This guest post was written by Hayes Potter, the 13 year old web developer and programmer that gives webmasters tips on protecting their website from common hacking techniques. If you have webmaster or WordPress knowledge and are interested in writing a post for Hack WordPress, please contact us.
Today I want to tell you some very simple tips to keep your WordPress site running smoothly and easy ways to keep readers coming back.
First you should always keep your site running well.
- Try to avoid things like “Under Construction” and “Coming Soon!” for pages or new site features.
- Keep everything organized.
- Set categories to divide your posts, don’t cram everything in one page and create multiple pages for more organization.
- Make everything obvious, don’t keep your visitors guessing where the Contact page is.
- Always make sure your site is actually fast and not keeping your visitors waiting at a white page, 6 seconds waiting is fine in life but online it’s like an eternity.
For more in depth help on speeding up your site take a look at my tutorial by clicking here (see there’s another hint, “by clicking here”, easy and simple).
Next keep your readers interested and intrigued about your content.
- Always post top quality content.
- Don’t post about your cat, new boyfriend/girlfriend, or that awesome YouTube video you saw recently.
- Short isn’t bad, sometimes short stories that are to the point are better than long lengthy stories full of unneeded details and side stories.
- Make your articles into a series, keep your readers guessing on what your next article is about, but don’t write enough information in one article or the post is basically obsolete.
- Stick to one niche in your blog. If your blog is about blogging tips, why are you posting about that new computer that just came out?
- If you have a lot to say, say it. Don’t just write the bare minimum as long as the content is relevant.
- Most readers simply scan anything you write, so adding pointless information (even if it somewhat pertains to the article) doesn’t help much.
For some more simple ways to keep your readers visit my tutorial by clicking here.
Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day! Also a big thanks to Kyle Eslick for having this awesome site.
Hi Kyle. I'll head over there to check out what they wrote.
Ironically, I just completed a 7 post series on ...
wonderful,I now intend to do such a menu 
@ Monika - Thanks for the input!
I think that change actually occured a little while ago, as it ...
Kyle,
Thanks for the link. I've been a fan of Hackwordpress since the very beginning of the blog. The 100+ ...
WP 2.6.1. creates the version info between head and /head by itself
the info about tht deletion of the versions number ...
Saturday, May 24th, 2008 at 5:43 am
Good tips Hayes.
You mentioned the two things I dislike the most when visiting a site: “Make everything obvious…” and “…not keeping your visitors waiting at a white page”.
A site I visited recently lost me as a subscriber because I couldn’t find the subscribe button. There was no RSS icon to be found anywhere on the home page. Not even a text link.
I use Firefox and could easily have clicked my live bookmarks button to get the job done, but I left frustrated.
Often times, as well, once a page has been loading with nothing displayed for several seconds, I simply move along to another site.
Again, good tips. I think you’ve embarked on a promising journey.
Saturday, May 24th, 2008 at 10:04 am
wauw, i don’t believe it if you’re age 13. Anyhow, great tips.
Saturday, May 24th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Great post. However, I disagree with one thing. You said:
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The wonderful thing about a blog is all of the search engine traffic it can bring over time. Using “click here” instead of relevant keywords could greatly impact it.
Use relevant keywords in your links, but then use appropriate CSS to keep links underlined and blue (like they are on here).
Saturday, May 24th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Thanks guys for the comments I really appreciate it, and yes I really am 13 =). If you guys need anything I’m here to help.
Sunday, May 25th, 2008 at 6:10 am
Is it better to use the more link or not? I personally use it and the text before it is just like the lead in a newspaper. The article itself comes after the link.
Sunday, May 25th, 2008 at 10:26 am
In most themes it doesn’t matter, but in some newspaper themes or maybe even magazine the more tag is already added automatically adds it in every post. So if you add a more tag it will break the theme.
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 at 1:44 am
Great post Hayes! Thanks for the valuable information you have shared here! Keep it up!
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Thanks Aurlius, I really appreciate it =)