super easy to build any type of website with WordPress. Especially with the use of amazing plugins like Gutentor, you can create any type of website in a matter of an hour.

There is no doubt that WordPress is great for building websites. But building a website only does not make any sense. We need to build it in a way that people could easily find it on the internet. Also, we need to build sites in such a way that search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing love it. For this, we need to make our WordPress website technically sound from an SEO perspective.

If you randomly create websites on WordPress without considering essential SEO tasks then you will not get any traffic. If you do not get any traffic then your website is not going to make any business. So, here we are going to list out the 10 common SEO mistakes that harm your Google ranking.

10 SEO Errors of WordPress Websites

1. Choosing the Wrong Theme

A badly coded theme definitely going to harm your whole website.  Because the theme is the backbone of your website, you need to pick up the trusted theme from the trusted developer. There are lots of free themes available in the market, but the thing is they have designed and developed for different niches. Its speed, structure, responsiveness affect the SEO of your website. So, the theme is the first thing you should consider for better SEO. Acme Themes offers a wide range of Free and Premium Themes loved by thousands of users.

Explore the themes

What do you need to know about the theme?

• Chose the theme from the trusted developers
• The theme should be lightweight
• The theme should be SEO friendly
• Support from developer
• Use the premium theme as must as possible for better support and features

2. Not Choosing a Right Hosting

Investing in a reliable hosting service is an important part of your business. If you do not have reliable hosting, your website will not be available to the users at the time of the query (or maybe load slow). If your website is not available, Google can not find you, and once Google notice it, your website will not be indexed.

So, investing in reliable hosting is a key decision you need to take. We have been using the Siteground for such a long time and their service is just great. In fact, it is the top three hosting companies recommended by WordPress itself.

It has tools that make managing WordPress sites easy: one-click install, managed updates, WP-Cli, WordPress staging, and git integration. They have a very fast support team with advanced WordPress expertise available 24/7.

Start With Sitegound

3. Missing Out a Right SEO Plugin

One reason for WordPress’s popularity is its plugins. You can extend the functionality of your website with the help of plugins. There are great plugins that guide you with your on-page SEO such as RankMath, Yoast SEO, All in One SEO Pack. These are the most widely used SEO plugins that help you optimize your content for search engines and outrank your competitors.  As all of the plugins are improving day by day, you can basically use either Yoast SEO of RankMath.

We have been using Yoast SEO for a long time and it is great.

Related Article 

✅Yoast SEO Plugin vs All In One SEO Pack | Which One is Better?

4. Missing Out Basic WordPress Settings

Right after you install WordPress on your site, there are basic but essential settings you need to perform. Many people just ignore these settings knowingly or unknowingly. But you need to take care of these things before publishing the very first content.

Configuring these Basic WordPress Settings helps not only in the better ranking in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) but also increase the user experience. So, if you are starting the fresh WordPress website then you should go through this article in detail. Or even you are already running the WordPress site, then it might also be helpful at some point.

5. Wrong Permalink Setting

“Permalink” – the name itself suggests the this is the permanent link of each post (Uniform Resource Locator-URL). It is also called the web address of the post that should not be changed once it is set.

Permalink setting of WordPress lets you set how the permanent URL structure of your individual posts, pages, category, and tag archives will be. Permalink structure plays a great role in SEO and site ranking as the URL is the gateway for the web crawler.

. The following figure shows that example of URL.

The WordPress Settings Permalinks allows you to choose your default permalink structure. You can choose from common settings or create custom URL structures. Once you chose the setting, WordPress automatically chose the permalink structure that you configured.

In WordPress, you will find the permalink setting in Settings>Permalink

We recommend setting the Post name as default.  Permalink according to the post name is considered to be better for SEO purposes.

6. Not Optimizing Images

Image optimization is another important task of Search Engine Optimization. For WordPress, there are many image optimizer plugins available, among all, Smush and ShortPixel Image Optimizer is widely used plugins. These plugins do a great job after you upload images, but you have to do lots of things before you even upload the images. This helps in even better image optimization. Such as –

• Image Size – You have to optimize your image size so as to make it light. This affects the loading speed of your website. But one thing you should be careful of is while reducing the size of your image, you should also take care of its resolution. You can use different tools to reduce the image size such as  tinypng.com, tinyjpg.com. These online FREE TOOLs help you to reduce the size of your image keeping its quality optimum.
• Proper Alt text –  Alt text (also called “alt description”, “alt-tag”) is the written copy that appears in place of an image on a webpage if that particular image fails to load on the screen. So, putting proper alt text is important for accessibility and Image SEO. Try to put the proper image alt tag that better describes the image.
• Description of the Image – Description of your text describes the image. This is different from “alt text” because alt text is an “alternative text to the image” that will be shown on the screen when the image fails to load. But image description is the description of that particular image that is shown below the image to further describe the image.
• Choosing the Proper format – There are mainly three image formats that are in use, JPEG, PNG, and GIF. I personally do not recommend GIF unless there is a “Must Use” situation. Although PNG produces better quality images, it comes in a larger size than JPEG format. So, you have to use the JPEG image in most of the cases in order to save size and quality. However, there might be some cases where PNG produces better results than JPEG. Just balance it.

7. Not Manage Category Properly

Not managing the proper category is another SEO Errors of WordPress Websites. Keep things simple when it comes to WordPress posts and taxonomies. If you link posts to just a few categories with relevant tags, Google will know contextually fit to rank for specific categories. If you have huge numbers of categories and tags then search engines are not going to make a decision about what is your posts associated with.

You should not have random and unnecessary categories instead you should have a very limited number of categories (around 10), and a limited number of tags (maximum 50). Try to use the proper tag every time you publish a post so that it better categorize the posts that people are reading. Tags are also called categories of categories so you should include sensible tags within the respective categories. Read more about categories vs tags.

8. Avoiding Duplicate Content

Google defines duplicate content as:

“Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar. Mostly, this is not deceptive in origin.”

Duplicate content is the content that appears in more than one place on the internet. In a technical word, two different URLs take you to the same content. It can be within the same domain or different domain.

Having duplicate content harms your website’s SEO and if the amount of duplicate content gets higher, Google may degrade your website. It is because the content appearing in more than one location on the Internet can be difficult for search engines to decide which version is more relevant to a given search query.

One of the best ways to solve duplicate content is to set up a 301 redirect from the “duplicate” page to the original content page.

9. Not Knowing Rich Snippet

A rich snippet is a result shown on the Google page along with some other additional information so as to add value to the result. It stands out from the other snippets when it comes to the priority.

From the user’s perspective, just by looking at the result of the rich snippet, they get to know more about the content.  Because it is more appealing to the users, posts with rich snippets are likely to get more clicks. If the click-through rate (CTR) of your blog post increases, you will get more traffic. Ultimately, rich snippets will affect your ranking as well.

The following image shows the difference between rich snipped and normal snippets.

In what types of content can we use rich snippets? 

Rich snippets can not be used in all types of content. The following are some of the content types where rich snippets can be used.

• Recipe
• Event
• Apps
• People
• Products
• Business and Organizations

How can you get rich snippets? 

You have to add structured data to your site so that Google can show a rich snippet. A piece of code in structured data tells Google to extract the maximum relevant data for rich snippet result. You can test the structure of your article using this Structure Data Testing Tool.

10. Not Focusing on On-page SEO

According to the Moz – On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing individual web pages in order to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic in search engines. On-page refers to both the content and HTML source code of a page that can be optimized, as opposed to off-page SEO which refers to links and other external signals.

On-Page SEO is crucial for a website. It involves many tasks such as –

• Proper keyword research
• Setting up a proper title and meta description
• Content formating
• Speed optimization
• Mobile-friendliness
• Maintaining the heading hierarchy
• Internal and external linking etc

✅15+ Actionable On-Page SEO Techniques for WordPress Website

So, these are some of the essential SEO tasks that people missing out. What do you think of these tips? have you are queries, suggestions related to this article? If so drop your comment below and follow us on the following social links.

Other SEO Articles:

✅ 13 Essential SEO Tips For WordPress Website
✅Technical SEO For a Website?

If you liked this article, then consider following us on Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn.

The post 10 SEO Errors of WordPress Websites – Acme Blog appeared first on Acme Themes Blog.

What is a Landing Page?

According to the Wikipedia – A landing page, sometimes known as a “lead capture page”, “static page”, or a “destination page”, is a single web page that appears in response to clicking on a search engine optimized search result, marketing promotion, marketing email, or an online advertisement.

A landing page is designed specifically to promote specific products or services as a marketing campaign. This is the page where visitors land whenever they click in the promoted links either in the Google Adwords (Google.com/Youtube.com/Websites) or any social media promotions.

The ultimate goal of a landing page is to capture the information of the potential customers and drive them to product selling pages through different Call to Action (CTA) buttons.

So, to make a high conversion rate, it is important to focus on designing a highly convertible landing page. In this article, we are going to discuss some basic but important things to follow while designing a landing page.

Landing Page vs Home Page

Before everything, let’s be clear about landing pages and home pages.

A homepage is quite a common term in website design and development, but the landing page is familiar when it comes to digital marketing only. So, it is important to know how a landing page is different then homepage or other websites.

A homepage has lots of info, lots of sources and lots of links. The purpose of a company site is to provide plenty of information and resources to potential customers. Whereas a landing page contains fewer links, information, and sources. Its purpose is to convert like generating leads, prompting phone calls, increasing sign-ups or initiating an online chat with potential customers. In other words, a landing page is a simplified and more concise version of a homepage with a specific call-to-action.

Although a landing page is similar to the homepage of the websites, there are key elements that make them different.

Tips to Design Attractive Landing Page

As we have discussed above the purpose, audience, and goal of a landing page. Now,  here are 11 tips for designing an attractive landing page for your website, product, and services so that you increase the conversion. Let’s discuss one by one –

1. The Content

The beauty of any landing page is defined by what content you chose to put on the landing page. You have to brainstorm before picking up words to display on the landing page as it must win the thought or the potential customers.

The content on the landing page should be to the point. Unnecessary and excessive information overwhelm visitors and make them leave immediately. And also incomplete information might not give enough value to the proposition to the users.

So, focus on making the content simple and informative by following these tips.

Tips:

• Catchy Heading – Heading is an important part of any content so try including catchy heading
• Supportive Subheading – your subheading must support the heading to make more worthy.
• Focus on Solving the Problem – you have to be focused on solving the current problem that targeted customers currently facing.

2. Relevant Image

Images in any content add extra information. Content with images is visually appealing as well. So, try adding relevant images on the landing page to make them rich. Provide high-quality shots showing the best sides of your product or service. 

Tips:

• Chose only relevant images to place
• Optimize the image with the proper resolution, size, and file format

3. Video Integration

Embedding the video helps in the in-depth view of the product and services you are going to offer. A video can explain a thousand words. Video content is optional, but video can details of your product or service in ways that text and images can’t.

A 30 seconds video can explain a thousand words also help engaging audiences within the page.

Tips:

• Embed short and relevant video – which might explain about product or services or customer testimonial.
• The video should be as short as possible with excellent explanation, animation, and audio.

4. Proper Placement of Call-to-Action

A landing page without proper placement of Call to Action is useless. Landing pages should have some type of Call-to-Action (CTA) that encourages your viewers to convert.

A CTA can be anything from filling out a form to calling a phone number or even plain buying your product. But, regardless of what your CTA is, it needs to be obvious and straightforward. For example, “Register Now”, “Call Us ” or “Download Sample” are great examples of CTAs. 

Tips:

• Include terms like x% OFF, Free, Limited Offer in CTA button.
• Place the CTA button in an easily clickable position.

5. Apply KISS Principle

The landing page should not be messy or complicated in design. The more you keep it simple, the easier it will be interacting with. This KISS principle can be achieved by formatting the content in a proper way such as heading, subheadings, images, call to Action, Forms, and other relevant information.

There is a great page building block plugin named Gutentor that helps you to design a page that you want to build. Gutentor comes with lots of ready-made blocks that you can customize as per your preference. So, use such plugins to make page simple and easy to navigate.

Tips:

• The formatting solution would be to convert texts into shorter bullet points.
• Choose a big font to make it easy for visitors to read and understand what your landing page is all about.

6. Use of Proper Color

Some landing pages are designed with a really bad combination of colors. Improper selection of colors ruins the beauty of the landing page.

So, another important tip for designing a landing page is choosing suitable colors. This way, visitors do not get distracted with the colors of the landing page elements.

Tips:

• Try using the brand color 
• Color should be chosen according to the brand you offer, the audience you target

7. Track the Page

Designing a landing page and launching it only does not do work. You should test if it works for you. To check whether your landing page can drive conversions, you need to perform A/B testing to collect valuable analytics on how users interact with the landing page. You can use the Free Google Analytics tool to check the conversion statistics. Because the end goal of the landing page is a conversion! 

You can perform A/B testing on headings, CTSs, Links, Trust signals, and Images.

8. Simple Funnel

Do not make customers confuse with multiple forms, funnel pages. Multiple popups and funnel pages make distract your potential customers from giving you information or buying products unless they are loyal towards your products or services. 

Make it simple to interact so that customers do not quit in the middle of the interaction.

9. Responsive Design

In today’s world, responsive design is a compulsory thing as technology has shifted to mobile-first. A poorly designed and non-responsive design is easily punished by big search engines like Google, Bing, etc. Although all the websites today are responsive in nature, it is crucial to make sure, each and every element of the website is properly fit in all device screens.

Tips: 

• Test everything before publishing the page

10. Showcase Testimonial and Reviews

Showing testimonials and reviews is not compulsory to include in the landing pages, but, adding these two things will increase the trust and value of the landing page.

So, if your products and services are already used by the individuals or companies, then try collecting the reviews and testimonials from them and show some of them on the landing page. This adds third-party credibility to your content and offers and can help boost conversions.

This way, a potential customer will have more trust and belief towards you. 

Tips:

• Avoid messing up with lots of testimonials and rating instead, show only a few proofs

11. Make it Shareable

A landing page is the most effective way to convert visitors into the customer or at least subscribers. So, social sharing is a key thing to consider while designing a landing page. Make your landing page easy to share that way, it works as free marketing.  

Tips:

• Properly optimize the social sharing information

So, it is important to know how a landing page is different from a homepage or other websites, which is something that a good custom web design company can help you out with.

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Other Posts:

• 15 On-Page SEO Techniques You Must Implement to Rank Higher
• 13 Essential SEO Tips For WordPress Website
• Essential Basic Setup for Brand New WordPress Website

If you liked this article, then consider following us on Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn.

The post 11 Best Tips to Design Attractive Landing Page in WordPress appeared first on Acme Themes Blog.

First off, if you do not know what a plugin is then here is a simple definition of the plugin. 

A plugin is a piece of software that adds extended functionality to a WordPress website. There are thousands of WordPress plugins available developed for different purposes. Plugins can be free or paid depends on the features. In Most cases, plugins are free to use. 

In our previous article, we have discussed the 10 WordPress Settings For Brand New Website, in this article we are going to list  10 plugins that you need to install right after the new WordPress setup.

10 Essential WordPress Plugins For New Website

1. Contact Form 

Contact Form 7 is a very simple plugin that lets you manage multiple contact forms on your website. You can easily customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports AJAX-Powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering.

So, we highly recommend downloading the Contact Form 7 plugin right as a very first plugin. Contact Form 7 is a free plugin that you can download and use straight away.

2. JetPack by WordPress.com

Another essential plugin for a brand new website is Jetpack by WordPress.com. Jetpack is a multipurpose solid plugin for security, performance and site management. Jetpack helps your site to have detailed security reports, guards you against brute-force attacks and unauthorized logins from hackers. 

Jetpack also allows you to fully customize your site with free themes, image tools, and rich content. Increase your traffic through automatic social sharing, related content, and faster load times. The best part of the Jetpack plugin is it comes with a bundle of features so that you do not need to install multiple plugins for different purposes.

Jetpack is free to use but free version provides just basic protection, while premium plans add expanded backup and automated fixes.

3. Yoast SEO 

Yoast SEO is no 1 plugin for WordPress plugin for maintaining the site’s SEO. Yoast SEO has been helping millions of content creators to rank higher in search engines.  It is very easy to use a plugin that comes in both free and premium versions. Even with the free versions, you can get basic content ideas to maintain SEO for your content. 

Yoast SEO does everything in its power to please both visitors and search engine spiders. A dedicated team of developers, testers, architects and SEO experts works daily to improve the plugin with every release. Yoast SEO is used by small websites to large organizations in every corner of the world. So, we highly recommend the Yoast SEO plugin.

4. Social Sharing

In today’s time, social sharing is an integral part of our internet experience. Furthermore, it’s constantly on the rise and becoming popular with older folk as well. Social media became the best way to share any information because many people engage in social media than any other platform. Social media also plays a significant role in helping you find your favorite websites. 

So, we highly recommend installing the best social media sharing plugin. We don’t say exactly which one you use because there are lots of best social media sharing plugins. But, what we can say is having a social media plugin is a must for any website.

5. TablePress 

In the list of 10 essential WordPress plugin, we have TablePress. It allows you to create and manage beautiful tables. You can easily embed the tables into posts, pages, or text widgets with a simple Shortcode. Table data can be edited in a spreadsheet-like interface, so no coding is necessary. Tables can contain any type of data, even formulas that will be evaluated. An additional JavaScript library adds features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for site visitors. Tables can be imported and exported from/to Excel, CSV, HTML, and JSON files.

6. OneSignal Push Notification

OneSignale helps you to increase user engagement on your website by sending visitors targeted push notifications. This plugin makes sure that users just keep coming back. It is very easy to use plugin and takes few minutes to install. 

After setup, your visitors opt-in to receive push notifications when you publish a new post. Visitors receive these notifications even after they’ve left your website, thus driving re-engagement.

You can configure notification delivery at preset intervals, create user segments, and customize the opt-in process for visitors.OneSignal’s free plan allows targeting up to 30,000 subscribers with push notifications. 

7. Gutentor Page Building Block 

Gutentor is a WordPress Page Building Blocks with unlimited possibilities to design a webpage. Building professional elegant websites using new WordPress editor Gutenberg with very ease and with no absolute codes is what Gutentor is designed for. A page builder experience that brings advanced capabilities and graceful design never seen before on any Page Builder.

You can create a stunning website with Gutentor’s readymade templates Or by customizing the Guetentor blocks. You have plenty of options with unlimited design possibilities. 

8. Broken Link Checker

Broken Link Checker will monitor your blog looking for broken links and let you know if any are found. Once installed, the plugin will begin parsing your posts, bookmarks (AKA blogroll) and other content and looking for links. Depending on the size of your site this can take from a few minutes up to an hour or more. When parsing is complete, the plugin will start checking each link to see if it works. Again, how long this takes depends on how big your site is and how many links there are.  

In SEO perspective, having a broken link is very bad for users’ experience as well as ranking factors. So, we highly recommend installing a broken link checker plugin. It is free.

9. UpdraftPlus – Backup/Restore 

Your WordPress backups are worth the entire investment you’ve made in your website. The day may come when you get hacked when something goes wrong with an update, your server crashes or your hosting company goes bust – without good backups, you lose everything. So you need a good backup plugin for your website. This is when UpDraftPlus comes into action. 

UpdraftPlus is website backup and restoration plugin for WordPress. It is the world’s highest-ranking and most popular scheduled backup plugin, with over two million currently-active installs.  You can back up your files and database backups into the cloud and restore them with a single click.

Backup into the cloud directly to Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3 (or compatible), UpdraftVault, Rackspace Cloud, FTP, DreamObjects, Openstack Swift, and email. 

10. Cache Plugin

Website speed plays a vital role in SEO ranking and also user experience. When a website page is rendered, PHP and MySQL are used. Therefore, the system needs RAM and CPU. If many visitors come to a site, the system uses lots of RAM and CPU so the page is rendered so slowly. In this case, you need a cache system not to render the page again and again. The cache system generates a static HTML file and saves it. Other users reach to static HTML page.

In addition, the site speed is used in Google’s search ranking algorithm so cache plugins that can improve your page load time will also improve your SEO ranking. So, we recommend having the best Cache plugin installed on your site.

CookieYes GDPR Cookie Consent & Compliance Notice Plugin

This cookie consent plugin is your best companion for making your WordPress site’s compliance journey easier. With the plugin, you can manage both first and third-party cookies on your website as per the GDPR guidelines.

The plugin lets you create a fully customizable cookie banner that matches your website’s style. You can also allow your visitors granular control over the cookies on your site by categorizing cookies with the help of a cookie scanner provided by the plugin. 

Other than the above features you can block third-party cookies automatically, and generate a privacy policy from scratch. The premium version of the plugin supports advanced features such as cookie consent log and Geo-IP-based cookie consent.

                                                                                                          Explore  CookieYes GDPR Cookie Consent & Compliance Notice Plugin

Conclusion!

These are not ranking of the best plugins, instead, these are 10 must-have WordPress plugins for every WordPress website. Plugins are required as according to the website nature and what functionality a particular website needs. There are other plugins that you should install according to your needs. 

In our previous blogs about 10 Essential WordPress Settings For Brand New Website, we also discuss the two things to check before using any plugin. They are User Rating and Last Update Date. 

Rating helps you to guess that other people are using it and if they are satisfied with it. Also, you should check when was the last time the plugin has been updated. If the last plugin update is way long back then, the developer might be no longer working for that plugin. So, no point in using such plugins.

Last Tips 

Avoid using many plugins because unnecessary plugin makes your website heavy. Heavy website loads slower and as we talked above, it results in bad user experience and ultimately ruins your ranking in search engines. So choose the plugins wisely and build a great website!!!

Other Posts:

• Types of Website Traffic 
• 20+ Best Magazine WordPress Themes 
• 15+ Best Premium WooCommerce WordPress Themes

The post 10+ Essential WordPress Plugins For New Website appeared first on Acme Themes Blog.

Right after installing WordPress on your site, you are ready to publish the very first blog. But wait… before you publish the first blog you have to complete some basic but very important setting for WordPress.

Creating a website is not a big deal but maintaining the better health of the website in all aspects is crucial. Maintaining better health for the website ultimately results in better ranking and increases the growth of the visitors.

So, configuring these Basic WordPress Settings helps not only in the better ranking in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) but also increase the user experience. So, if you are starting the fresh WordPress website then you should go through this article in detail. Or even you are already running the WordPress site, then it might also be helpful at some point.

Here are the 10 essential WordPress settings that we are going to discuss in detail.

1. Install Right Plugins
2. Create Essential Pages
3. Set up Permalink in Right Way
4. Setup Google Analytics and Google Search Console
5. Install Robot.txt and Sitemap.xml
6. Set the Right Size Logo and Favicon
7. Set Time Zone and User Registration
8. Configure the Discussion Section
9. WordPress Media Setting
10. Publish Quality Article as a First Blog

1. Install Right Plugins

After the installation and set up of WordPress, you need to install essential plugins that add extra functionality to the website. But before installing random plugins, you should pick the right plugins for your website. Because of broken and inappropriate plugins harms the website.

One tip for choosing the right plugin is to check for the rating of the particular plugin. This way, you can guess that lots of other people are using it. Also, you should check when was the last time the plugin has been updated. If the last plugin update is way long back then, the developer might be no longer working for that plugin. So, no point in using such plugins.

Another important thing to remember is, installing lots of plugins result in making the website heavy, slow, etc. So, delete all the unnecessary plugins and themes so as to make the website lighter.

Tips for choosing plugins

1. Check the rating
2. Check the last update

2. Create Essential Pages

The second most important thing to do before publishing the first blog is to create essential pages like About, Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions, Contact Page, Affiliate Disclaimer (If you running some kind of Affiliate Programs), GDPR compliance, etc.

Creating these pages with detailed content helps your website proves to be authentic. Also when you apply for some affiliate programs, partnership, and monetize your blog, the second party clearly checks for these pages. Having these pages also let your potential and existing customer know more about you.

3. Setup Permalink in Right Way

Permalink setting of WordPress lets you set how the permanent URL structure of your individual posts, pages, category and tag archives will be. Permalink structure plays a great role in SEO and site ranking as the URL is the gateway for the web crawler.

“Permalink” – the name itself suggests the this is the permanent link of each post (Uniform Resource Locator-URL). It is also called the web address of the post that should not be changed once it is set. The following figure shows that example of URL.

The WordPress Settings Permalinks allows you to choose your default permalink structure. You can choose from common settings or create custom URL structures. Once you chose the setting, WordPress automatically chose the permalink structure that you configured.

In WordPress, you will find the permalink setting in Settings>Permalink

We recommend setting the Post name as default.  Permalink according to the post name is considered to be better for SEO purposes.

4. Setup Google Analytics and Google Search Console

Another important thing to do right after the installation of WordPress (new website) is to configure Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Google Analytics is the most popular tool by Google used to measure the visitors of your website. By using Google Analytics you can track visitors, how they came to site, where are they from, which demographics, most popular content and lots of other results.

Google Search Console, on the other hand, is a tool by Google that helps you to monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results. The difference between Google Analytics and Google Search Console is, Analytics is user-oriented, providing data related to those who visit and interact with your website. Likewise, Google Search Console is search-engine focused, providing tools and insights that can help site owners improve visibility and presence in the SERPs.

5. Install Robot.txt and Sitemap.xml

Installing robot.txt will help your site to establish communication with web crawlers and other web robots. Robot.txt is a small file that allows the website owner to specify the specific pages or areas of the website to be blocked from scanning or processing. It also tells web robots which pages to crawl. The slash after “Disallow” tells the robot to not visit any pages on the site.

Example of the robot.txt page looks as below –

Also, install sitemap.xml or sitemap.html. SEO plugins like Yoast automatically create a sitemap.xml file for your website. Basically, A Sitemap is an XML file that lists the URLs for a site. It allows webmasters to include additional information about each URL: when it was last updated, how often it changes, and how important it is in relation to other URLs in the site.

Check the sitemap.xml file here.

6. Set the Right Size Logo and Favicon

The position and size of the logo may vary from theme to theme but placing a right sized logo help your website to look professional. Some theme comes with the option to place the logo on the center of the headers whereas most of the themes put the logo on the left side of the header.

Some people simply put the text the tagline as the logo but since the logo represents the overall branding of your website, it is important to place the quality logo on the site. So, placing the right resolution and right size logo will help your site to look professional.

Also, you need to set a favicon. Because favicon helps in improving user experience. It is much easier to find the needed bookmark by image, associated with a certain website, rather than looking through different URLs.

You can set the logo and Favicon from Appearance>Customize>Theme Setting or Site Identity

7. Set Time Zone and User Registration

You can set your timezone from Settings>General>Timzone section of the Dashboard. One of the benefits of setting the timezone to your local time is when you schedule posts, it will be published according to your time. At the same time, you can configure the date format and time format.

Another setting is the user registration section.  You will find this setting in Settings>General

You need to decide if you are going to have a multi-author blog or sole author. You have got two options Membership and New User Default Role. If you want to allow anyone to join then you can tick the membership to Anyone Can Join and set the default role.

8. Configure the Discussion Section

Another important setting in WordPress before publishing is configuring the discussion section. In the WordPress site, you get lots of spam comments so you should configure in a way that you stop getting spam comments. There are lots of plugins that stop spam comment however, you can also control these types of comments. You can even block the users from commenting on specific posts.

Settings>Discussion

9. WordPress Medis Setting

WordPress media settings help you to handle the images you upload. By default, WordPress creates multiple sizes for every uploaded image. This is not a good practice. This will load up your blog with unnecessary files and your blog will quickly become bloated. So, you can configure the media setting to keep in optimum quality.

Go to Settings > Media, and use the below screenshot to configure the proper settings:

Media Settings can work with the design of the site to limit image sizes to the appropriate width and height, this is one of the ways that will help to ensure that images that are too big do not distort the display of the website.

10. Publish Quality Article as a First Blog

After setting up all the necessary settings, you now focus on producing Quality, Engaging, Original and Helpful content for users. While publishing the first blog, you should consider the essential SEO guidelines so that you start pushing even better content right after.

Here, the meaning of quality content is content that creates value for the targeted customers. Engaging contents means somehow, that content should engage the reader by providing relevant images/infographics, GIFs, videos.

Check this 40 In-depth Infographics Ideas to create stunning infographics for your content.

Another important thing to consider for quality content is to write the original post based on the research and study. Rather than copied from here and there.

Lastly, helpful content means, that it should solve the user’s problem that they are looking for.

Conclusion!

So, these are the basic but very important WordPress settings you should configure before publishing content. These essential settings will help in the better ranking in Search Engine Result Pages and also increase user experience.

There are other guidelines while you publish the post that you should be taking care of. But these are just actions that should be taken before start publishing the content on the website.

If you have any queries regarding the themes, plugins and other WordPress related issues, you can join our Forums section.

Other Posts:

• Types of Website Traffic 
• 20+ Best Magazine WordPress Themes 
• 15+ Best Premium WooCommerce WordPress Themes

The post 10 Essential WordPress Settings For Brand New Website appeared first on Acme Themes Blog.

1. Login to your website dashboard
2. Go to Settings > General
3. Scroll down to Date Format Section
4. Select the available options for your Date format
5. Select time format on the Time Format section.
6. If the selection is fine, click Save Changes below to save the changes.

You can see the examples there before choosing the option. If you want to make the custom Date and Time format, you can take reference from the above examples.  You can check Codex for more details about the time and date format.

Date Format Examples

1. Fj, Y – October 10, 2017
2. Y-m-d – 2017-10-25
3. m/d/Y – 10/25/2017
4. d/m/Y – 25/10/2017

With the help of the above examples, you can make your own custom date format as well.

Time Format Examples

1. g:i a – 7:15 am ( Small ‘a‘ represents ‘am‘ )
2. g:i A – 7:15 AM ( Capital ‘A‘ represents ‘AM’ ) 
3. H: I – 7:15

With the help of these above examples, you can easily make the custom time format as well.

Finally,

Date and Time format may vary according to different countries. So select the appropriate date and time format to make your website attractive.

Other SEO Articles:

✅ 13 Essential SEO Tips For WordPress Website
✅Technical SEO For a Website?

If you liked this article, then consider following us on Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn.

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In WordPress, by default, new post articles are published on the top of your blog. Always, the recent blog is on the top, and so on. With every new article published, your existing articles are pushed down a spot — and eventually, off the front page completely, or the previous post will push down and the recent post will take that place. These are called “sticky” posts” because they are “stuck” to the front page of the site.]
Are you wondering about how to make your popular, best article or important information on your blog page always on the top of your site? It’s easy, you can just use the Sticky Post options of WordPress. You can make that sticky post and the sticky post will be always on the top of your blog page.

Be aware that when you do this, your post will then be ordered by when it was published, not when you removed the sticky status. If you have two or more than two sticky posts, the order of the sticky post is the same as the default post i.e. recent sticky post on the top and so on. If your post was published a while ago, be prepared for it to fall a long way down.

Follow the steps below to make post sticky:

• First login to your WordPress admin area. Example: www.yoursiteurl.com/wp-admin
• Go to Post and click on All Posts.
• Edit the post which you want to make the sticky post.
• On the right sidebar, you will see the Publish Box.
• Look at the Visibility: Public and Edit it.
• After that, check on Stick this post to the front page to make that post sticky.
• Click on the Update/Publish button below.
• Check the front/blog page to see that the post is on the top and it’s called a sticky post.

You can check the below image as well.

After the WordPress introduces Gutenberg editor. The entire editing experience has been rebuilt for media-rich pages and posts.

So, you can make the post sticky from Document>Status & Visibility

Some theme has a different design for your sticky post. The design depends upon the theme. It’s not necessary that all the themes have the same design for your sticky post. Some themes may miss that design and looks like the normal post although the sticky post will always be on the top.
If you want to make that sticky post as a normal post, you can just simply uncheck on Stick this post to the front page.

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The post How to Make Sticky Posts on WordPress appeared first on Acme Themes Blog.