If you want your website to be successful and useful to your readers, there’s always something to improve. This article presents a checklist of 10 things to do right now to drastically improve your WordPress site quality, loading speed and usability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Caching makes dynamic websites a lot faster to load, so you should definitely implement it on your WordPress install if you haven\u2019t already. Many free and premium plugins offer caching: WP Rocket<\/a>, WP Super Cache<\/a>, and more. My favorite and the one used on all my sites is W3 Total Cache<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every day, hundreds of WordPress websites get hacked because the site owner didn\u2019t keep his install up to date. This includes the WordPress core and all plugins and themes you\u2019re using.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also \u2013 if you don\u2019t use a theme or a plugin, always delete it from your server. Need help with upgrading? The Codex<\/a> has an extensive article about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Images are generally over 50% of the total weight of a web page. In order to increase your site loading speed and ensure a comfortable user experience on mobile devices, optimizing images is a must.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The easiest way to do is to install and use WP Smush. Available in both free<\/a> and premium<\/a> versions, this super handy plugin will reduce the size of your images without altering their quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For more information and additional tips, check out this image optimization guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Comment spam is definitely a nuisance. It adds valueless content to your site and can hurt your SEO because of the spammy links. While there are countless options to reduce comment spam (captchas, Akismet, etc.) the most efficient in my opinion is to use Disqus<\/a>, a plugin that replaces WordPress native commenting feature by an independent, JavaScript based comment system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One thing extremely annoying with blogs is outdated content. If you started blogging a few years ago, there\u2019s no doubt that your blog features posts that are now completely outdated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the best solution to the problem would be to keep every post on your blog up to date, it can be a tremendous amount of work. In that case, the best you can do is to warn your readers that the post they\u2019re reading is old and might not be up to date. If you\u2019d like to do that automatically, you can find a great code snippet on WP Engineer<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A great WordPress theme<\/a> looks good, but is also optimized for speed\/SEO, and provides a great user experience to your readers. If you\u2019re looking to create your own theme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Broken links are hurting your SEO and provide a negative experience to your readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To find out broken links on your site, you can either use this handy tool<\/a> or even better, the Broken Link Checker<\/a> plugin which finds broken links and allows you to remove them by a single click.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2017, more than 50% of people are accessing internet from a mobile device<\/a>. So it should go without saying that your site has to be well-optimized for smartphones and tablets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mobile optimization consist of mostly two things:\u00a0Speed optimization<\/a>, since sites are often accessed from WiFi connections which aren\u2019t always the fastest ever; and\u00a0responsive design, which ensures that visitors get a readable and usable site regardless of the device they\u2019re using.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To check your server speed, there\u2019s a great tool called Pingdom<\/a>. Simply enter your site url and Pingdom will let you know everything about your server performances: general grade, load time, faster than X % of other sites, page size and the number of requests. If your grades are low, you should think about moving your site to a better server.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve listed below my current top 4 web hosting companies for WordPress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Writing great posts should be the priority of a blogger, but promoting the content you\u2019ve created should always come as the close second. Promoting your blog posts will attract new visitors and clients, and could lead some of your best articles to go viral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hope this list will help you to improve your WordPress website quality! Any other tip you\u2019d like to add? Feel free to post them in the comments.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you want your website to be successful and useful to your readers, there’s always something to improve. This article presents a checklist of 10 things to do right now to drastically improve your WordPress site quality, loading speed and usability. Use a Caching Plugin Caching makes dynamic websites a lot faster to load, so …<\/p>\nStay Updated<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Optimize Your Images<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Reduce Spam by using Disqus<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Warn Your Visitors About Old Posts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Use a Modern Theme<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Look Out for Broken Links<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Always Keep Mobile Devices In Mind<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Use a Quality Server<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Name<\/th> Pros<\/th> Price (Starting at)<\/th><\/tr> WP Engine<\/td> Managed WordPress Hosting. 100% made for WordPress!<\/td> $29\/month<\/td><\/tr> Vidahost<\/td> Great quality, very fast. Hosting CatsWhoCode. Super fast support.<\/td> \u00a32.99\/month<\/td><\/tr> HostGator<\/td> WordPress specific hosting. Cheap but still good.<\/td> $4.99\/month<\/td><\/tr> Kickassd<\/td> High performance SSD hosting for cheap.<\/td> $7.99\/month<\/td><\/tr> InMotion Hosting<\/td> Cheap but still good.<\/td> $4.99\/month<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t Forget Promotion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n