What is WordPress.org?

WordPress was launched in 2003 on 27^th May by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little.

In simple terms, wordpress is a free self-hosted web-based Website builder software, where you can create your own account and start creating a website which you can fully 100% own.

Approximately 40% to 45% of all the websites on the internet are created on wordpress.org.

Difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com?

Why do we use wordpress.org?

1. It is 100% free to use.
2. Very Easy to use.
3. SEO friendly
4. Safe and Secure because of the ability to add an SSL certificate.
5. Huge customization is possible because of plugins like elementor
6. Huge community
7. Huge list of plugins that make your work easy.

12 WordPress Tips and tricks for beginners

1. Web Hosting

When getting started it is very important to select a good Hosting Platform, because you need to safeguard your future business prospects.

With time your site get lots of data uploaded and if the hosting fails to give you adequate support the chances of your site crashing and losing traffic becomes very high.

Consider these 9 points when selecting a Hosting Platform

1. Overall performance
2. Security
3. Is it easy to use?
4. Backup feature
5. Pricing and renewals
6. Customer support
7. Ability to upgrade your server
8. Refund policy
9. Server responsiveness and speed

I personally use Hostinger, but there are some other good options as well like Bluehost, Dreamhost.

2. Theme

When getting started many beginners tend to do this mistake, they go for the most fancy-looking heavy theme.

Don’t do this. Heavy themes slow down your websites over the period of time.

This damages your organic traffic on the site.

Choose a light theme that will keep the speed of your site fast, which increases the engagement rate eventually results in good organic traffic.

I personally use the kadence theme, but you can try some other light themes in the market as well.

My Suggestions

1. Kadence
2. Astra
3. Neve
4. Schema
5. Oceanwp

3.SEO plugin

SEO (search engine optimization) is very important for any website. Getting a good SEO plugin is the first step towards SEO of  your site

SEO plugin helps you with a lot of tedious jobs like creating a sitemap & robots.txt.

The major help that you get when getting started from this plugin is to up your game with ON-Page SEO.

You understand how to set your meta description, title, focus keyword, URL length, and much more.

I personally use Rank Math, which is very good.

You can try some other SEO plugins if you wish, Yoast is also a good option.

4. Image Optimization

One of the biggest mistakes that happen unknowingly when getting started is uploading heavy stock images on your site.

Heavy images are one of the reason most of the sites slows down.

To avoid this you can manually monitor the size before uploading or can get a plugin that will help you with this.

I personally use the TinyPng plugin. You get 500 free monthly images with this plugin.

The plugin keeps the quality of the image the same but reduces the size.

5. Install Google Site Kit and Google Analytics

Once you are done with setting up your site, the very first thing you need to do is set up Google Analytics and Google Search Console for your site. You need to start tracking your site performance right away.

Installing Google Site Kit on wordpress will allow you to monitor your site performance on your wordpress dashboard itself.

6. Optimize permalinks

These are the permanent URLs of your post, pages, categories, or any other content on your site.

Optimizing your permalinks is one of the most underrated SEO tricks.

The first thing you need to do with permalink is to go

to wordpress dashboard > settings > permalinks

and set postname as your permalink type for your site.

This is the best type of permalink that you can set when getting started.

7.SSL certificate and SSL plugin

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, a security protocol that creates an encrypted link between a web server and a web browser.

SSL certificate is a digital certificate, and you need to get one for your site because it authenticates a website’s identity and enables an encrypted connection.

Also, sites with HTTPS get more priority from Google compared to HTTP.

Most of the hosting platforms give one SSL certificate free, and if you have a hosting platform that does not offer a free SSL certificate, then buy one.

Also, get this free plugin Really simple SSL to keep your SSL certificate throughout all the pages and posts.

I personally faced this problem, my SSL was active only on the home page and the rest of the pages were showing not secure.

Installing this plugin sorted this problem.

8. Image Alt Text Tags

Using images is a good strategy, as it increases the engagement rate.

But make sure you use title tags and Alt text for the images.

This helps Google to know what your image is all about and can show in the image search results when someone is searching for a relevant query.

Make sure your alt text includes the focused keyword and is short and to the point.

9. Backup Site.

When getting started this is one of the most important things that most people forget to take into consideration.

Just imagine you have put so much effort into your website for a long time and unfortunately due to some reason your site got crashed and files are deleted.

Sounds horrendous right? So make sure you backup your site.

This is just a one-time process, you can just set it up and then forget about it.

Most of the hosting providers give you the option to backup your site.

If you don’t get one from them, use some backup software to do so.

10. Keep minimum plugins

Plugins are like your Apps on your phone. They are there to make your life easy with wordpress.

But installing unnecessary plugins will only increase the load on your site, which affects the site speed affecting your user engagement and organic traffic.

Make sure you keep the list of plugins below 28.

The less the better.

11. Speedup site with plugin

Before I tell you this point, go and check your site speed on google pagespeed insights, you will be shocked with the stats of your site.

The first thing to speed up your site is to get yourself a light theme.

This might sound like a small solution, but let me tell you that it is not.

I myself have experienced the difference by applying this to my site.

Then make sure you use small-size images.

Now to the main point, sometimes your site speed is still slow even after you have done all the above,

 For this use plugins to speed up your site.

You can try any one of these, check for yourself which one gives you a good result

1. Litespeed Cache (the free version will do the magic)
2. WP Rocket (Paid version is good
3. Nitro Pack (Paid version is good)

Conclusion

I hope you found these tips and tricks useful. When I first started I had no clue about most of them.

I have learned some of these tips and tricks the hard way, I hope I have made your life a little easy with these tips and tricks

Make sure you implement them on your site

Also, see

How to Start a Blog and Make Money?

How to choose Blog Niche?

Exclusive Pre-Publish Checklist For WordPress Blog

How to Start Affiliate Marketing Business?