What a WordPress Designer Should Know

The most popular blogging resource available today is WordPress. It is a free, open-source platform that can be customised with various features in the same way a dress is complimented with different accessories. Themes allow users to alter the look and performance of a WordPress installation or website without altering the information content. In addition, a template system, and various creative plugins can produce a dynamic content management system based on MySQL and PHP. The WordPress plug-in architecture is largely responsible for it currently being the most popular blogging system in use on the Internet to date. Since it was first released on May 27, 2003, WordPress 3.0 has been downloaded millions of times as of December 2011.

Finding A Freelance WordPress Designer

The main benefit of a freelance WordPress designer is cost. An individual is usually less expensive to hire than a professional development firm, but may require some upfront costs to post a job request, read designer portfolios, or to hire a designer that is best suited to handle unique requirements of a specific website when doing so through a freelancing agency.

WordPress is one of the most essential publishing tools currently and can be used as an effective bridge to improve rankings on a website's search engine. It has an abundant plugin structure which allows WordPress developers and users alike to reach far beyond the basic features of an initial WordPress installation. Currently, WordPress has over 18,000 database plugins at its disposal designed for SEO purposes to attaching widgets.

SEO

There are multiple numbers of SEO plugins that have been designed for WordPress for most web site blogs. WordPress SEO is different from other network platforms because of its user-friendly layout and is especially favored by publishers. WordPress alone is used to sort and assign web pages and posts by means of a URL comprised of only numbers and some symbols.

However, WordPress does not allow an individual the ability to deliver posts that will end up in high rankings on search engines or is it structured to give a detailed description of posts on a dashboard or to allow people to link to them easily. This is why integrating plug-ins with WordPress is essential for web pages to yield maximum SEO results. Interestingly, search engines figure in page titles as an important ranking factor that has a direct affect on SEO. This is the case because most people looking for a particular topic will click onto a web site based on a title that matches their query closely or exactly. WordPress blogs, therefore, need to have a syntax attached to them in the following format to attract more traffic: title> archive> title.

Using Image Optimization For WordPress

Image optimization is another key factor in improving search engine results. The plug-in called, Smush.it, is designed to delete excess image bytes from files without altering their visual or display quality. The plug-in also removes meta data from image files in JPEG format and optimises its compression, strips excess colors from indexed images,and produces indexed PNGs from certain converted GIFs. Applying relevant alternate text with definitions and descriptions to images, file names and title makes it easier for those with poor eyesight or those trying to access an individual's website from a Smartphone see search engine results from a more appealing display. In addition, web crawlers can see the whole structure of a web site by means of a sitemap.

A sitemap helps fresh content on a site get indexed faster every time a new post is added. A XML plug-in is necessary to help search engines like Bing and Google index a WordPress blog even better. Plug-ins like Google XML Sitemaps can not only notify the major search engines, but can actually generate a sitemap. As mentioned earlier, navigating through a WordPress blog is less convenient without easy-access links. Breadcrumbs are links that are typically added right above a posted title and allow search engines to assess a site's structure and help web users to move through a site easier. A WordPress plug-in known as Yoast, can assist further by ensuring that breadcrumbs will return to a website's categories and home page. Do not hesitate to ask a WP developer for assistance.

Widgets

Widgets are small modules that are designed to help web searchers utilise many of the plugins' extended abilities, such as small news sliders, a slideshow, boxes, with drag-and-drop sidebar content placement.

WordPress also handles author mentions, GPL compatible themes for sponsorships or links to sites. A top WordPress designer moves far beyond the basics, and understands the technology associated with WordPress by learning the best practices for PHP and MySQL content management, and a variety of other things to help a web site owner further improve their search engine rankings with WordPress. An updated form of WordPress called WordPress multi-user makes it possible for those promoting a website to host their own blogging community, as well as manage and moderate all incoming blogs from only one dashboard. Therefore, WordPress with additional customised features helps businesses run a more successful web site in performance and boosts consumer traffic.