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complete WordPress guide for beginners
2022
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Introduction
WordPress – An Overview
What is WordPress?
What is Content Management System?
How does WordPress work?
Features of WordPress
The Benefits of Using WordPress
WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org
How to Create and Maintain a WP Site?
How to Create a WP Site?
How to Maintain a WordPress Website?
WP Admin Area – Introduction to WP
Dashboard WordPress Admin Area:
Navigation Menu
WP Plug-ins – Introduction & Installation
WordPress Plug-ins How to Install a
WordPress Plugin – Step by Step for
Beginners
Best WordPress Plugins for Your Site
What, Why, & Hows of WP Salts &
Security Keys
What Are WordPress Security Keys &
Salts?
Difference Between Posts vs. Pages in
WP Features of Both WordPress Pages &
Posts
Deploying security measures in
WordPress
Best Drag and Drop WordPress Page
Builders
What are the Limitations of
WordPress.com?
Common WordPress Mistakes to Avoid
Introduction
WordPress is an Open Source software
system used by millions of people around
the world to create beautiful websites and
blogs. It is completely customizable by the
use of themes and plugins. Thanks to the
great community of contributors and the
constant development, WordPress has
become a content management system
that provides you with tons of features to
build and manage your website. You can
use the application to build any type of
website: from a small personal blog or
business website to fully-featured
eCommerce online store or
gallery/portfolio website, the possibilities
are endless. WordPress is the ideal
solution to build your online presence,
whether you are a newcomer or you
already have some technical experience.
As you have a great number of plugins to
extend the functionality of your website,
with no coding required you can create a
professional website in just a few easy
steps. And that’s exactly what we are
going to discuss in this training guide. In
this guide, we will provide you with
detailed information and instructions on
how you can use WordPress to build your
own website with ease.
We will cover different topics like
WordPress installation, plugin and theme
management, and usability. Also, you will
learn how to extend the functionality of
your WordPress website and provide your
visitors with feature-rich experience. So
let’s get started… WordPress is one of
the most widely-used blogging platforms
available. WordPress is a factory that
makes webpages is a core analogy
designed to clarify what WordPress is and
does. It stores the content that allows you
to create & publish webpages only
requiring a domain and a hosting site to
work. Let’s unveil it in detail…
WordPress – An Overview
2.1 What is WordPress?
WordPress is a Content Management
System (CMS), which is open source and
was created to manage blogs. WordPress
allows you to easily create and manage
your blogs and websites content without
coding and it can be used to create a fully
operational website. Today, WordPress is
the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the
world being used by millions of websites.
The best thing about WordPress is that it
is an Open Source project which can be
used by anyone over the web which
means you can use it for anything be it
your personal diary, your travel accounts
or your views on any subject for that
matter. WordPress is an excellent
platform for building a variety of websites.
Besides building a blogging site,
WordPress can be used to build an
e-commerce website, portfolio sites,
business websites, new sites, and more.
Famous WordPress websites include
TechCrunch, Mashable, The New York
Times’s blog, etc. Some of the features
offered by WordPress are private and
password protected WordPress posts and
pages, easy importing, WordPress
installation and upgrades, a full
WordPress theme and plugin system,
multiple authors, spam protection and
intelligent text formatting. So, ‘WordPress
is only limited by your imagination’. With
its intuitive interface, ease of use and the
great number of free and paid themes and
plugins, WordPress is the preferred
choice to build a professional website. All
WordPress features are fully supported on
all our WordPress hosting plans, so you
can get started in no time and create your
next successful online project.
2.2 What is Content Management
System? A content management system
(CMS) is an application used to create
and manage digital content. Content is
what makes any organization stand out
from the crowd, content must be regular
and well organized in order to maintain
any branding possible thus rather than
doing it manually CMSes are used for
enterprise content management (ECM)
and web content management (WCM). An
ECM is used for the collaboration in any
workplace by integrating document
management, digital asset management
and records retention functionalities, and
providing end users with role-based
access to the organization’s digital assets.
While WCM facilitates collaborative
authoring for websites. It is easy to say
that WCM is a more public content
management tool whereas the ECM is
totally built for more confidential contents
to be kept secured within the
organization.
2.3 How does WordPress work?
WordPress, like any other WCM system,
is dynamically driven through the use of a
database with multiple tables storing all
the content information and the
information required to specify the
website structure. You must have the
ability to create and utilize a database to
use WordPress. After learning about
WordPress the first thing that comes to
our mind is that where to use it? What
kind of website can I create using
WordPress? So let’s move on to the
section straight away. When launched,
WordPress was nothing but a typographic
improvement, but as time passed and the
community got stronger and WordPress
was developed by contributors from all
over the world, now WordPress is a
robust system that can be used to create
and manage any kind of website to keep it
short. To showcase some examples let’s
look into the various implementations of
WordPress already developed.
E-commerce Websites: WordPress is
really great for E-Commerce websites
because of its robust structure and ability
to categorize contents. With the proper
theme chosen to create an E-commerce
website is considered to be one of the
best options available.
Educational/Library Websites: One of the
most important features of WordPress is
to manage and categorize documents or
other assets, though notself-sustaining
WordPress is good enough to create and
run a Library Website. Using DMS
implementation as well as WordPress one
can surely develop Library Websites.
Personal Websites: Whether it’s a small
website containing your portfolio or a daily
blog. WordPress is undoubtedly one of
the best platforms to showcase your
talent as it has dedicated sections for the
contents and overall easy experience.
2.4 Features of WordPress
WordPress is considered to be the most
popular content management system due
to its characteristics: The most important
features of WordPress are that you can
create a dynamic website without any
programming and design knowledge
WordPress is theme based which
provides you options for various open
source and premium design themes,
which can be integrated easily without
any designing knowledge The first time
you step foot inside the WordPress
dashboard, you can’t help but marvel at
how simple it all appears to be. A
management sidebar on the left, a clean
interface to work within in the center and
notifications at the top. But once you start
digging deeper into WordPress, you may
feel overwhelmed as you dig deeper into
the layers of functionality within the
content management system. So, let’s
talk about practical steps here.
3.1 How to Create a WP Site?
The following WordPress tutorial will walk
you through all the necessary steps in
setting up your first WordPress site.
Step 1: Choose a Domain
Step 2: Purchase Web Hosting and
Domain
Step 3: Install WordPress
Step 4: Find a WordPress Theme
Step 5: Install Your WordPress Theme
Step 6: Configure Your WordPress Theme
Step 7: Publish Your First Pages
Step 8: Create a Menu
Step 9: Configure Your WordPress
Settings
Step 10: Install Essential WordPress
Plugins Now, let’s start the steps in detail:
3.1.1
Step 1: Choose a Domain First and
foremost, you must get a domain name
for your website. Domain name is the
online identity of your business, i.e. name
of your website in the simple terms. In
other words, it is your website address or
the URL which users type on the web
browser’s address bar to visit your
website. Choosing a domain name is a
thoughtful task. Below are some of the
things you must consider while creating/
choosing a domain name: Keep it simple
and short: Create a domain name that is
simple, short and easy to read,
remember. It enhances the chance of
users typing your website address
correctly on the browser. Suitable for
your website content:
Make sure that your domain name is
relevant to the content you are going to
put on the website. Besides, you can also
include keywords on the domain name if it
sounds good. Choose an appropriate
domain extension: Domain extension is
the suffix such as .com, .net, .org, .edu,
etc. which is added at the end of web
addresses. They have specific meaning
such as .com for commercial, .org for
Organizations, and .net for network.
These three extensions are the most used
extensions which you can use as per the
nature of your site; however, .com is
always preferred. Besides, there are
some domain name generator tools which
help to create a cool brandable domain
name.
How to get a domain name?
There are several domain name
providers online from where you can buy
a domain name. Most of the domain
name providers have a domain name
search tool where you can type the name
you want and it checks the availability of
the domain name. Below are the top
domain Registrars you can check out:
GoDaddy NameCheap
3.1.2
Step 2: Purchase Web Hosting and
Domain Web hosting does exactly what it
says: it “hosts” websites. In other words,
web hosting companies own and manage
giant web servers located in data centers
around the country (and, sometimes, the
world). It’s on these web servers where
websites like yours sit, so you don’t have
to buy or manage any of the server
technology yourself. You pay these
companies what amounts to monthly or
annual rent for space and bandwidth on
the server. Then, you can focus on
building your website in WordPress. Next,
you have to find out the best WordPress
hosting service which suits your needs.
There are several web hosting companies
offering different types of WordPress
hosting plans. Below are the types of
WordPress hosting plans you should
know about: Shared Hosting: Cheapest
hosting plan. With shared hosting,
multiple websites share the same IP
address and resources of the server
including the memory, hard disk space,
and the bandwidth. (Pros: Budget-friendly
plan. Cons: Limited space, compromised
speed and security) VPS (Virtual Private
Server): With VPS plan, you will be
provided a certain portion of server
resources. You will share a server with
other VPS users but there’ll limited users,
not as many as in shared plan. (Pros:
Secure, Option to get more server
resources anytime as your business
grows. Cons: Expensive for the small
businesses and beginners.)
Dedicated Hosting:
Very expensive plan. All the server
resources are dedicated to a single user.
(Pros: Full storage, bandwidth, and full
control over the server resources, more
secure. Cons: Not a cost-effective plan for
small companies.) Managed WordPress
Hosting: Managed WordPress hosting is
hosting cum WordPress management
solution which provides some of the
essential WordPress tools. It is a kind of
dedicated hosting specific to WordPress
platform. (Pros: WordPress-centered
hosting. Cons: Quite expensive for small
and growing businesses. While there isn’t
one clear front-runner when it comes to
hosting providers, WordPress does give
some solid recommendations on
companies that not only work well with
WordPress websites but that offer
affordable hosting plans. I’d suggest you
start with one of these if this is your first
website. 3.1.3 Step 3: Install WordPress
There are a number of ways in which you
can install WordPress. However, most
web hosting providers will provide you
with an easy-to-use one-click installation
process that simplifies the whole process.
Using Bluehost as an example, here is
what you need to do: First, log into your
new web hosting account: You’ll then
arrive at your web hosting dashboard:
What you’ll want to look for instead is a
button that says “Install WordPress”: They
may try to offer upgraded installation
services, but there’s no need for that.
Simply follow the instructions for installing
WordPress. Once you have completed
the installation and created your
WordPress login credentials, it’s time to
step inside. Unless you change your login
domain (which you eventually should for
security reasons), your admin login will be
located at
‘www.yourdomainname.com/wp-login.php’
.
3.1.4
Step 4: Find a WordPress Theme Click
Here To A WordPress theme is a
pre-designed and pre-coded interface
template for WordPress. Basically, it
saves you the trouble (and money) of
having to design your own website
from-scratch or to pay someone else to
do it for you. When you log into
WordPress for the first time, WordPress
will automatically assign their latest theme
to your site. If you want to use a
WordPress theme that works better for
your niche, don’t be afraid to look around
and to find the best and most trustworthy
WordPress theme for your purposes.
Keep in mind that every theme requires
some configuration. Also, not every theme
works the same way. Some utilize a basic
text editor (which looks similar to the
blank page in Microsoft Word) while
others use a page builder or visual editor.
So, switching from one theme to another
will force you to do a little rework if or
when you make a switch. If you want to
spare yourself the possible hassle, then
don’t move on to the next steps until
you’ve found the perfect WordPress
theme for your site.
3.1.5
Step 5: Install Your WordPress Theme
When you find that perfect WordPress
theme, it’s time install it in WordPress.
Free WordPress Themes If you’re using
a free theme from the WordPress
repository, here is what you need to do:
Inside WordPress, go to the Appearance
tab and click on “Themes”. At the top of
the page, click on “Add New”. This will
take you to the WordPress repository from
within WordPress. Use this option so you
don’t have to do any manual installation.
Once you’re in the repository, do a search
for the WordPress theme you want to use.
Hover over it, and click the “Install” button.
When it’s done installing, you then have to
activate it in order to publish it to your
WordPress site. Click on “Activate” (in the
same spot where the “Install” button was)
and wait for it to take you back into the
main
WordPress dashboard. Premium
WordPress Themes If you’ve decided to
purchase a premium WordPress theme,
the process will differ as third-party theme
developers and marketplaces don’t sync
directly to WordPress. Here is what you
need to do: Go to your WordPress
theme’s page and purchase the file. Once
you’ve done this, you’ll be taken to a
screen where you can download the
theme file. If there is an option for it,
download the “Installable WordPress Files
Only”. This will give you a zipped folder
you can then upload directly into
WordPress. To do this, go back into
WordPress, find the Appearance tab, and
go to “Themes”. Click on “Add New” at the
top. Only, this time, you’ll select the
“Upload Theme” option. Select the zip file
from your computer and click Install Now.
With your new theme uploaded into
WordPress, you can now activate and
publish it to the site.
3.1.6 Step 6: Configure Your WordPress
Theme Upon activation, you’ll want to
spend some time configuring your theme.
You can do this under the Appearance tab
and then click “Customize”. Ultimately, it’s
up to you to decide how much or little of
your theme you want to customize.
However, you should at least take some
time now to go through each of the
modules and acquaint yourself with what
you have the power to change. Site
Identity is an important one to fill in, so
make sure you look at that first. Colors
allow to update your site to your brand’s
color palette (if you have one). Widgets
allow you to add content to your footer.
3.1.7
Step 7: Publish Your First Pages Once
you’ve logged into your WordPress site
via the login form, you should be
presented with the WordPress
Dashboard, which is your site’s admin
area. WordPress dashboard is the
interface where administrators or other
users manage website page, posts and
perform other tasks. So let’s dig right in…
4.1 What is the WordPress Dashboard?
WordPress dashboard is the interface that
appears when you log in to your
WordPress website by appending
wp-admin to the URL of your website.
Hence if your website is
https://www.example.com/ The
WordPress dashboard login URL for this
website would be
https://www.example.com/wp-admin/ The
dashboard contains various settings
which help you set up your website
efficiently and modify several aspects of
your site without needing to FTP to your
site or touch the WordPress database.
Your WordPress administration section is
where all of your site’s administration is
controlled from. Your Dashboard is
divided into several areas that provide
you with access to tools and features
such as:
Useful data and information about what is
taking place on your site. It also provides
you with “at-a-glance” metrics and reports
about recent activity taking place on your
site, system updates, and notifications,
and to be kept updated on the latest news
from the WordPress community and
various WordPress-related resources,
such as notifications and announcements
from WordPress product vendors of
plugins and themes that you have
installed on your site. Management and
control of all website settings and options.
Features that let you modify, expand,
update and enhance the design and
functionality of your site, upgrade plugins
and themes, and add, modify and delete
content or content sections. In version
3.8, WordPress introduced new design
changes to its backend section … Even
though this new design was mostly
cosmetic and aimed at giving WordPress
users and developers cleaner typography
for a better optimized mobile and desktop
viewing experience and a more aesthetic
experience, it also affected much of the
existing WordPress documentation
around the web, including thousands of
tutorials and articles about WordPress
online, in print and on video that are now
in need of being updated.
4.2 Your WordPress Dashboard
Depending on whether you or someone
else manages your site, you may or may
not see the messages below. The first
time you log into your WordPress site, you
may see a “Welcome to WordPress”
message displayed at the top of the
Dashboard… If you are new to using your
website and want to spend a little time
learning more about WordPress, just click
on the “Get Started” or “Next Step” links.
To dismiss the “Welcome” message or
prevent it from showing again inside your
admin area the next time you log in, click
on the Dismiss link near the top
right-hand corner of the page…
Feel free to explore the information
displayed in the “welcome” message if
you want to learn about new features and
updates to the software. To go back to the
dashboard, just select “Dashboard” (or
click on Dashboard > Home) on the admin
menu section… Or scroll down to the
bottom of the page and click on the link to
dismiss the message and return to your
main Dashboard…
4.3 WordPress Dashboard Screen Areas
Your Dashboard gives you access to all of
the main controls and features that you
will need to administrate the site… Your
main Dashboard screen is divided into the
following sections: Header And Toolbar
Section (1) Main Navigation Menu (2)
Work Area (3) Footer Section (4)
4.3.1 WordPress Dashboard Area:
Header Section The header section
displays system updates, messages,
warnings and notifications. A whole range
of updates, messages, banner,
announcements, notifications, and
warnings can display on your header,
depending on what area you are working
on, what action has been performed, or
which plugins you have installed on your
site. Screen Options Feature The Screen
Options tab is located in the top-right
corner of your
WordPress administration screen, in
the header section. Clicking on this tab
displays different options and features on
your screen, depending on which section
of the administration backend you are
currently working on. For example, if you
are in the main Dashboard, clicking on the
Screen Options tab allows you to
configure options like which panels of
your Dashboard screen you want to hide
or display. If you are in the Posts section
of your site management area, clicking on
the Screen Options tab lets you select
totally different options, such as displaying
or hiding information in the listings
section (e.g. tags, comments, etc.),
specifying the number of posts to display
per page, and other configurable options
depending on the plugins you have
installed on your site. Online Help
Section You can access the official
WordPress documentation and user help
forum sections by clicking on the Help tab
located on the top right-hand corner of
your header area. Like the Screen
Options tab, the Help tab also displays
context-specific information. So, for
example, if you are editing content in the
Edit Post area, clicking on the Help tab
will bring up help information and tutorials
relevant to editing posts.
4.3.2 WP Admin Area: Toolbar The
Toolbar displays at the very top of your
Dashboard screen and provides you and
your logged in site users with access to a
range of important administration
functions, features, information and “quick
links” to other areas of your site. Most
Toolbar items can expand to display
additional information by hovering your
mouse over the icons. For example, the
“updates” icon on the toolbar lets you see
if the WordPress software or any plugins
or themes need to be updated. You can
also see at a glance ……..
WordPress Plugins allows you to easily
modify, customize, and enhance a
WordPress site. Instead of changing the
core program code of WordPress, you
can add functionality with WordPress
Plugins. If you’re new to WordPress, you
might find yourself wondering, “what is a
WordPress plugin?”. It’s a fairly common
question to ask because, in addition to
being one of the many new terms that
WordPress will introduce to your
vocabulary, plugins are also an essential
building block of every single WordPress
site. Here is a basic definition.
5.1 WordPress Plug-ins A plugin is a
piece of software containing a group of
functions that can be added to a
WordPress website. They can extend
functionality or add new features to your
WordPress websites. WordPress plugins
are written in the PHP programming
language and integrate seamlessly with
WordPress. In the WordPress community,
there is a saying that goes around:
“there’s a plugin for that”. They make it
easier for users to add features to their
website without knowing a single line of
code.
There are thousands of WordPress
plugins available for free at the official
WordPress plugin directory. Aside from
free plugins, there are tons of amazing
commercial ones available from
third-party companies and developers. As
a site administrator, you can
install/uninstall plugins from the admin
area. You can also download and
manually install them using an FTP client.
Because the vast majority of plugins are
free, it is important to note that they
usually do not come with tech support.
For this reason, it is important to be
careful when choosing which ones you
want to install on your site. Although there
are plugins that can do the task you want
them to do, some are much higher quality
than others. In order to choose the right
ones, you should ask yourself a couple of
questions. How long has it been since it
was updated? Is it compatible with the
latest version of WordPress?
Are people getting answers to their
support questions? What type of rating
does it have? There is a myth that
WordPress plugins slow your site down. It
is not true. Only the number of bad ones
will slow down your site.
5.2 How to Install a WordPress Plugin –
Step by Step for Beginners After installing
WordPress, the first thing every beginner
needs to learn is how to install a
WordPress plugin. Plugins allow you to
add new features to WordPress such as
add a gallery, slideshow, etc. There are
thousands of free and paid plugins
available for WordPress. But before you
start, if you are using WordPress.com,
then you cannot install plugins.
WordPress.com has its limitations. You
cannot install plugins on WordPress.com
unless you upgrade to their business
plan. On the other hand, you can install
any plugin you want on your self-hosted
WordPress.org website right out of the
box. Installing a WordPress plugin
involves three methods: Installing a
WordPress plugin using search
Uploading a WordPress plugin
Manually installing a WordPress plugin
using FTP
5.2.1 Install a Plugin using WordPress
Plugin Search The easiest way of
installing a WordPress plugin is to use the
plugin search. The only downside of this
option is that a plugin must be in the
WordPress plugin directory which is
limited to only free plugins. First thing you
need to do is go to your WordPress admin
area and click on Plugins » Add New. You
will see a screen like the one in the
screenshot above. Find the plugin by
typing the plugin name or the functionality
you are looking for like we did. After that,
you will see a bunch of listings like the
example below:
You can pick the plugin that is best for
you. Since in our search, we were looking
for Floating Social Bar which happens to
be the first plugin, we will click the ‘Install
Now’ button. WordPress will now
download and install the plugin for you.
After this, you will see the success
message with a link to activate the plugin
or return to plugin installer. A WordPress
plugin can be installed on your site, but it
will not work unless you activate it. So go
ahead and click on the activate plugin link
to activate the plugin on your WordPress
site. That’s all; you have successfully
installed your first WordPress plugin.
The next step is to configure the plugin
settings. These settings will vary for each
plugin, therefore, it cannot be discussed
in general.
5.2.2 Install a Plugin using the WordPress
Admin Plugin Upload Paid WordPress
plugins are not listed in the WordPress
plugin directory. These plugins cannot be
installed using the first method. That’s
why WordPress has the Upload method to
install such plugins. We will explore how
to install WordPress plugins using the
upload option in the admin area. First, you
need to download the plugin from the
source (which will be a zip file). Next, you
need to go to the WordPress admin area
and visit Plugins » Add New page. After
that, click on the Upload Plugin button on
top of the page.
This will bring you to the plugin upload
page. Here you need to click on the
choose file button and select the plugin
file you downloaded earlier to your
computer. After you have selected the file,
you need to click on the install now
button. WordPress will now upload the
plugin file from your computer and install
it for you. You will see a success message
like this after the installation is finished.
Once installed, you need to click on the
Activate Plugin link to start using the
plugin. You would have to configure the
settings to fit your needs. These settings
will vary for each plugin, therefore, it
cannot be discussed in general terms.
5.2.3 Manually Install a WordPress
Plugin using FTP In some cases, your
WordPress hosting provider may have file
restrictions that could limit your ability to
install a plugin from the admin area.
When it comes to protecting your
WordPress website, the login screen is an
important line of defense. A significant
part of this is making sure your password
is secure, which makes it far less likely
that attackers will be able to crack it and
gain access. Despite the measures you
take to implement good login practices,
leaving your site’s security to users is not
a good idea. This is why WordPress uses
a set of security keys or secret keys. Let’s
find out about them…
6.1 What Are WordPress Security Keys &
Salts? WordPress Security Keys is a set
of random variables that improve
encryption of information stored in the
user’s cookies. There are a total of four
security keys: AUTH_KEY
SECURE_AUTH_KEY
LOGGED_IN_KEY NONCE_KEY Salt
keys are cryptographic elements used to
‘hash’ data in order to secure it. In fact,
most serious platforms and systems use
similar mechanisms to protect sensitive
data. The process works by using the salt
keys to encrypt your password when you
save it in WordPress. This way, attackers
can’t see your passwords in plaintext
even if they somehow gain access to your
database.
Salt keys are also used to sign your
website’s cookies. This stops malicious
actors from being able to gain access
even if they can take over your cookies.
All of this happens in the background,
and there are zero reasons why you’d
ever need to share your WordPress salt
keys with a third party. If someone were to
get their hands on them, they’d might be
able to use them in order to access your
passwords and crack your website. You
can find both WP salts and security keys
in the wpconfig.php file. WordPress
generates four security keys and salts in
the wp-config.php file. After a fresh
WordPress install, this is how the
WordPress secret keys and salts look:
define(‘AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique
phrase here’);
define(‘SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your
unique phrase here’);
define(‘LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘put your
unique phrase here’);
define(‘NONCE_KEY’, ‘put your unique
phrase here’); define(‘AUTH_SALT’, ‘put
your unique phrase here’);
define(‘SECURE_AUTH_SALT’, ‘put your
unique phrase here’);
define(‘LOGGED_IN_SALT’, ‘put your
unique phrase here’);
define(‘NONCE_SALT’, ‘put your unique
phrase here’); You need to generate
security keys and WordPress salts and
replace the ‘put your unique phrase here’
with random variables you just generated.
6.2 How Does WordPress Salts and
Security Keys Work? Unlike most of
other websites platforms, WordPress
does not use the PHP sessions to keep
track of their users. To verify an identity of
logged in users as well as commenters,
WordPress usually uses the cookies or
information that are stored in your
browser’s history. When you log in to your
Dashboard multiple cookies are created
and saved. Usually, the two cookies that
are created are: wordpress_[hash]
wordpress_logged_in_[hash]
The first one is used only when you are
logged onto your Dashboard while the
second cookie is used throughout
WordPress to ensure whether or not you
are logged in. The details you use to log
in are hashed (assigned cryptic values)
using the random variables which are
then specified in the WordPress security
keys. This, in turn, strengthens and
makes it almost impossible for anyone to
guess your password should your cookies
be stolen.
6.3 How to Use WordPress Security
Keys and Salts? Usually, when your
WordPress websites are self-hosted, the
security keys are not predefined. Instead,
you might need to generate and add them
yourself. But don’t worry, the process is
quite simple and straightforward.
Generally, there are two ways you can
configure the secret key. We will be
discussing both methods for your
convenience so you can choose
whichever method you prefer. Manually
change the WordPress Security Keys and
Salts
Using a WordPress Plugin Method 1:
Manually Changing the Secret Keys &
Salts! Follow the steps below as a
guideline and secure your WordPress
profile and website! You can easily
change WordPress security keys and
salts. The WordPress Foundation
provides a WordPress key generator that
creates random values for secret keys
and salts. Visit the following link:
https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/s
alt/ Copy the values you get from the link
and then paste it in your wp-config file.
Step 1: To access the wp-config.php,
open your web host account and go
cPanel. Select File Manager, and it’ll take
you to a page that looks somewhat like
this:
Step 2: On the left-hand side, you can
see the public_html folder where you’ll
find the wp-config file.
Step 3: Right click on the file and select
Edit. Replace the ‘put your unique phrase
here’ with the variables you just
generated. Often WordPress beginners
get confused between posts and pages.
By default, WordPress comes with two
content types: posts and pages. As a
beginner, you are probably wondering
what’s the difference between posts vs
pages? They seem to look similar in the
WordPress dashboard as well as on the
website.
7.1 What are Posts in WordPress?
Posts are blog content listed in reverse
chronological order (newest content on
top). You will see posts listed on your blog
page. If you are using WordPress as a
blog, then you will end up using posts for
the majority of your website’s content. You
can add and edit your WordPress posts
from the ‘Posts’ menu in your dashboard.
Here is how Add New Post screen looks.
Due to their reverse chronological order,
your posts are meant to be timely. Older
posts are archived based on month and
year. As the posts get older, the user has
to dig deeper to find them. You have the
option to organize your posts based on
categories and tags.
Because WordPress posts are published
with time and date in mind, they are
syndicated through the RSS feeds. This
allows your readers to be notified of the
most recent post update via RSS feeds.
Bloggers can use the RSS feeds to
deliver email broadcasts through services
like Constant Contact, Aweber or
MailChimp. You can create a daily and
weekly newsletter for your audience to
subscribe to. The very timely nature of
posts makes it extremely social. You can
use one of the many social sharing
plugins to allow your users to share your
posts on social media networks like
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest,
etc. Posts encourage conversation. They
have a built-in comment feature that
allows users to comment on a particular
topic. By default, comments, pingbacks,
and trackbacks are enabled.
You can go to your Settings » Discussion
to turn off comments on older posts if you
like. WordPress posts usually have the
name of the author and
published/updated date. After the main
article content, there is the comments
section. You cannot usually find these on
a page. Now that you know what are
posts, let’s take a look at pages and how
they are different.
7.2 What are Pages in WordPress?
Pages are static “one-off” type content
such as your about page, privacy policy,
contact page, etc. While the WordPress
database stores the published date of the
page, pages are timeless entities. For
example, your about page is not
supposed to expire. Sure you can go back
and make updates to it, but chances are
you will not have about page 2012, about
page 2013, etc. Because there is no time
and date tied to pages, they are not
included in your RSS feeds by default.
You can add and edit pages in
WordPress from the ‘Pages’ menu in your
dashboard. Here is how Add New Page
screen looks like: Pages are not meant to
be social in most cases thus do not
include social sharing buttons. For
example, you probably don’t want others
to tweet your privacy policy page in most
cases. Similarly, pages also don’t include
comments. You don’t want users to
comment on your contact page or your
legal disclaimers page. There is an option
to enable comments, however, it is
disabled by default for your WordPress
pages.
Unlike posts, pages are hierarchical by
nature. For example, you can have
subpages or child pages within a page.
You can easily turn a page into subpage
by choosing a parent page from Page
Attributes when editing a page. A key
example of this in action would be our
Blueprint page. This feature allows you to
organize your pages together, and even
assign a custom template to them.
WordPress by default comes with a
feature that allows you to create custom
page templates using your theme. This
allows developers to customize the look
of each page when necessary. In most
themes, post and pages look the same.
But when you are using your page to
create a landing page or a gallery page,
then the custom page templates feature
comes in very handy. Pages also have
this archaic feature called ‘Order’ which
lets you customize the order of pages by
assigning a number value to it. However,
this feature is extended by plugins like
Simple Page Ordering that allows you to
drag & drop the order of pages.
7.3 When to Use WordPress Pages
WordPress security is a topic of huge
importance for every website owner.
Google blacklists around 10,000+
websites every day for malware and
around 50,000 for phishing every week. If
you are serious about your website, then
you need to pay attention to the
WordPress security best practices. While
WordPress core software is very secure,
and it’s audited regularly by hundreds of
developers, there is a lot that can be done
to keep your site secure. The security is
not just about risk elimination. It’s also
about risk reduction. As a website owner,
there’s a lot that you can do to improve
your WordPress security (even if you’re
not tech-savvy).
We have a number of actionable steps
that you can take to protect your website
against security vulnerabilities.
8.1 Basics of WordPress Security
8.1.1 Why WordPress security is so
important? At its core WordPress is very
secure, the CMS is audited by hundreds
of expert coders who write security into
WordPress. Nonetheless, WordPress can
still be hacked and often it is due to a lack
of basic security practices. WordPress
sites that are hacked can be very
damaging for the owner as it inevitably
leads to a loss of reputation while also
leading to financial loss. A hacker can rob
a business of its confidential user data,
can install software that leads to further
damage down the road or even install
malicious programs on your user’s PCs.
Google plays a strong role in policing
websites. First, it can exclude potentially
hacked websites from search results –
and indeed it blacklists tens of thousands
of sites every week. Google also warns
users away from infected sites by
displaying a warning in Chrome. The
resulting warnings can lead to a huge
drop in traffic for website owners. The
responsibility for securing a website lies,
of course, with the website owner. It’s no
different from business security at a
physical place of business. Essentially,
your website is your premises and you
need to ensure that it is secured.
8.1.2 Keeping WordPress Updated
WordPress is an open-source software
which is regularly maintained and
updated. By default, WordPress
automatically installs minor updates. For
major releases, you need to manually
initiate the update. WordPress also comes
with thousands of plugins and themes that
you can install on your website. These
plugins and themes are maintained by
third-party developers which regularly
release updates as well. These
WordPress updates are crucial for the
security and stability of your WordPress
site. You need to make sure that your
WordPress core, plugins, and theme are
up to date.
8.1.3 Strong Passwords and User
Permissions The most common
WordPress hacking attempts to use stolen
passwords. You can make that difficult by
using stronger passwords that are unique
for your website. Not just for the
WordPress admin area, but also for FTP
accounts, database, WordPress hosting
account, and your custom email
addresses which use your site’s domain
name. Many beginners don’t like using
strong passwords because they’re hard to
remember. The good thing is that you
don’t need to remember passwords
anymore. You can use a password
manager. Another way to reduce the risk
is to not give anyone access to your
WordPress admin account unless you
absolutely have to. If you have a large
team or guest authors, then make sure
that you understand user roles and
capabilities in WordPress before you add
new user accounts and authors to your
WordPress site.
8.1.4 The Role of WordPress Hosting
Your WordPress hosting service plays the
most important role in the security of your
WordPress site. A good shared hosting
provider like Bluehost or Siteground takes
the extra measures to protect their
servers against common threats. Here is
how a good web hosting company works
in the background to protect your
websites and data. They continuously
monitor their network for suspicious
activity All good hosting companies have
tools in place to prevent large scale
DDOS attacks They keep their server
software and hardware up to date to
prevent hackers from exploiting a known
security vulnerability in an old version
They have ready to deploy disaster
recovery and accidents plans which
allows them to protect your data in case
of a major accident On a shared hosting
plan, you share the server resources with
many other customers.
This opens the risk of cross-site
contamination where a hacker can use a
neighboring site to attack your website.
Using a managed WordPress hosting
service provides a more secure platform
for your website. Managed WordPress
hosting companies offer automatic
backups, automatic WordPress updates,
and more advanced security
configurations to protect your website.
8.2 WordPress Security in Easy Steps
(No Coding) We know that improving
WordPress security can be a terrifying
thought for beginners. Especially if you’re
not techy. We will learn how you can
improve your WordPress security with just
a few clicks (no coding required). If you
can point-and-click, you can do this!
8.2.1 Install a WordPress Backup
Solution
Backups are your first defense against
any WordPress attack. Remember,
nothing is 100% secure. If government
websites can be hacked, then so can
yours. Backups allow you to quickly
restore your WordPress site in case
something bad was to happen. There are
many free and paid WordPress backup
plugins that you can use. The most
important thing you need to know when it
comes to backups is that you must
regularly save full-site backups to a
remote location (not your hosting
account). We recommend storing it on a
cloud service like Amazon, Dropbox, or
private clouds like Stash. Based on how
frequently you update your website, the
ideal setting might be either once a day or
real-time backups. Thankfully this can be
easily done by using plugins like
VaultPress or UpdraftPlus. They are both
reliable and most importantly easy to use
(no coding needed).
8.2.2 Best WordPress Security Plugin
After backups, the next thing we need to
do is set up an auditing and monitoring
system that keeps track of everything that
happens on your website. This includes
file integrity monitoring, failed login
attempts, malware scanning, etc.
Thankfully, this can be all taken care of by
the best free WordPress security plugin,
Sucuri Scanner. You need to install and
activate the free Sucuri Security plugin.
Upon activation, you need to go to the
Sucuri menu in your WordPress admin.
The first thing you will be asked to do is
Generate a free API key. This enables
audit logging, integrity checking, email
alerts, and other important features. The
next thing, you need to do is, click on the
‘Hardening’ tab from the settings menu.
Go through every option and click on the
“Apply Hardening” button.
These options help you lock down the
key areas that hackers often use in their
attacks. The only thing we recommend
customizing is ‘Email Alerts’. The default
alert settings can clutter your inbox with
emails. We recommend receiving alerts
for key actions like changes in plugins,
new user registration, etc. You can
configure the alerts by going to Sucuri
Settings » Alerts.This WordPress security
plugin is very powerful,
so browse through all the tabs and
settings to see all that it does such as
Malware scanning, Audit logs, Failed
Login Attempt tracking, etc.
8.2.3 Enable Web Application Firewall
(WAF) The easiest way to protect your
site and be confident about your
WordPress security is by using a web
application firewall (WAF). A website
firewall blocks all malicious traffic before it
even reaches your website. DNS Level
Website Firewall – These firewall route
your website traffic through their cloud
proxy servers. This allows them to only
send genuine traffic to your web server.
Application Level Firewall – These firewall
plugins examine the traffic once it reaches
your server but before loading most
WordPress scripts. This method is not as
efficient as the DNS level firewall in
reducing the server load. The best part
about Sucuri’s firewall is that it also
comes with a malware cleanup and
blacklist removal guarantee. Basically, if
you were to be hacked under their watch,
they guarantee that they will fix your
website (no matter how many pages you
have). This is a pretty strong warranty
because repairing hacked websites is
expensive.
8.2.4 Move Your WordPress Site to
SSL/HTTPS SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)
is a protocol which encrypts data transfer
between your website and a users
browser. This encryption makes it harder
for someone to sniff around and steal
information.Once you enable SSL, your
website will use HTTPS instead of HTTP,
you will also see a padlock sign next to
your website address in the browser. SSL
certificates were typically issued by
certificate authorities, and their prices
start from $80 to hundreds of dollars each
year. Due to the added cost, most website
owners opted to keep using the insecure
protocol. To fix this, a non-profit
organization called Let’s Encrypt decided
to offer free SSL Certificates to website
owners. Their project is supported by
Google Chrome, Facebook, Mozilla, and
many more companies. Now, it is easier
than ever to start using SSL for all your
WordPress websites. Many hosting
companies are now offering a free SSL
certificate for your WordPress website. If
your hosting company does not offer one,
then you can purchase one from
Domain.com. They have the best and
most reliable SSL deal in the market. It
comes with a $10,000 security warranty
and a TrustLogo security seal.
8.3 WordPress Security for DIY Users If
you do everything that we have
mentioned thus far, then you’re in pretty
good shape. But as always, there’s more
that you can do to harden your
WordPress security. Some of these steps
may require coding knowledge.
8.3.1 Change the Default “admin”
username In the old days, the default
WordPress admin username was “admin”.
Since usernames make up half of the
login credentials, this made it easier for
hackers to do brute-force attacks.
Thankfully, WordPress has since changed
this and now requires you to select a
custom username at the time of installing
WordPress. However, some 1-click
WordPress installers still set the default
admin username to “admin”. If you notice
that to be the case, then it’s probably a
good idea to switch your web hosting.
Since WordPress doesn’t allow you to
change usernames by default, there are
three methods you can use to change the
username. Create a new admin
username and delete the old one. Use
the Username Changer plugin Update
username from phpMyAdmin Note: We’re
talking about the username called
“admin”, not the administrator role.
8.3.2 Disable File Editing WordPress
comes with a built-in code editor which
allows you to edit your theme and plugin
files right from your WordPress admin
area. In the wrong hands, this feature can
be a security risk which is why we
recommend turning it off. You can easily
do this by adding the following code in
your wp-config.php file. 1 2 // Disallow file
edit define( 'DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true
); Alternatively, you can do this with
1-click using the Hardening feature in the
free Sucuri plugin that we mentioned
above.
8.3.3 Disable PHP File Execution in
Certain WordPress Directories (Get More
Info in Training Guide…) Drag and drop
WordPress website builder makes it easy
for you to create and customize beautiful
websites all on your own. We’ll compare
the most popular drag and drop
WordPress page builders, so you can
choose the best one for your needs and
start creating your site. Note: Instead of a
WordPress page builder, if you’re looking
for a complete CMS/ website builder
platform, then check out our collection of
best website builders.
9.1 Why Use a Drag and Drop Page
Builder for WordPress? When starting a
blog, many beginners find it difficult to
customize their WordPress page layouts.
While a lot of premium WordPress themes
come with different page layouts, most of
them are extremely hard to customize for
anyone who does not know code (HTML /
CSS). Well, there are several great drag
and drop page builder plugins available
for WordPress. They allow you to create
completely custom website designs in
WordPress without writing a single line of
code. Since there are so many different
WordPress page builder plugins in the
market, we decided to compare and rank
the top WordPress page builders,
so you can choose the right solution for
your need. Let’s take a look at what you
should keep in your mind when
comparing the best WordPress page
builders, so you can choose the right one
for your needs. Compatibility: If you’re
not interested in changing your existing
WordPress theme for a page builder
plugin, then the first thing you need to
check is whether the builder you want to
use is compatible with your WordPress
theme. If you find any compatibility
issues, then you might want to use a
builder-compatible theme for your site.
Features: You need to understand the
unique quality of each builder when
comparing the features. For example,
some builders are shipped with a lot of
built-in layouts while others offer dozens
of animation effects. Responsiveness:
You need to make sure that the page
builder you choose allows you to create
responsive, mobile-friendly, layouts out of
the box.
SEO:
You need to make sure that your page builder is creating
SEO friendly layouts. Having said that, let’s take a look at
the best page builders for WordPress in the market.
1. Beaver Builder: Beaver Builder is a
premium drag and drop page builder
plugin for WordPress. It is by far the best
WordPress page builder in the market. It
is extremely fast and comes with a built-in
onboarding tour to help you quickly
familiarize with their interface. Beaver
Builder comes with a live drag and drop
interface. You get to see all your changes
as you add them by simply dragging
elements from the right sidebar and
dropping them on your page. You can
click on any element on a page to edit its
properties. There are modules that let you
add almost everything you may want
including sliders, carousel, backgrounds,
content blocks, buttons, and more. It also
comes with over 30 finely designed
templates for landing pages that make it
super-easy and super-fast to create
stunning website layouts. Beaver Builder
has been updated well along with the
Gutenberg project. So, it works fine with
your new Gutenberg editor. Pricing:
Starting from $99 for Unlimited Sites.
2. The Divi Builder: The Divi Builder is a
powerful WordPress page builder that lets
you build any type of design on your
website with drag and drop. The Divi
Builder is made by Elegant Themes, a
renowned WordPress themes, and
plugins company. The Divi builder works
on almost any WordPress website. It
gives you endless possibilities to create
the most advanced layouts without having
to touch a single line of code. The plugin
is bundled with 46 builder modules, 20
row types, and 3 section types, all of
which can be combined and arranged to
create just about any type of website.
With its advanced design settings, you
can customize every element to a great
extent. That being said, if you want to
make real-time changes on the design,
then you might want to use the Divi
theme. With the theme, you can build
your page with the frontend editor, so your
pages can be updated right from the
frontend without having to switch back
and forth from your dashboard to your
website. Pricing: Starts at $89 (includes
100+ website packs)
3. Elementor: Elementor is the first free
and open-source advanced page builder
for WordPress. With its quick drag and
drop builder, you can make instant page
edits from the frontend of your site.
Elementor is well-known for its
high-speed performance, which makes it
fun and easy to build with. With its
extensive template library, you get
hundreds of beautiful WordPress
templates by their top-notch designers,
which can be exported to different
websites through the page builder.
Elementor supports responsive
mobilefriendly design, allowing you to
build web pages that work great on any
device. Some other cool features of
Elementor are: Canvas: You can build a
brand new landing page without header or
footer, optimized for high conversions.
Maintenance mode: For maintenance,
you can get your site offline with its built-in
maintenance mode. Zapier integration:
Integrating your website with a third-party
web application is a breeze using its
Zapier integration. Pricing: Starts at $49
for a single site license.
4. Themify Builder: The Themify Builder
comes with a drag and drop interface that
helps you create any layout you can
imagine with ease. The builder comes
with over 60 prebuilt layouts and
animation effects that you can choose
from. If you want to start a blog, then
WordPress.com offers a hassle-free
solution to get started. But the actual
question is, what do you want to do with
your Blog? A lot of people just want to
share their personal thoughts, ramblings,
photos and such. For that purpose,
WordPress.com offers a free, easy to use,
secure and stable platform for you to blog
on. However, if you want to do more with
your blog such as make money, build a
membership community, among other
things, then there are some inherent
limitations. Let’s take a look…
1. Earning Limitations You cannot run
Google Adsense or other advertising
programs to serve ads on your
WordPress.com blog. You cannot write
paid posts, sell links, review products, etc.
WordPress.com terms of service restrict
you from using your free blog for any
commercial activity on your own.
However, you can apply for
WordPress.com’s advertising program
which is called WordAds. This program is
currently available to WordPress.com
blogs that match certain traffic and quality
requirements. Once you are approved for
WordAds program, you will be sharing
your advertising revenue with
WordPress.com.Note: If you have a book,
then you can have an ad for that on your
WordPress.com blog. They just don’t
allow ads for products or services that you
do not own.
2. You Cannot Upload Plugins The real
power of WordPress comes from the
freedom to customize and extend the core
functionality. You cannot extend the
functionality of WordPress.com by
uploading plugins. You are given a
comprehensive but still a limited set of
features. A lot of people who migrate from
WordPress.com to self-hosted
WordPress.org do so just to take
advantage of certain features that come
with these amazing plugins.
3. You Cannot Upload Themes When
creating a WordPress website, everyone
makes mistakes. However, each mistake
is a learning opportunity that helps you
grow. In setting up our own websites as
well as helping others, there are some
common WordPress mistakes to avoid to
save time, money, and grow your
business more effectively. The goal is to
help you learn from other people’s
mistakes when making your own
websites.
1. Choosing The Wrong Platform: The
biggest mistake people make when
starting out is choosing the wrong
blogging platform. Basically, there are two
types of WordPress. First, there is
WordPress.com which is a blog hosting
service, and then there is WordPress.org
also which is the famous self-hosted
WordPress platform that everyone loves.
You need to start with self-hosted
WordPress.org because it gives you
access to all the features you need out of
the box.
2. Buying More than What You Need:
To get started with a WordPress website,
you need a domain name and WordPress
hosting. The challenge is that a lot of
domain registrars try to upsell other
services. This confuses the small
business owners who are just starting out.
The add-on services may include privacy
protection, extra email accounts, security
services, and more. You can skip all of
these things and save money to spend on
growing your business. If you later decide
that you need those services, then you
can always purchase them from your
hosting company. You also need to
choose the right hosting plan for your
website. For 90% of websites that are just
starting out, a shared hosting account is
quite enough to get you going.
3. Not Setting up Automated Backups:
Each year billions of dollars worth of
damages are caused by data loss. Almost
every website on the internet is prone to
accidents, theft, hacking attempts, and
other disasters. Your most powerful line of
defense against these threats is
automated backups. Without a backup,
you could lose all your WordPress data,
and it would be very difficult to recover it
(sometimes even impossible). Setting up
backups is extremely easy, and there are
excellent WordPress backup plugins
available in the market. Once you set up
one of these backup plugins, they would
automatically create backups for you. The
second part of this mistake is not storing
backup files on a remote location. A lot of
folks store their WordPress backups on
their web hosting server. If they lose their
website data, then they also lose the
backups. Make sure that you store your
backups on cloud storage service like
Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. Backup
plugins like UpdraftPlus can automatically
do that for you.
4. Not Setting up Google Analytics: If you
want to grow your business with
confidence, then you need to know how
people find and use your website. That’s
where Google Analytics can help. We
recommend using MonsterInsights, the
most popular Google Analytics plugin for
WordPress. It saves you time during
setup, and shows you the stats that
matter, right inside your WordPress
dashboard. If you don’t want
MonsterInsights Pro, then there’s also a
free version of MonsterInsights available
that you can get started with.
5. Not Setting up a Contact Form: Not
setting up a contact form is another easily
avoidable mistake that many beginners
make. Without a contact form, your
website visitors will not be able to contact
you, and this can cause you to lose
significant opportunities. You will see a
contact page on almost every popular
website. It is one of the most important
pages every website need to have.
WordPress does not come with a built-in
contact form, but there are a lot of great
WordPress contact form plugins available
that you can use. We recommend using
WPForms Lite which is the free version of
the popular WPForms plugin that’s being
used by over 2 million websites.
6. Not Building an Email List: Did you
know that more than 70% of people who
visit your website will never come back
again? If you are not building your email
list, then you are basically losing money
with every website visitor that leaves your
site. Converting website visitors into email
subscribers allows you to bring back
those users to your website. You will need
an email marketing service to set up your
email list. We recommend using Aweber
because they are one of the best email
marketing companies on the market with
a very beginner-friendly platform.
7. Not Choosing The Right WordPress
Theme: One of the biggest challenges
WordPress beginners face is choosing the
right design for their website. With
thousands of WordPress themes out
there, an average beginner tries multiple
themes before settling for the right one,
and this process can even lead the user
to rebuild their website multiple times. To
avoid this, we recommend choosing the
right WordPress theme from the start and
then stick to it. This allows your website
visitors to become familiar with your
website, your brand, and its unique style.
Consistency and continuity of your design
make a big impact on brand recognition
and awareness.
Well, when it comes to design we prefer
simplicity over glitter. You need to choose
a great looking but simple WordPress
theme that pays attention to the following
items: It must look equally good on all
devices (desktop, mobile, and tablets). It
should be easy to customize and flexible
to adapt to your needs. It should work
with popular plugins and WordPress page
builders. It should be optimized for
performance and speed. Now we
understand that as a non-techy user, you
may not be able to check all those things
on your own but do your best.
8. Ignoring WordPress Updates: Many
beginners and even experienced
WordPress users who don’t install
updates on their site. Many of them
believe that doing so will cause errors and
could break their site. That’s not true. You
can easily and safely update WordPress
without breaking your website. By not
updating WordPress, you leave your
website vulnerable to security breaches
while using outdated software. It’s not just
WordPress, your WordPress theme and
plugins also regularly release updates for
bug fixes, security patches, and new
features.
9. Not Optimizing Your Website for
SEO: A lot of WordPress users rely on
their best guesses when it comes to
promoting their websites. Some
completely ignore SEO, while some do it
half-heartedly. SEO (Search Engine
Optimization) helps you rank higher in
search engines, so more users can find
your website. Search engines are the
biggest source of traffic for most websites.
SEO is crucial for the success of your
online business.
10. Not Using Categories and Tags
Properly: Another big mistake is not
using categories and tags properly. Some
users end up using categories where they
should have used tags and vice-versa.
We have seen websites with dozens of
categories and no tags at all. We have
seen websites using hundreds of tags and
no categories at all. Basically, categories
are your website’s table of contents. If
your website was a file cabinet,
categories would be its drawers. On the
other hand, tags are like the index page. If
your website was a file cabinet, tags
would be the labels on individual file
folders.
11. Not Using Posts and Pages
Properly: Sometimes beginner
WordPress users end up using posts to
create important website pages. Similarly,
some users end up using pages for
articles when they should have used
posts instead. A lot of users realize their
mistake after a while when their website
becomes difficult to manage. Basically,
pages are for static pages that don’t
change very often like about, contact,
privacy policy, etc. On the other hand,
posts are for time-based content like
news, updates, articles, and blogs.
12.Not Choosing The Right URL
Structure (Permalinks): Selecting the
right URL settings (permalink structure)
for your website is really important.
Changing your URL structure later is not
easy, and it can have a significant impact
on your website traffic. We recommend
going to the Settings » Permalinks page
in your WordPress admin area and
choosing a URL structure with that shows
your post name in the URL.
13.Ignoring Website Speed and
Performance: Human attention span is
dropping rapidly, and users want instant
gratification. With faster internet
connections, your users would find a few
extra seconds of page load time to be
extremely slow. And it’s not just users,
even search engines rank faster websites
higher in their results. By ignoring website
speed and performance you risk user
experience as well as search rankings.
Which is why you need to make sure that
your website loads fast.
14.Not Choosing The Right Plugins:
The real power of WordPress comes with
its plugins. There are thousands of free
WordPress plugins that you can install
with a few clicks. However, not all plugins
are good. In fact, some plugins are bad
and could affect your website’s
performance and security. Often users
end up downloading plugins from
unreliable sources that distribute hidden
malware. Here are a few things you need
to keep in mind when choosing plugins:
Only install plugins from WordPress.org or
WordPress companies with a good
reputation. Look for plugin reviews and
support forums because they are a good
indicator of a plugin’s quality Check
trusted WordPress resources like
WPBeginner for plugin recommendations
15.Ignoring WordPress Security Best
Practices: Having a great website
matters. It’s how you connect with your
visitors and leads, create a positive first
impression with new users, and boost
conversions. The good news is creating
your own website doesn’t have to be a
daunting process… At least not with
WordPress. The easy-to-use CMS offers
completely customizable plans suitable
for all needs. With no prior knowledge
necessary, you can start building your
own site for your business, blog, portfolio,
or online store immediately.
conclusion:
WordPress is a very user-friendly and
interactive way to host your One of the
reasons why WordPress gained such
massive popularity was its ability to
customize and edit, as per the needs
directly from the backend without hiring
any professional or writing a single line of
code. But, that’s not just about it, there’s
so much more. That being said, one thing
is for sure - with a few tips and tricks, a lot
can be done using WordPress. On the
same lines, we hope that this ‘WP
Training Kit’ training guide will help you in
creating your WordPress website quickly
and easily.
Enjoy Your Success!

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Complete word press explained guide for beginners 2022

  • 1. complete WordPress guide for beginners 2022 what will you find inside Introduction WordPress – An Overview What is WordPress? What is Content Management System? How does WordPress work? Features of WordPress The Benefits of Using WordPress WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org How to Create and Maintain a WP Site? How to Create a WP Site? How to Maintain a WordPress Website?
  • 2. WP Admin Area – Introduction to WP Dashboard WordPress Admin Area: Navigation Menu WP Plug-ins – Introduction & Installation WordPress Plug-ins How to Install a WordPress Plugin – Step by Step for Beginners Best WordPress Plugins for Your Site What, Why, & Hows of WP Salts & Security Keys What Are WordPress Security Keys & Salts? Difference Between Posts vs. Pages in WP Features of Both WordPress Pages & Posts Deploying security measures in WordPress
  • 3. Best Drag and Drop WordPress Page Builders What are the Limitations of WordPress.com? Common WordPress Mistakes to Avoid Introduction WordPress is an Open Source software system used by millions of people around the world to create beautiful websites and blogs. It is completely customizable by the use of themes and plugins. Thanks to the great community of contributors and the constant development, WordPress has become a content management system that provides you with tons of features to
  • 4. build and manage your website. You can use the application to build any type of website: from a small personal blog or business website to fully-featured eCommerce online store or gallery/portfolio website, the possibilities are endless. WordPress is the ideal solution to build your online presence, whether you are a newcomer or you already have some technical experience. As you have a great number of plugins to extend the functionality of your website, with no coding required you can create a professional website in just a few easy steps. And that’s exactly what we are going to discuss in this training guide. In this guide, we will provide you with detailed information and instructions on
  • 5. how you can use WordPress to build your own website with ease. We will cover different topics like WordPress installation, plugin and theme management, and usability. Also, you will learn how to extend the functionality of your WordPress website and provide your visitors with feature-rich experience. So let’s get started… WordPress is one of the most widely-used blogging platforms available. WordPress is a factory that makes webpages is a core analogy designed to clarify what WordPress is and does. It stores the content that allows you to create & publish webpages only requiring a domain and a hosting site to work. Let’s unveil it in detail…
  • 6. WordPress – An Overview 2.1 What is WordPress? WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS), which is open source and was created to manage blogs. WordPress allows you to easily create and manage your blogs and websites content without coding and it can be used to create a fully operational website. Today, WordPress is the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world being used by millions of websites. The best thing about WordPress is that it is an Open Source project which can be used by anyone over the web which means you can use it for anything be it your personal diary, your travel accounts or your views on any subject for that matter. WordPress is an excellent
  • 7. platform for building a variety of websites. Besides building a blogging site, WordPress can be used to build an e-commerce website, portfolio sites, business websites, new sites, and more. Famous WordPress websites include TechCrunch, Mashable, The New York Times’s blog, etc. Some of the features offered by WordPress are private and password protected WordPress posts and pages, easy importing, WordPress installation and upgrades, a full WordPress theme and plugin system, multiple authors, spam protection and intelligent text formatting. So, ‘WordPress is only limited by your imagination’. With its intuitive interface, ease of use and the great number of free and paid themes and plugins, WordPress is the preferred
  • 8. choice to build a professional website. All WordPress features are fully supported on all our WordPress hosting plans, so you can get started in no time and create your next successful online project. 2.2 What is Content Management System? A content management system (CMS) is an application used to create and manage digital content. Content is what makes any organization stand out from the crowd, content must be regular and well organized in order to maintain any branding possible thus rather than doing it manually CMSes are used for enterprise content management (ECM) and web content management (WCM). An ECM is used for the collaboration in any workplace by integrating document
  • 9. management, digital asset management and records retention functionalities, and providing end users with role-based access to the organization’s digital assets. While WCM facilitates collaborative authoring for websites. It is easy to say that WCM is a more public content management tool whereas the ECM is totally built for more confidential contents to be kept secured within the organization. 2.3 How does WordPress work? WordPress, like any other WCM system, is dynamically driven through the use of a database with multiple tables storing all the content information and the information required to specify the website structure. You must have the
  • 10. ability to create and utilize a database to use WordPress. After learning about WordPress the first thing that comes to our mind is that where to use it? What kind of website can I create using WordPress? So let’s move on to the section straight away. When launched, WordPress was nothing but a typographic improvement, but as time passed and the community got stronger and WordPress was developed by contributors from all over the world, now WordPress is a robust system that can be used to create and manage any kind of website to keep it short. To showcase some examples let’s look into the various implementations of WordPress already developed. E-commerce Websites: WordPress is
  • 11. really great for E-Commerce websites because of its robust structure and ability to categorize contents. With the proper theme chosen to create an E-commerce website is considered to be one of the best options available. Educational/Library Websites: One of the most important features of WordPress is to manage and categorize documents or other assets, though notself-sustaining WordPress is good enough to create and run a Library Website. Using DMS implementation as well as WordPress one can surely develop Library Websites. Personal Websites: Whether it’s a small website containing your portfolio or a daily blog. WordPress is undoubtedly one of the best platforms to showcase your
  • 12. talent as it has dedicated sections for the contents and overall easy experience. 2.4 Features of WordPress WordPress is considered to be the most popular content management system due to its characteristics: The most important features of WordPress are that you can create a dynamic website without any programming and design knowledge WordPress is theme based which provides you options for various open source and premium design themes, which can be integrated easily without any designing knowledge The first time you step foot inside the WordPress dashboard, you can’t help but marvel at how simple it all appears to be. A management sidebar on the left, a clean
  • 13. interface to work within in the center and notifications at the top. But once you start digging deeper into WordPress, you may feel overwhelmed as you dig deeper into the layers of functionality within the content management system. So, let’s talk about practical steps here. 3.1 How to Create a WP Site? The following WordPress tutorial will walk you through all the necessary steps in setting up your first WordPress site. Step 1: Choose a Domain Step 2: Purchase Web Hosting and Domain Step 3: Install WordPress
  • 14. Step 4: Find a WordPress Theme Step 5: Install Your WordPress Theme Step 6: Configure Your WordPress Theme Step 7: Publish Your First Pages Step 8: Create a Menu Step 9: Configure Your WordPress Settings Step 10: Install Essential WordPress Plugins Now, let’s start the steps in detail: 3.1.1 Step 1: Choose a Domain First and foremost, you must get a domain name for your website. Domain name is the online identity of your business, i.e. name of your website in the simple terms. In
  • 15. other words, it is your website address or the URL which users type on the web browser’s address bar to visit your website. Choosing a domain name is a thoughtful task. Below are some of the things you must consider while creating/ choosing a domain name: Keep it simple and short: Create a domain name that is simple, short and easy to read, remember. It enhances the chance of users typing your website address correctly on the browser. Suitable for your website content: Make sure that your domain name is relevant to the content you are going to put on the website. Besides, you can also include keywords on the domain name if it sounds good. Choose an appropriate domain extension: Domain extension is
  • 16. the suffix such as .com, .net, .org, .edu, etc. which is added at the end of web addresses. They have specific meaning such as .com for commercial, .org for Organizations, and .net for network. These three extensions are the most used extensions which you can use as per the nature of your site; however, .com is always preferred. Besides, there are some domain name generator tools which help to create a cool brandable domain name. How to get a domain name? There are several domain name providers online from where you can buy a domain name. Most of the domain name providers have a domain name search tool where you can type the name
  • 17. you want and it checks the availability of the domain name. Below are the top domain Registrars you can check out: GoDaddy NameCheap 3.1.2 Step 2: Purchase Web Hosting and Domain Web hosting does exactly what it says: it “hosts” websites. In other words, web hosting companies own and manage giant web servers located in data centers around the country (and, sometimes, the world). It’s on these web servers where websites like yours sit, so you don’t have to buy or manage any of the server technology yourself. You pay these companies what amounts to monthly or annual rent for space and bandwidth on
  • 18. the server. Then, you can focus on building your website in WordPress. Next, you have to find out the best WordPress hosting service which suits your needs. There are several web hosting companies offering different types of WordPress hosting plans. Below are the types of WordPress hosting plans you should know about: Shared Hosting: Cheapest hosting plan. With shared hosting, multiple websites share the same IP address and resources of the server including the memory, hard disk space, and the bandwidth. (Pros: Budget-friendly plan. Cons: Limited space, compromised speed and security) VPS (Virtual Private Server): With VPS plan, you will be provided a certain portion of server resources. You will share a server with
  • 19. other VPS users but there’ll limited users, not as many as in shared plan. (Pros: Secure, Option to get more server resources anytime as your business grows. Cons: Expensive for the small businesses and beginners.) Dedicated Hosting: Very expensive plan. All the server resources are dedicated to a single user. (Pros: Full storage, bandwidth, and full control over the server resources, more secure. Cons: Not a cost-effective plan for small companies.) Managed WordPress Hosting: Managed WordPress hosting is hosting cum WordPress management solution which provides some of the essential WordPress tools. It is a kind of dedicated hosting specific to WordPress
  • 20. platform. (Pros: WordPress-centered hosting. Cons: Quite expensive for small and growing businesses. While there isn’t one clear front-runner when it comes to hosting providers, WordPress does give some solid recommendations on companies that not only work well with WordPress websites but that offer affordable hosting plans. I’d suggest you start with one of these if this is your first website. 3.1.3 Step 3: Install WordPress There are a number of ways in which you can install WordPress. However, most web hosting providers will provide you with an easy-to-use one-click installation process that simplifies the whole process. Using Bluehost as an example, here is what you need to do: First, log into your new web hosting account: You’ll then
  • 21. arrive at your web hosting dashboard: What you’ll want to look for instead is a button that says “Install WordPress”: They may try to offer upgraded installation services, but there’s no need for that. Simply follow the instructions for installing WordPress. Once you have completed the installation and created your WordPress login credentials, it’s time to step inside. Unless you change your login domain (which you eventually should for security reasons), your admin login will be located at ‘www.yourdomainname.com/wp-login.php’ . 3.1.4
  • 22. Step 4: Find a WordPress Theme Click Here To A WordPress theme is a pre-designed and pre-coded interface template for WordPress. Basically, it saves you the trouble (and money) of having to design your own website from-scratch or to pay someone else to do it for you. When you log into WordPress for the first time, WordPress will automatically assign their latest theme to your site. If you want to use a WordPress theme that works better for your niche, don’t be afraid to look around and to find the best and most trustworthy WordPress theme for your purposes. Keep in mind that every theme requires some configuration. Also, not every theme works the same way. Some utilize a basic text editor (which looks similar to the
  • 23. blank page in Microsoft Word) while others use a page builder or visual editor. So, switching from one theme to another will force you to do a little rework if or when you make a switch. If you want to spare yourself the possible hassle, then don’t move on to the next steps until you’ve found the perfect WordPress theme for your site. 3.1.5 Step 5: Install Your WordPress Theme When you find that perfect WordPress theme, it’s time install it in WordPress. Free WordPress Themes If you’re using a free theme from the WordPress repository, here is what you need to do: Inside WordPress, go to the Appearance tab and click on “Themes”. At the top of the page, click on “Add New”. This will
  • 24. take you to the WordPress repository from within WordPress. Use this option so you don’t have to do any manual installation. Once you’re in the repository, do a search for the WordPress theme you want to use. Hover over it, and click the “Install” button. When it’s done installing, you then have to activate it in order to publish it to your WordPress site. Click on “Activate” (in the same spot where the “Install” button was) and wait for it to take you back into the main WordPress dashboard. Premium WordPress Themes If you’ve decided to purchase a premium WordPress theme, the process will differ as third-party theme developers and marketplaces don’t sync directly to WordPress. Here is what you
  • 25. need to do: Go to your WordPress theme’s page and purchase the file. Once you’ve done this, you’ll be taken to a screen where you can download the theme file. If there is an option for it, download the “Installable WordPress Files Only”. This will give you a zipped folder you can then upload directly into WordPress. To do this, go back into WordPress, find the Appearance tab, and go to “Themes”. Click on “Add New” at the top. Only, this time, you’ll select the “Upload Theme” option. Select the zip file from your computer and click Install Now. With your new theme uploaded into WordPress, you can now activate and publish it to the site. 3.1.6 Step 6: Configure Your WordPress Theme Upon activation, you’ll want to
  • 26. spend some time configuring your theme. You can do this under the Appearance tab and then click “Customize”. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide how much or little of your theme you want to customize. However, you should at least take some time now to go through each of the modules and acquaint yourself with what you have the power to change. Site Identity is an important one to fill in, so make sure you look at that first. Colors allow to update your site to your brand’s color palette (if you have one). Widgets allow you to add content to your footer. 3.1.7 Step 7: Publish Your First Pages Once you’ve logged into your WordPress site
  • 27. via the login form, you should be presented with the WordPress Dashboard, which is your site’s admin area. WordPress dashboard is the interface where administrators or other users manage website page, posts and perform other tasks. So let’s dig right in… 4.1 What is the WordPress Dashboard? WordPress dashboard is the interface that appears when you log in to your WordPress website by appending wp-admin to the URL of your website. Hence if your website is https://www.example.com/ The WordPress dashboard login URL for this website would be https://www.example.com/wp-admin/ The dashboard contains various settings
  • 28. which help you set up your website efficiently and modify several aspects of your site without needing to FTP to your site or touch the WordPress database. Your WordPress administration section is where all of your site’s administration is controlled from. Your Dashboard is divided into several areas that provide you with access to tools and features such as: Useful data and information about what is taking place on your site. It also provides you with “at-a-glance” metrics and reports about recent activity taking place on your site, system updates, and notifications, and to be kept updated on the latest news from the WordPress community and various WordPress-related resources,
  • 29. such as notifications and announcements from WordPress product vendors of plugins and themes that you have installed on your site. Management and control of all website settings and options. Features that let you modify, expand, update and enhance the design and functionality of your site, upgrade plugins and themes, and add, modify and delete content or content sections. In version 3.8, WordPress introduced new design changes to its backend section … Even though this new design was mostly cosmetic and aimed at giving WordPress users and developers cleaner typography for a better optimized mobile and desktop viewing experience and a more aesthetic
  • 30. experience, it also affected much of the existing WordPress documentation around the web, including thousands of tutorials and articles about WordPress online, in print and on video that are now in need of being updated. 4.2 Your WordPress Dashboard Depending on whether you or someone else manages your site, you may or may not see the messages below. The first time you log into your WordPress site, you may see a “Welcome to WordPress” message displayed at the top of the Dashboard… If you are new to using your website and want to spend a little time learning more about WordPress, just click on the “Get Started” or “Next Step” links. To dismiss the “Welcome” message or
  • 31. prevent it from showing again inside your admin area the next time you log in, click on the Dismiss link near the top right-hand corner of the page… Feel free to explore the information displayed in the “welcome” message if you want to learn about new features and updates to the software. To go back to the dashboard, just select “Dashboard” (or click on Dashboard > Home) on the admin menu section… Or scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the link to dismiss the message and return to your main Dashboard… 4.3 WordPress Dashboard Screen Areas Your Dashboard gives you access to all of
  • 32. the main controls and features that you will need to administrate the site… Your main Dashboard screen is divided into the following sections: Header And Toolbar Section (1) Main Navigation Menu (2) Work Area (3) Footer Section (4) 4.3.1 WordPress Dashboard Area: Header Section The header section displays system updates, messages, warnings and notifications. A whole range of updates, messages, banner, announcements, notifications, and warnings can display on your header, depending on what area you are working on, what action has been performed, or which plugins you have installed on your site. Screen Options Feature The Screen
  • 33. Options tab is located in the top-right corner of your WordPress administration screen, in the header section. Clicking on this tab displays different options and features on your screen, depending on which section of the administration backend you are currently working on. For example, if you are in the main Dashboard, clicking on the Screen Options tab allows you to configure options like which panels of your Dashboard screen you want to hide or display. If you are in the Posts section of your site management area, clicking on the Screen Options tab lets you select totally different options, such as displaying or hiding information in the listings section (e.g. tags, comments, etc.), specifying the number of posts to display
  • 34. per page, and other configurable options depending on the plugins you have installed on your site. Online Help Section You can access the official WordPress documentation and user help forum sections by clicking on the Help tab located on the top right-hand corner of your header area. Like the Screen Options tab, the Help tab also displays context-specific information. So, for example, if you are editing content in the Edit Post area, clicking on the Help tab will bring up help information and tutorials relevant to editing posts. 4.3.2 WP Admin Area: Toolbar The Toolbar displays at the very top of your Dashboard screen and provides you and your logged in site users with access to a
  • 35. range of important administration functions, features, information and “quick links” to other areas of your site. Most Toolbar items can expand to display additional information by hovering your mouse over the icons. For example, the “updates” icon on the toolbar lets you see if the WordPress software or any plugins or themes need to be updated. You can also see at a glance …….. WordPress Plugins allows you to easily modify, customize, and enhance a WordPress site. Instead of changing the core program code of WordPress, you can add functionality with WordPress Plugins. If you’re new to WordPress, you might find yourself wondering, “what is a WordPress plugin?”. It’s a fairly common question to ask because, in addition to
  • 36. being one of the many new terms that WordPress will introduce to your vocabulary, plugins are also an essential building block of every single WordPress site. Here is a basic definition. 5.1 WordPress Plug-ins A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. In the WordPress community, there is a saying that goes around: “there’s a plugin for that”. They make it easier for users to add features to their
  • 37. website without knowing a single line of code. There are thousands of WordPress plugins available for free at the official WordPress plugin directory. Aside from free plugins, there are tons of amazing commercial ones available from third-party companies and developers. As a site administrator, you can install/uninstall plugins from the admin area. You can also download and manually install them using an FTP client. Because the vast majority of plugins are free, it is important to note that they usually do not come with tech support. For this reason, it is important to be careful when choosing which ones you want to install on your site. Although there
  • 38. are plugins that can do the task you want them to do, some are much higher quality than others. In order to choose the right ones, you should ask yourself a couple of questions. How long has it been since it was updated? Is it compatible with the latest version of WordPress? Are people getting answers to their support questions? What type of rating does it have? There is a myth that WordPress plugins slow your site down. It is not true. Only the number of bad ones will slow down your site. 5.2 How to Install a WordPress Plugin – Step by Step for Beginners After installing WordPress, the first thing every beginner
  • 39. needs to learn is how to install a WordPress plugin. Plugins allow you to add new features to WordPress such as add a gallery, slideshow, etc. There are thousands of free and paid plugins available for WordPress. But before you start, if you are using WordPress.com, then you cannot install plugins. WordPress.com has its limitations. You cannot install plugins on WordPress.com unless you upgrade to their business plan. On the other hand, you can install any plugin you want on your self-hosted WordPress.org website right out of the box. Installing a WordPress plugin involves three methods: Installing a WordPress plugin using search
  • 40. Uploading a WordPress plugin Manually installing a WordPress plugin using FTP 5.2.1 Install a Plugin using WordPress Plugin Search The easiest way of installing a WordPress plugin is to use the plugin search. The only downside of this option is that a plugin must be in the WordPress plugin directory which is limited to only free plugins. First thing you need to do is go to your WordPress admin area and click on Plugins » Add New. You will see a screen like the one in the screenshot above. Find the plugin by typing the plugin name or the functionality you are looking for like we did. After that, you will see a bunch of listings like the example below:
  • 41. You can pick the plugin that is best for you. Since in our search, we were looking for Floating Social Bar which happens to be the first plugin, we will click the ‘Install Now’ button. WordPress will now download and install the plugin for you. After this, you will see the success message with a link to activate the plugin or return to plugin installer. A WordPress plugin can be installed on your site, but it will not work unless you activate it. So go ahead and click on the activate plugin link to activate the plugin on your WordPress site. That’s all; you have successfully installed your first WordPress plugin. The next step is to configure the plugin settings. These settings will vary for each
  • 42. plugin, therefore, it cannot be discussed in general. 5.2.2 Install a Plugin using the WordPress Admin Plugin Upload Paid WordPress plugins are not listed in the WordPress plugin directory. These plugins cannot be installed using the first method. That’s why WordPress has the Upload method to install such plugins. We will explore how to install WordPress plugins using the upload option in the admin area. First, you need to download the plugin from the source (which will be a zip file). Next, you need to go to the WordPress admin area and visit Plugins » Add New page. After that, click on the Upload Plugin button on top of the page.
  • 43. This will bring you to the plugin upload page. Here you need to click on the choose file button and select the plugin file you downloaded earlier to your computer. After you have selected the file, you need to click on the install now button. WordPress will now upload the plugin file from your computer and install it for you. You will see a success message like this after the installation is finished. Once installed, you need to click on the Activate Plugin link to start using the plugin. You would have to configure the settings to fit your needs. These settings will vary for each plugin, therefore, it cannot be discussed in general terms.
  • 44. 5.2.3 Manually Install a WordPress Plugin using FTP In some cases, your WordPress hosting provider may have file restrictions that could limit your ability to install a plugin from the admin area. When it comes to protecting your WordPress website, the login screen is an important line of defense. A significant part of this is making sure your password is secure, which makes it far less likely that attackers will be able to crack it and gain access. Despite the measures you take to implement good login practices, leaving your site’s security to users is not a good idea. This is why WordPress uses a set of security keys or secret keys. Let’s find out about them…
  • 45. 6.1 What Are WordPress Security Keys & Salts? WordPress Security Keys is a set of random variables that improve encryption of information stored in the user’s cookies. There are a total of four security keys: AUTH_KEY SECURE_AUTH_KEY LOGGED_IN_KEY NONCE_KEY Salt keys are cryptographic elements used to ‘hash’ data in order to secure it. In fact, most serious platforms and systems use similar mechanisms to protect sensitive data. The process works by using the salt keys to encrypt your password when you save it in WordPress. This way, attackers can’t see your passwords in plaintext even if they somehow gain access to your database.
  • 46. Salt keys are also used to sign your website’s cookies. This stops malicious actors from being able to gain access even if they can take over your cookies. All of this happens in the background, and there are zero reasons why you’d ever need to share your WordPress salt keys with a third party. If someone were to get their hands on them, they’d might be able to use them in order to access your passwords and crack your website. You can find both WP salts and security keys in the wpconfig.php file. WordPress generates four security keys and salts in the wp-config.php file. After a fresh WordPress install, this is how the WordPress secret keys and salts look: define(‘AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique
  • 47. phrase here’); define(‘SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’); define(‘LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’); define(‘NONCE_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’); define(‘AUTH_SALT’, ‘put your unique phrase here’); define(‘SECURE_AUTH_SALT’, ‘put your unique phrase here’); define(‘LOGGED_IN_SALT’, ‘put your unique phrase here’); define(‘NONCE_SALT’, ‘put your unique phrase here’); You need to generate security keys and WordPress salts and replace the ‘put your unique phrase here’ with random variables you just generated.
  • 48. 6.2 How Does WordPress Salts and Security Keys Work? Unlike most of other websites platforms, WordPress does not use the PHP sessions to keep track of their users. To verify an identity of logged in users as well as commenters, WordPress usually uses the cookies or information that are stored in your browser’s history. When you log in to your Dashboard multiple cookies are created and saved. Usually, the two cookies that are created are: wordpress_[hash] wordpress_logged_in_[hash] The first one is used only when you are logged onto your Dashboard while the second cookie is used throughout WordPress to ensure whether or not you are logged in. The details you use to log in are hashed (assigned cryptic values)
  • 49. using the random variables which are then specified in the WordPress security keys. This, in turn, strengthens and makes it almost impossible for anyone to guess your password should your cookies be stolen. 6.3 How to Use WordPress Security Keys and Salts? Usually, when your WordPress websites are self-hosted, the security keys are not predefined. Instead, you might need to generate and add them yourself. But don’t worry, the process is quite simple and straightforward. Generally, there are two ways you can configure the secret key. We will be discussing both methods for your convenience so you can choose whichever method you prefer. Manually
  • 50. change the WordPress Security Keys and Salts Using a WordPress Plugin Method 1: Manually Changing the Secret Keys & Salts! Follow the steps below as a guideline and secure your WordPress profile and website! You can easily change WordPress security keys and salts. The WordPress Foundation provides a WordPress key generator that creates random values for secret keys and salts. Visit the following link: https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/s alt/ Copy the values you get from the link and then paste it in your wp-config file. Step 1: To access the wp-config.php, open your web host account and go
  • 51. cPanel. Select File Manager, and it’ll take you to a page that looks somewhat like this: Step 2: On the left-hand side, you can see the public_html folder where you’ll find the wp-config file. Step 3: Right click on the file and select Edit. Replace the ‘put your unique phrase here’ with the variables you just generated. Often WordPress beginners get confused between posts and pages. By default, WordPress comes with two content types: posts and pages. As a beginner, you are probably wondering what’s the difference between posts vs pages? They seem to look similar in the
  • 52. WordPress dashboard as well as on the website. 7.1 What are Posts in WordPress? Posts are blog content listed in reverse chronological order (newest content on top). You will see posts listed on your blog page. If you are using WordPress as a blog, then you will end up using posts for the majority of your website’s content. You can add and edit your WordPress posts from the ‘Posts’ menu in your dashboard. Here is how Add New Post screen looks. Due to their reverse chronological order, your posts are meant to be timely. Older posts are archived based on month and year. As the posts get older, the user has to dig deeper to find them. You have the
  • 53. option to organize your posts based on categories and tags. Because WordPress posts are published with time and date in mind, they are syndicated through the RSS feeds. This allows your readers to be notified of the most recent post update via RSS feeds. Bloggers can use the RSS feeds to deliver email broadcasts through services like Constant Contact, Aweber or MailChimp. You can create a daily and weekly newsletter for your audience to subscribe to. The very timely nature of posts makes it extremely social. You can use one of the many social sharing plugins to allow your users to share your posts on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest,
  • 54. etc. Posts encourage conversation. They have a built-in comment feature that allows users to comment on a particular topic. By default, comments, pingbacks, and trackbacks are enabled. You can go to your Settings » Discussion to turn off comments on older posts if you like. WordPress posts usually have the name of the author and published/updated date. After the main article content, there is the comments section. You cannot usually find these on a page. Now that you know what are posts, let’s take a look at pages and how they are different.
  • 55. 7.2 What are Pages in WordPress? Pages are static “one-off” type content such as your about page, privacy policy, contact page, etc. While the WordPress database stores the published date of the page, pages are timeless entities. For example, your about page is not supposed to expire. Sure you can go back and make updates to it, but chances are you will not have about page 2012, about page 2013, etc. Because there is no time and date tied to pages, they are not included in your RSS feeds by default. You can add and edit pages in WordPress from the ‘Pages’ menu in your dashboard. Here is how Add New Page screen looks like: Pages are not meant to be social in most cases thus do not
  • 56. include social sharing buttons. For example, you probably don’t want others to tweet your privacy policy page in most cases. Similarly, pages also don’t include comments. You don’t want users to comment on your contact page or your legal disclaimers page. There is an option to enable comments, however, it is disabled by default for your WordPress pages. Unlike posts, pages are hierarchical by nature. For example, you can have subpages or child pages within a page. You can easily turn a page into subpage by choosing a parent page from Page Attributes when editing a page. A key example of this in action would be our Blueprint page. This feature allows you to
  • 57. organize your pages together, and even assign a custom template to them. WordPress by default comes with a feature that allows you to create custom page templates using your theme. This allows developers to customize the look of each page when necessary. In most themes, post and pages look the same. But when you are using your page to create a landing page or a gallery page, then the custom page templates feature comes in very handy. Pages also have this archaic feature called ‘Order’ which lets you customize the order of pages by assigning a number value to it. However, this feature is extended by plugins like Simple Page Ordering that allows you to drag & drop the order of pages.
  • 58. 7.3 When to Use WordPress Pages WordPress security is a topic of huge importance for every website owner. Google blacklists around 10,000+ websites every day for malware and around 50,000 for phishing every week. If you are serious about your website, then you need to pay attention to the WordPress security best practices. While WordPress core software is very secure, and it’s audited regularly by hundreds of developers, there is a lot that can be done to keep your site secure. The security is not just about risk elimination. It’s also about risk reduction. As a website owner, there’s a lot that you can do to improve your WordPress security (even if you’re not tech-savvy).
  • 59. We have a number of actionable steps that you can take to protect your website against security vulnerabilities. 8.1 Basics of WordPress Security 8.1.1 Why WordPress security is so important? At its core WordPress is very secure, the CMS is audited by hundreds of expert coders who write security into WordPress. Nonetheless, WordPress can still be hacked and often it is due to a lack of basic security practices. WordPress sites that are hacked can be very damaging for the owner as it inevitably leads to a loss of reputation while also leading to financial loss. A hacker can rob a business of its confidential user data,
  • 60. can install software that leads to further damage down the road or even install malicious programs on your user’s PCs. Google plays a strong role in policing websites. First, it can exclude potentially hacked websites from search results – and indeed it blacklists tens of thousands of sites every week. Google also warns users away from infected sites by displaying a warning in Chrome. The resulting warnings can lead to a huge drop in traffic for website owners. The responsibility for securing a website lies, of course, with the website owner. It’s no different from business security at a physical place of business. Essentially, your website is your premises and you need to ensure that it is secured.
  • 61. 8.1.2 Keeping WordPress Updated WordPress is an open-source software which is regularly maintained and updated. By default, WordPress automatically installs minor updates. For major releases, you need to manually initiate the update. WordPress also comes with thousands of plugins and themes that you can install on your website. These plugins and themes are maintained by third-party developers which regularly release updates as well. These WordPress updates are crucial for the security and stability of your WordPress site. You need to make sure that your WordPress core, plugins, and theme are up to date.
  • 62. 8.1.3 Strong Passwords and User Permissions The most common WordPress hacking attempts to use stolen passwords. You can make that difficult by using stronger passwords that are unique for your website. Not just for the WordPress admin area, but also for FTP accounts, database, WordPress hosting account, and your custom email addresses which use your site’s domain name. Many beginners don’t like using strong passwords because they’re hard to remember. The good thing is that you don’t need to remember passwords anymore. You can use a password manager. Another way to reduce the risk is to not give anyone access to your WordPress admin account unless you absolutely have to. If you have a large
  • 63. team or guest authors, then make sure that you understand user roles and capabilities in WordPress before you add new user accounts and authors to your WordPress site. 8.1.4 The Role of WordPress Hosting Your WordPress hosting service plays the most important role in the security of your WordPress site. A good shared hosting provider like Bluehost or Siteground takes the extra measures to protect their servers against common threats. Here is how a good web hosting company works in the background to protect your websites and data. They continuously monitor their network for suspicious activity All good hosting companies have tools in place to prevent large scale
  • 64. DDOS attacks They keep their server software and hardware up to date to prevent hackers from exploiting a known security vulnerability in an old version They have ready to deploy disaster recovery and accidents plans which allows them to protect your data in case of a major accident On a shared hosting plan, you share the server resources with many other customers. This opens the risk of cross-site contamination where a hacker can use a neighboring site to attack your website. Using a managed WordPress hosting service provides a more secure platform for your website. Managed WordPress hosting companies offer automatic backups, automatic WordPress updates,
  • 65. and more advanced security configurations to protect your website. 8.2 WordPress Security in Easy Steps (No Coding) We know that improving WordPress security can be a terrifying thought for beginners. Especially if you’re not techy. We will learn how you can improve your WordPress security with just a few clicks (no coding required). If you can point-and-click, you can do this! 8.2.1 Install a WordPress Backup Solution Backups are your first defense against any WordPress attack. Remember,
  • 66. nothing is 100% secure. If government websites can be hacked, then so can yours. Backups allow you to quickly restore your WordPress site in case something bad was to happen. There are many free and paid WordPress backup plugins that you can use. The most important thing you need to know when it comes to backups is that you must regularly save full-site backups to a remote location (not your hosting account). We recommend storing it on a cloud service like Amazon, Dropbox, or private clouds like Stash. Based on how frequently you update your website, the ideal setting might be either once a day or real-time backups. Thankfully this can be easily done by using plugins like VaultPress or UpdraftPlus. They are both
  • 67. reliable and most importantly easy to use (no coding needed). 8.2.2 Best WordPress Security Plugin After backups, the next thing we need to do is set up an auditing and monitoring system that keeps track of everything that happens on your website. This includes file integrity monitoring, failed login attempts, malware scanning, etc. Thankfully, this can be all taken care of by the best free WordPress security plugin, Sucuri Scanner. You need to install and activate the free Sucuri Security plugin. Upon activation, you need to go to the Sucuri menu in your WordPress admin. The first thing you will be asked to do is Generate a free API key. This enables audit logging, integrity checking, email
  • 68. alerts, and other important features. The next thing, you need to do is, click on the ‘Hardening’ tab from the settings menu. Go through every option and click on the “Apply Hardening” button. These options help you lock down the key areas that hackers often use in their attacks. The only thing we recommend customizing is ‘Email Alerts’. The default alert settings can clutter your inbox with emails. We recommend receiving alerts for key actions like changes in plugins, new user registration, etc. You can configure the alerts by going to Sucuri Settings » Alerts.This WordPress security plugin is very powerful,
  • 69. so browse through all the tabs and settings to see all that it does such as Malware scanning, Audit logs, Failed Login Attempt tracking, etc. 8.2.3 Enable Web Application Firewall (WAF) The easiest way to protect your site and be confident about your WordPress security is by using a web application firewall (WAF). A website firewall blocks all malicious traffic before it even reaches your website. DNS Level Website Firewall – These firewall route your website traffic through their cloud proxy servers. This allows them to only send genuine traffic to your web server. Application Level Firewall – These firewall plugins examine the traffic once it reaches your server but before loading most
  • 70. WordPress scripts. This method is not as efficient as the DNS level firewall in reducing the server load. The best part about Sucuri’s firewall is that it also comes with a malware cleanup and blacklist removal guarantee. Basically, if you were to be hacked under their watch, they guarantee that they will fix your website (no matter how many pages you have). This is a pretty strong warranty because repairing hacked websites is expensive. 8.2.4 Move Your WordPress Site to SSL/HTTPS SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a protocol which encrypts data transfer between your website and a users browser. This encryption makes it harder for someone to sniff around and steal
  • 71. information.Once you enable SSL, your website will use HTTPS instead of HTTP, you will also see a padlock sign next to your website address in the browser. SSL certificates were typically issued by certificate authorities, and their prices start from $80 to hundreds of dollars each year. Due to the added cost, most website owners opted to keep using the insecure protocol. To fix this, a non-profit organization called Let’s Encrypt decided to offer free SSL Certificates to website owners. Their project is supported by Google Chrome, Facebook, Mozilla, and many more companies. Now, it is easier than ever to start using SSL for all your WordPress websites. Many hosting companies are now offering a free SSL certificate for your WordPress website. If
  • 72. your hosting company does not offer one, then you can purchase one from Domain.com. They have the best and most reliable SSL deal in the market. It comes with a $10,000 security warranty and a TrustLogo security seal. 8.3 WordPress Security for DIY Users If you do everything that we have mentioned thus far, then you’re in pretty good shape. But as always, there’s more that you can do to harden your WordPress security. Some of these steps may require coding knowledge. 8.3.1 Change the Default “admin” username In the old days, the default WordPress admin username was “admin”.
  • 73. Since usernames make up half of the login credentials, this made it easier for hackers to do brute-force attacks. Thankfully, WordPress has since changed this and now requires you to select a custom username at the time of installing WordPress. However, some 1-click WordPress installers still set the default admin username to “admin”. If you notice that to be the case, then it’s probably a good idea to switch your web hosting. Since WordPress doesn’t allow you to change usernames by default, there are three methods you can use to change the username. Create a new admin username and delete the old one. Use the Username Changer plugin Update username from phpMyAdmin Note: We’re
  • 74. talking about the username called “admin”, not the administrator role. 8.3.2 Disable File Editing WordPress comes with a built-in code editor which allows you to edit your theme and plugin files right from your WordPress admin area. In the wrong hands, this feature can be a security risk which is why we recommend turning it off. You can easily do this by adding the following code in your wp-config.php file. 1 2 // Disallow file edit define( 'DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true ); Alternatively, you can do this with 1-click using the Hardening feature in the free Sucuri plugin that we mentioned above.
  • 75. 8.3.3 Disable PHP File Execution in Certain WordPress Directories (Get More Info in Training Guide…) Drag and drop WordPress website builder makes it easy for you to create and customize beautiful websites all on your own. We’ll compare the most popular drag and drop WordPress page builders, so you can choose the best one for your needs and start creating your site. Note: Instead of a WordPress page builder, if you’re looking for a complete CMS/ website builder platform, then check out our collection of best website builders. 9.1 Why Use a Drag and Drop Page Builder for WordPress? When starting a blog, many beginners find it difficult to customize their WordPress page layouts.
  • 76. While a lot of premium WordPress themes come with different page layouts, most of them are extremely hard to customize for anyone who does not know code (HTML / CSS). Well, there are several great drag and drop page builder plugins available for WordPress. They allow you to create completely custom website designs in WordPress without writing a single line of code. Since there are so many different WordPress page builder plugins in the market, we decided to compare and rank the top WordPress page builders, so you can choose the right solution for your need. Let’s take a look at what you should keep in your mind when comparing the best WordPress page builders, so you can choose the right one
  • 77. for your needs. Compatibility: If you’re not interested in changing your existing WordPress theme for a page builder plugin, then the first thing you need to check is whether the builder you want to use is compatible with your WordPress theme. If you find any compatibility issues, then you might want to use a builder-compatible theme for your site. Features: You need to understand the unique quality of each builder when comparing the features. For example, some builders are shipped with a lot of built-in layouts while others offer dozens of animation effects. Responsiveness: You need to make sure that the page builder you choose allows you to create
  • 78. responsive, mobile-friendly, layouts out of the box. SEO: You need to make sure that your page builder is creating SEO friendly layouts. Having said that, let’s take a look at the best page builders for WordPress in the market. 1. Beaver Builder: Beaver Builder is a premium drag and drop page builder plugin for WordPress. It is by far the best WordPress page builder in the market. It is extremely fast and comes with a built-in onboarding tour to help you quickly familiarize with their interface. Beaver Builder comes with a live drag and drop interface. You get to see all your changes as you add them by simply dragging
  • 79. elements from the right sidebar and dropping them on your page. You can click on any element on a page to edit its properties. There are modules that let you add almost everything you may want including sliders, carousel, backgrounds, content blocks, buttons, and more. It also comes with over 30 finely designed templates for landing pages that make it super-easy and super-fast to create stunning website layouts. Beaver Builder has been updated well along with the Gutenberg project. So, it works fine with your new Gutenberg editor. Pricing: Starting from $99 for Unlimited Sites. 2. The Divi Builder: The Divi Builder is a powerful WordPress page builder that lets you build any type of design on your
  • 80. website with drag and drop. The Divi Builder is made by Elegant Themes, a renowned WordPress themes, and plugins company. The Divi builder works on almost any WordPress website. It gives you endless possibilities to create the most advanced layouts without having to touch a single line of code. The plugin is bundled with 46 builder modules, 20 row types, and 3 section types, all of which can be combined and arranged to create just about any type of website. With its advanced design settings, you can customize every element to a great extent. That being said, if you want to make real-time changes on the design, then you might want to use the Divi theme. With the theme, you can build your page with the frontend editor, so your
  • 81. pages can be updated right from the frontend without having to switch back and forth from your dashboard to your website. Pricing: Starts at $89 (includes 100+ website packs) 3. Elementor: Elementor is the first free and open-source advanced page builder for WordPress. With its quick drag and drop builder, you can make instant page edits from the frontend of your site. Elementor is well-known for its high-speed performance, which makes it fun and easy to build with. With its extensive template library, you get hundreds of beautiful WordPress templates by their top-notch designers, which can be exported to different websites through the page builder.
  • 82. Elementor supports responsive mobilefriendly design, allowing you to build web pages that work great on any device. Some other cool features of Elementor are: Canvas: You can build a brand new landing page without header or footer, optimized for high conversions. Maintenance mode: For maintenance, you can get your site offline with its built-in maintenance mode. Zapier integration: Integrating your website with a third-party web application is a breeze using its Zapier integration. Pricing: Starts at $49 for a single site license. 4. Themify Builder: The Themify Builder comes with a drag and drop interface that helps you create any layout you can imagine with ease. The builder comes
  • 83. with over 60 prebuilt layouts and animation effects that you can choose from. If you want to start a blog, then WordPress.com offers a hassle-free solution to get started. But the actual question is, what do you want to do with your Blog? A lot of people just want to share their personal thoughts, ramblings, photos and such. For that purpose, WordPress.com offers a free, easy to use, secure and stable platform for you to blog on. However, if you want to do more with your blog such as make money, build a membership community, among other things, then there are some inherent limitations. Let’s take a look… 1. Earning Limitations You cannot run Google Adsense or other advertising
  • 84. programs to serve ads on your WordPress.com blog. You cannot write paid posts, sell links, review products, etc. WordPress.com terms of service restrict you from using your free blog for any commercial activity on your own. However, you can apply for WordPress.com’s advertising program which is called WordAds. This program is currently available to WordPress.com blogs that match certain traffic and quality requirements. Once you are approved for WordAds program, you will be sharing your advertising revenue with WordPress.com.Note: If you have a book, then you can have an ad for that on your WordPress.com blog. They just don’t allow ads for products or services that you do not own.
  • 85. 2. You Cannot Upload Plugins The real power of WordPress comes from the freedom to customize and extend the core functionality. You cannot extend the functionality of WordPress.com by uploading plugins. You are given a comprehensive but still a limited set of features. A lot of people who migrate from WordPress.com to self-hosted WordPress.org do so just to take advantage of certain features that come with these amazing plugins. 3. You Cannot Upload Themes When creating a WordPress website, everyone makes mistakes. However, each mistake is a learning opportunity that helps you
  • 86. grow. In setting up our own websites as well as helping others, there are some common WordPress mistakes to avoid to save time, money, and grow your business more effectively. The goal is to help you learn from other people’s mistakes when making your own websites. 1. Choosing The Wrong Platform: The biggest mistake people make when starting out is choosing the wrong blogging platform. Basically, there are two types of WordPress. First, there is WordPress.com which is a blog hosting service, and then there is WordPress.org also which is the famous self-hosted WordPress platform that everyone loves. You need to start with self-hosted
  • 87. WordPress.org because it gives you access to all the features you need out of the box. 2. Buying More than What You Need: To get started with a WordPress website, you need a domain name and WordPress hosting. The challenge is that a lot of domain registrars try to upsell other services. This confuses the small business owners who are just starting out. The add-on services may include privacy protection, extra email accounts, security services, and more. You can skip all of these things and save money to spend on growing your business. If you later decide that you need those services, then you can always purchase them from your hosting company. You also need to
  • 88. choose the right hosting plan for your website. For 90% of websites that are just starting out, a shared hosting account is quite enough to get you going. 3. Not Setting up Automated Backups: Each year billions of dollars worth of damages are caused by data loss. Almost every website on the internet is prone to accidents, theft, hacking attempts, and other disasters. Your most powerful line of defense against these threats is automated backups. Without a backup, you could lose all your WordPress data, and it would be very difficult to recover it (sometimes even impossible). Setting up backups is extremely easy, and there are excellent WordPress backup plugins available in the market. Once you set up
  • 89. one of these backup plugins, they would automatically create backups for you. The second part of this mistake is not storing backup files on a remote location. A lot of folks store their WordPress backups on their web hosting server. If they lose their website data, then they also lose the backups. Make sure that you store your backups on cloud storage service like Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. Backup plugins like UpdraftPlus can automatically do that for you. 4. Not Setting up Google Analytics: If you want to grow your business with confidence, then you need to know how people find and use your website. That’s where Google Analytics can help. We recommend using MonsterInsights, the
  • 90. most popular Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It saves you time during setup, and shows you the stats that matter, right inside your WordPress dashboard. If you don’t want MonsterInsights Pro, then there’s also a free version of MonsterInsights available that you can get started with. 5. Not Setting up a Contact Form: Not setting up a contact form is another easily avoidable mistake that many beginners make. Without a contact form, your website visitors will not be able to contact you, and this can cause you to lose significant opportunities. You will see a contact page on almost every popular website. It is one of the most important pages every website need to have.
  • 91. WordPress does not come with a built-in contact form, but there are a lot of great WordPress contact form plugins available that you can use. We recommend using WPForms Lite which is the free version of the popular WPForms plugin that’s being used by over 2 million websites. 6. Not Building an Email List: Did you know that more than 70% of people who visit your website will never come back again? If you are not building your email list, then you are basically losing money with every website visitor that leaves your site. Converting website visitors into email subscribers allows you to bring back those users to your website. You will need an email marketing service to set up your email list. We recommend using Aweber
  • 92. because they are one of the best email marketing companies on the market with a very beginner-friendly platform. 7. Not Choosing The Right WordPress Theme: One of the biggest challenges WordPress beginners face is choosing the right design for their website. With thousands of WordPress themes out there, an average beginner tries multiple themes before settling for the right one, and this process can even lead the user to rebuild their website multiple times. To avoid this, we recommend choosing the right WordPress theme from the start and then stick to it. This allows your website visitors to become familiar with your website, your brand, and its unique style. Consistency and continuity of your design
  • 93. make a big impact on brand recognition and awareness. Well, when it comes to design we prefer simplicity over glitter. You need to choose a great looking but simple WordPress theme that pays attention to the following items: It must look equally good on all devices (desktop, mobile, and tablets). It should be easy to customize and flexible to adapt to your needs. It should work with popular plugins and WordPress page builders. It should be optimized for performance and speed. Now we understand that as a non-techy user, you may not be able to check all those things on your own but do your best.
  • 94. 8. Ignoring WordPress Updates: Many beginners and even experienced WordPress users who don’t install updates on their site. Many of them believe that doing so will cause errors and could break their site. That’s not true. You can easily and safely update WordPress without breaking your website. By not updating WordPress, you leave your website vulnerable to security breaches while using outdated software. It’s not just WordPress, your WordPress theme and plugins also regularly release updates for bug fixes, security patches, and new features. 9. Not Optimizing Your Website for SEO: A lot of WordPress users rely on their best guesses when it comes to
  • 95. promoting their websites. Some completely ignore SEO, while some do it half-heartedly. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) helps you rank higher in search engines, so more users can find your website. Search engines are the biggest source of traffic for most websites. SEO is crucial for the success of your online business. 10. Not Using Categories and Tags Properly: Another big mistake is not using categories and tags properly. Some users end up using categories where they should have used tags and vice-versa. We have seen websites with dozens of categories and no tags at all. We have seen websites using hundreds of tags and no categories at all. Basically, categories
  • 96. are your website’s table of contents. If your website was a file cabinet, categories would be its drawers. On the other hand, tags are like the index page. If your website was a file cabinet, tags would be the labels on individual file folders. 11. Not Using Posts and Pages Properly: Sometimes beginner WordPress users end up using posts to create important website pages. Similarly, some users end up using pages for articles when they should have used posts instead. A lot of users realize their mistake after a while when their website becomes difficult to manage. Basically, pages are for static pages that don’t change very often like about, contact,
  • 97. privacy policy, etc. On the other hand, posts are for time-based content like news, updates, articles, and blogs. 12.Not Choosing The Right URL Structure (Permalinks): Selecting the right URL settings (permalink structure) for your website is really important. Changing your URL structure later is not easy, and it can have a significant impact on your website traffic. We recommend going to the Settings » Permalinks page in your WordPress admin area and choosing a URL structure with that shows your post name in the URL. 13.Ignoring Website Speed and Performance: Human attention span is
  • 98. dropping rapidly, and users want instant gratification. With faster internet connections, your users would find a few extra seconds of page load time to be extremely slow. And it’s not just users, even search engines rank faster websites higher in their results. By ignoring website speed and performance you risk user experience as well as search rankings. Which is why you need to make sure that your website loads fast. 14.Not Choosing The Right Plugins: The real power of WordPress comes with its plugins. There are thousands of free WordPress plugins that you can install with a few clicks. However, not all plugins are good. In fact, some plugins are bad and could affect your website’s
  • 99. performance and security. Often users end up downloading plugins from unreliable sources that distribute hidden malware. Here are a few things you need to keep in mind when choosing plugins: Only install plugins from WordPress.org or WordPress companies with a good reputation. Look for plugin reviews and support forums because they are a good indicator of a plugin’s quality Check trusted WordPress resources like WPBeginner for plugin recommendations 15.Ignoring WordPress Security Best Practices: Having a great website matters. It’s how you connect with your visitors and leads, create a positive first impression with new users, and boost conversions. The good news is creating
  • 100. your own website doesn’t have to be a daunting process… At least not with WordPress. The easy-to-use CMS offers completely customizable plans suitable for all needs. With no prior knowledge necessary, you can start building your own site for your business, blog, portfolio, or online store immediately. conclusion: WordPress is a very user-friendly and interactive way to host your One of the reasons why WordPress gained such massive popularity was its ability to customize and edit, as per the needs directly from the backend without hiring any professional or writing a single line of
  • 101. code. But, that’s not just about it, there’s so much more. That being said, one thing is for sure - with a few tips and tricks, a lot can be done using WordPress. On the same lines, we hope that this ‘WP Training Kit’ training guide will help you in creating your WordPress website quickly and easily. Enjoy Your Success!