7 WordPress tips for beginners

GUEST POST by Aaron Rutley, web developer and WordPress guy with Eleven Media (left).

Over the last few years I’ve spent hundreds of hours building WordPress websites, researching / testing plugins and chatting to other developers/bloggers in the WordPress community.

I’ve picked up a few tips along the way that I thought I’d share with some fellow bloggers & WordPress users!

1. Have your blog automatically backed up to Dropbox

It’s always a good idea to have multiple backups, and setting your blog to backup to your Dropbox is really easy with either BackupBuddy or WordPress backup to Dropbox. The best thing about using Dropbox for this is it will sync to your computer – so you’ll have backups of your backups!

LINKS:

http://pluginbuddy.com/purchase/backupbuddy/

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-backup-to-dropbox/

2. Consider using Disquss for your comments

I’ve used the Disquss Comment System and plugin on a handful of client sites this year and it’s great. It allows visitors to easily comment on the blog using one of their existing social networking profiles (or comment as a guest). Disquss is really easy to setup, it looks great and I’ve found it really reduces comment spam.

LINKS:

http://disquss.com

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/disqus-comment-system/

3. Use an upcoming post’s calendar.

If you’re publishing lots of posts or scheduling posts then the Editorial Calendar Plugin will come in handy. It lets you easily drag and drop posts around a calendar to schedule posts. Although you can schedule posts in WordPress without a plugin, the Editorial Calendar Plugin is a much nicer user experience.

LINK:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/editorial-calendar/

4. Create a form so visitors can submit posts to your blog

Using the Gravity Forms (paid) plugin you can easily create a form that your visitors can use to submit posts. With a little creativity you could use this to power a business directory, recipe website, gig guide – anything you like really. Don’t worry – you can set these articles to draft so you can review each post before it goes live!

LINK:

http://www.gravityforms.com/

5. Have your blog posts automatically post to your Facebook page.

If you’re blogging a lot and find it hard to keep manually updating your Facebook page every time you post an article, then the Facebook Page Publish Plugin is a must. It can post to your personal profile, business page or Facebook application.

LINK:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook-page-publish/

6. Have your blog posts automatically post to Twitter

Similar to tip 5, if you want an automated way to update your Twitter profile every time you publish a post, then check out the WP to Twitter plugin. The best thing about this plugin is that it lets you customise the tweets if you’d like to. It even has a few short-codes so you can easily add categories in the tweets.

LINK:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-to-twitter/

7. Tidy up wp-admin

If you spend as much time in the WordPress admin area as I do, you’ll want to hide unnecessary items. I always use the Adminimize plugin to tidy up the back-end on my own and client sites, set it to only show what you need and just focus on blogging!

LINK:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/adminimize/

If you have any tips or plugin suggestions that you can recommend for other bloggers please let us know in the comments!

ABOUT AARON RUTLEY (Eleven Media):

Aaron has been living and breathing website development since 1999. He completed a Certificate IV in Multimedia while in high school and followed it up with a Bachelors Degree in Multimedia – Applications from Monash University. As well as having over a decade of experience in web development, Aaron has spent the majority of his time as a freelancer, which has given him a wealth of knowledge in project management and customer relations. He is currently a partner in web development firm Eleven Media along with Blaz Robar (pictured below). Follow Aaron on Twitter – @AaronRutley.