WordPress is an extremely powerful and popular website creation tool. Its advanced yet user-friendly format has allowed web novices and experts alike to build the website or blog of their dreams from scratch and in no time. From designing your basic website using professional templates, to adding useful features and getting it live, WordPress has you covered.

 

It’s no surprise then to find out that WordPress powers almost 40% of all websites. While WordPress was originally known as the content management system (CMS) for bloggers, it has become far more than that. Because you can use a number of features, plugins and layouts, WordPress is a web design platform that can be used to create anything from an e-commerce store, to a website for bookings and schedules or a simple business website designed to showcase services.

 

So whether you’re a first-time WordPress user, or not, you’ve made a good choice. But with so much on offer by the CMS, some of its handy features can go by unnoticed. To help you make the most out of WordPress, here are six life hacks that will improve the way you manage your website and its content.

 

  • Add an SEO plugin

 

Search engine optimisation, or SEO as its most commonly known, shouldn’t be an afterthought when creating your website. It’s vital to ensuring your website is shown to browsers looking for your product or service on the likes of Google. But, SEO is a skill and an art, and not everyone understands – or has the time to understand – everything that needs to be done to optimise their content.

 

By installing a simple plugin called Yoast SEO, you’ll get all the assistance and direction you need to optimise your content as you’re creating it. From inserting page titles and meta descriptions of the correct character count, to adding alt text for images and internal links, Yoast guides you through the process and alerts you when everything is up to scratch.

 

  • Manage your content’s comments

 

Allowing comments is a great way to include your audience in your content and engage with them to improve brand sentiment. However, at the same it opens your website up to unwanted comments or spam links.

 

Luckily with WordPRess you can choose to delete negative comments before they’re live on the world wide web. Just follow the steps below:

 

  • Log into your WordPress dashboard
  • Click Comments in the left hand menu
  • View the comments and if you want to remove one check the box
  • Select Unapprove or Move to trash
  • Click Apply

  • Secure your site with a login plugin

 

Securing who can and can’t login to your website is one of the most basic security measures to take for your website, aside from installing an SSL certificate. WordPress will automatically give you unlimited login attempts, but this can easily be changed to minimise security threats. With the Limit Logins Attempts Reloaded plugin, a user will be blocked after a specified number of failed login attempts have been performed.

 

  • Connect to Google Analytics

 

Google Analytics (GA) is vital to understanding how people interact with your website. From user location, to gender, behaviour and session duration, there’s a wealth of information to be found from making use of GA.

 

Fortunately, GA is free and is relatively simple to add to WordPress. Once you’ve acquired a GA account, there are three ways to add it to your WordPress website:

 

  • Header.php: Add your GA tracking code to your website’s header
  • Functions.php: Add your tracking code to your theme files
  • Plugins: Install and activate the MonsterInsights Plugin


  • Add a Facebook Pixel

 

If you make use of Facebook ads, adding a Facebook pixel to your WordPress website is ideal for getting an overview of the conversions you get from your ads. The pixel also allows you to create audiences based on the users who visit your site, including their location, age and interests.

 

You can either add the pixel manually through Facebook Ads Manager or by installing and activating a Plugin such as Pixel Caffeine. 

 

  • Streamline your addition of internal links

 

If you’ve got a number of internal links to add to your weekly content, it can get tedious having to highlight the text each time, clicking the insert link button and adding the link. Beat the boring task and use a WordPress shortcut that’s sure to cut your internal linking time in half.

 

Copy the link you want to insert, highlight the text you want to use as anchor text and press Ctrl+V and the link will be inserted automatically.

 

There are probably hundreds, or even thousands, of WordPress hacks to make managing your WordPress website more easily. But these are some of the top hacks to consider before you dive into them all.