Ways To Give Your WordPress Site A Final Polish

712 followers

8 years ago

Time is short....you've got this brilliant new product to promote......must move on.

Sound familiar?

But you will be leaving crumbs on the table if you don't give your site a Final Polish.....so here is my checklist to turn your site from ordinary to extraordinary.

Wherever possible I have included links to an appropriate WA post or tutorial.

APPEARANCE

1. Typefaces and Fonts. You can change typefaces and fonts with ease using this plugin TinyMCE Advanced

2. Themes. Whilst building your site you may have come across a theme you prefer. Now is the time to change your theme before it becomes packed with posts and comments.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/loes/blog/change-t...

3. Backup. But before you change your theme make sure that you have backed up your site.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/how-to-ba...

4. Welcome Message. Include a personal welcome message on your home page. Build empathy with your visitor by telling them a little about yourself and the site you have created

5. Sticky Posts. Make your Welcome Message or other important posts 'Sticky' so they always appear at the top of your home page. Go to the post you want to edit and look for 'Publish' in the right hand sidebar. Click on 'Visibility' -> 'Public' and select 'Stick this post to the front page'.

6. Make Full Use Of Your Homepage A lot depends on the theme you are using, but there is often a field below the main heading which can be used for a variety of purposes.....advertising, a welcome message, links to social media sites. Don't forget the footer for advertising or pictures of your product.

7. Graphics and Pictures Make your home page as interesting as possible using graphics and pictures. I recommend Canva for creating banners and graphics. Finding pictures which are royalty free can be a nightmare. I suggest you view the following video which lists a number of sites which offer royalty free images.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/use-canva-to-create-your-own-graphics/designing-with-canva

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/how-to-fi...

Another useful post which covers alt tags can be found at

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/checklist...

FUNCTIONALITY

8. Broken Links There is nothing more frustrating for a visitor than to come across a broken link. However there is an excellent plugin called 'Broken Link Checker' which informs you of any broken links or missing images. You can be emailed with an alert or go to the bottom of your WordPress dashboard, where the broken links are listed.

9. Navigation of Site It is essential that your visitors and the Google spiders are able to navigate around your site as rapidly as possible.The menu bar, which appears at the top of every page and post, must be as comprehensive and informative as possible. Only use a single row of menu options and use the drop down and sub drop down menus to list your posts.

10. Links Within Your Site To make your site more interesting for the visitor and more productive for yourself, you should include links between posts and pages within your site. Google will love this as well!

11. Yoast Books have been written about SEO, so this post is not the place to review SEO in detail. However a plugin called Yoast does provide an easy way of checking whether your post complies with the basic rules of SEO. Once you have entered a 'focus keyword' Yoast analyses your post based on a wide range of criteria. This analysis appears below your post.

12. Recent Posts, Categories, Archives All of your content you should be listed under these headings in your right hand sidebar. WordPress has a default setting to install the headings or your theme may offer a more stylish alternative.

13. Translator Your posts will be seen all over the world so it's a good idea to have a language translator, There are a number of online translators around with Google Translate probably being the most popular.

BUILD A LIST

14. Write An ebook To Give Away Writing your own ebook as a lead magnet is far better than using a free ebook or purchasing one. Hubspot offer a series of templates, which makes writing your ebook so much easier. Just subscribe to Hubspot at http://hubspot.com and look for five free ebook templates.

15. Collect email Addresses SumoMe has a range of sophisticated tools designed to collect the email addresses of potential customers. The basic package is free. Open SumoMe and click on their logo and you can see how it works on your website.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/free-comb...

16. Link Your Offer To An Autoresponder Autoresponders enable you to build a list of subscribers and send them follow up messages, as long as they have opted in to receive emails from you. We all know that 'The Money Is In The List', so having an autoresponder is a very valuable resource. The most popular autoresponders, in my order of preference, are GetResponse, aWeber and TrafficWave.

17. Share Buttons Enable visitors to spread the word about your site virally by installing share buttons.You could use a plugin called 'Simple Share Buttons Adder' or SumoMe also has this facility.

18. Comments Generating comments is looked on favourably by Google. You can probably install a comments facility through your theme. However I am using a theme called Vicomi, which enables you to highlight the best comments you receive.

ANALYSE

19. Stats Counter You can install a counter which records Page Views, Unique Visits and Return Visits. You can open it when you click on 'Dashboard' in WordPress. The plugin is called 'Stat Counter - Free Real Time Visitor Stats'.

20. Google Analytics The best way to track and analyse the performance of your site is using Google Analytics. It enables you to measure site traffic, SEO, engagement, ad revenue and activity on social media.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/beginner-...

I'm sure you may prefer other tools than the ones I have suggested. Please share your thoughts and suggestions.

Enjoy giving your site a final polish!