WORDPRESS – A DELIGHT FOR EVERY WEBSITE

A set of plugins is available to help you add extra bits of code that you do not want to code. Do not go full blast in using these Plugins as they make the website heavy and the page load speed increases by a good amount. Instead, select only the ones that you really need. Plugins like the contact form that you can either code or get it done and do not need to be changed on regular basis can be avoided.

One plugin that you really need to have is Yoast SEO which is a good life saver for SEO of your website. Let’s look at some of its features:

1. Edit Snippet: This helps you to enter Title, description, URL and also a focus keyword for the blog. You can also specify if the article is a corner article to build an SEO strategy around it. The bars below highlight to keep you within the word limit. These little inputs are called on Page SEO and have been covered in my previous articles. In normal websites getting this facility can be tricky (I have never seen have one).

2. Analysis of SEO: While you are editing the SEO snippet or the article, Yoast SEO Plugin gives you an analysis of the SEO and recommends changes to keep you on track. Following these many steps and check without Yoast is a real nightmare.

3. Readability: This tab in Yoast allows you to make sure that the article is easy to read online through various check. Writers tend to be expressive in nature and write long sentences which can be fairly difficult to read online. These steps help blog writers to make their writing adaptable for the digital world.

4. Yoast Premium: Although the sales pitch has a list of points for you to pay for it the only point worth the money is the optimization of up to 5 keywords. This can be a good strategy for pushing your blogs ahead. Rest all points do not hold that much value.

WHEN NOT TO USE WORDPRESS

Although with some really good features, WordPress still has its own limitations and should be avoided in the below cases:

1. For big projects like e-commerce: It has a plugin called woo-commerce which supports e-commerce but does not provide a lot of help. If you are really doing big e-commerce and not a small one you need a bigger platform than WP.
2. Complicated functionalities: If your website has some complicated functionalities, it might be a good idea to avoid WP and go the old fashioned way of hand coding or even using a framework.
3. You want to expand in near future: Any plans of bringing in new ideas or expanding on current ones, avoid WP. The code that you have right now will not be of any use and you might have to start from scratch again.