Once you have created a WordPress account you have to concentrate on how to make your site reach the maximum number of people. Be it a blog, or a forum or maybe an e-commerce site, you’ll be needing traffic for your site to become popular. A blog with no views is of no use. These days there are several Freelance WordPress Developers to provide high-quality service to boost traffic and rank up your site. However, they do charge a fee for their service.

Can it be done for free? Yes, if you have little PHP knowledge and basic idea about WordPress admin panel set up! Once your site is created, target on how you can optimize it.

Here are a few tips to take care of after you have created your website:

• You need to have an ideal permalink structure:

Permalink is the permanent URL of your blog post. In WordPress, by default, they have web URLs with day and name. However, the dashboard also allows you to create custom URLs or permalinks for each blog post.

To get the best permalink it must be SEO friendly:

1. In the settings, where you can find the permalink structure, opt for the ‘post name’ option. Choose a URL that is focused, simple and easily understandable by the people.
2. Use dashes in place of underscores.
3. Avoid using ‘stop words’ like ‘at’, ‘any’, ‘which’ because words like this does not allow the search engine to understand what your content is about.
4. Use hyphens to separate words, because if not separated neither the user nor the search will understand what the page is about.
5. Do not use dates inside the permalink. Even if the content is extraordinary, users generally about outdated contents.
6. Permalinks starting with ‘HTTP’ are an indication that your domain has an SSL certificate (the site is encrypted between the client and server); Google aims to make the internet a safer place, and an SSL certification proves to be contributing factor to your site.
7. Make sure your URL has proper keywords so that users can easily find your blog. Make sure the slug is the keyword itself. You can take the help of Google search box to find keyword suggestions for your post.

• Configure the general information of your site:

The general settings in WordPress include Site Title, Tagline, Time Zone, Favicon, etc.

The Site Title and the Tagline cannot be just anything, it needs to have a proper resemblance to your blog.

Keep the time matched to your local time, this helps to schedule your posts accordingly.

Add a favicon to your site.
Why?
Because it gives you a unique recognition and it becomes easier for users to identify you and trust you.

Because it gives you a unique recognition and it becomes easier for users to identify you and trust you.

• Optimize page load speed:

WordPress has the feature of post revisions. They automatically keep on saving your post and pages every 60 seconds. This feature prevents unpredictable loss of data. WordPress assigns storage memory for this purpose, thus increasing the page loading time. High loading time can limit site traffic and decrease SEO value. To optimize the loading speed, it is recommended to disable post revision feature.

Using a free or low budget caching plugin can help with this situation.

• Grab some essential plugins:

For freelance WordPress developers, working with plugins is a piece of cake. However, it becomes difficult for a non-professional to do the same. However, WordPress provides countless plugins at a minimal cost that can be used for your site to make it flexible for both bloggers and users.

Here are some essential plugins that need to be downloaded before posting anything:

1. SEO by Yoast plugin takes care of everything regarding SEO.
2. Security plugins like Wordfence, Sukuri, and SiteLock protect your website from possible hackers.
3. As mentioned earlier, caching plugin is used to speed up site loading; W3 Total Cache increases site performance thereby promoting traffic.
4. SUMO ME plugin creates a link between your WordPress account and social media account; it enables you to create an email list, live chat, contact form. Jetpack plugin has similar features.
5. Broken Link Checker continuously keeps a check on your backlinks and external links and makes sure they are not broken.
6. Akismet or Antispam Bee is antispam plugins. It secures your site from spam comments.

• Make sure to have contact forms:

Communication is key when forming a relationship – be it in person or digitally. Provide contact options for your followers so they can reach you, ask you questions and eventually trust you in the process. This is how your channel will get promoted and popularized.

To enable contact form, you need to have plugins:

1. Jetpack
2. Ninja forms
3. Contact form 7

These plugins allow the users to directly contact you via email, and you to directly reply via the same without accessing WordPress.

• Initial customization:

To begin with, WordPress comes with some default pages, posts, and widgets. Make sure to remove them before publishing the site. You can do a simple search using “Lorem ipsum” to track the dummy text.

Customize the writing setting – change default post category and post format according to your preference. Determine whether you wish to publish blog posts using email.

Customize writing setting – this gives you the opportunity to change the appearance of your homepage and feed. Make sure you are not clicking the ‘search engine visibility’ as it prohibits search engines to index the website.

Customize your theme, make sure it coincides with the concept of your site.

Once you follow the steps and start blogging, you will eventually learn what more to do. With more research, you can optimize your site to rank in search results.