If you own a website, there’s a good chance you’re using WordPress. It’s one of the most popular content management systems out there and over 75 million people use WordPress to power their websites. It’s an influential website builder that works as an effective marketing tool when you know how to utilise it properly. WordPress is great for marketing because it generates traffic. With an average of more than 20 billion page visits per month, WordPress sites have the potential to elevate your brand’s image in more ways than one.
There’s no need to become a coding expert to find success in using WordPress. In fact, it’s predicated on ease of use above anything else. With just a handful of plugins and integrations, you can transform your WordPress website into a marketing juggernaut. Any marketer can boost their website traffic, manage their calendar, and control their content directly into WordPress.
Today we’ll be taking a look at proven WordPress marketing tips that’ll take your website marketing to the next level.
- Make use of mobile-responsive themes.
Google’s recent algorithm update favours mobile-friendly web pages and for good reason. The vast majority of people spend their time browsing the internet on their mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Making use of mobile-responsive themes can help boost your traffic numbers and optimise it according to Google’s preferences. Use Google Analytics to break down the numbers and find out where your traffic is coming from.
If you see the numbers increase after using a mobile-friendly theme, that’s good news. That means your new theme is effective at bringing more traffic.
- Optimise your website images for increased loading speed.
When it comes to search engine rankings, site speed is one of the things Google tends to prioritise. Images that aren’t optimised can drastically reduce your site speed, especially if you operate an e-commerce website. The more high quality images you use, the slower your site will be because there’s plenty of files stored on your server. To alleviate this issue, you can install WP Smush Image Compression which is a plugin that reduces large file sizes.
External tools like tiny.png also works which you can import to WordPress through Dropbox. Optimising your images will help speed up your website significantly and give you a boost in Google’s search engine rankings.
- Check for broken links automatically.
Google takes note of any broken links in your website during the crawling process. This can negatively affect your SEO so it’s crucial to have them fixed or eliminate them altogether. You don’t have to go through every link manually as you can easily utilise a plugin to simplify the process. Broken Link Checker is one such plugin that automatically checks for broken links and notify you when they appear.
You can edit the links directly from the dashboard which is a huge timesaver if you have plenty of broken links in your site. Links play a huge role in SEO and it’s worth checking the dashboard whenever you create a new blog post. Doing this will help you fix broken links immediately before Google crawls your website.
- Produce high quality landing pages.
If you’re launching a new product or creating an opt-in form, you’re going to need a high quality landing page. PageBuilder by SiteOrigin is a free WordPress page builder that helps you create stunning landing pages with just a few clicks. There’s no technical knowledge required and you can use their pre-built templates to get you started quickly. Everything is customisable and with a drag-and-drop interface, creating high quality landing pages have never been simple.
The great thing about this plugin is that you can create as many landing pages as you want. The more landing pages you build, the better it’ll be for your SEO since there’s plenty of pages for Google to index.
- Test out your landing pages with A/B testing.
Once you’ve built your landing pages, it’s time to test them through A/B testing. This method can be a hit-or-miss but in most cases, it can prove beneficial especially if there’s not enough insight on why your bounce rate is high or your traffic is slow. One of the main reasons marketers avoid A/B testing is that it’s very tedious and time-consuming. Creating duplicate pages with separate designs isn’t something most people are fond of doing, but there’s a way to simplify the entire process.
This is where plugins come into play. WordPress plugins like Nelio AB Testing are a lifesaver tool that streamlines the A/B testing procedure. This is great if you’re new to A/B testing and you don’t want to bother with all of the guesswork involved. It includes head mapping which gives you greater insight into the testing process to know which areas of your site are working and which ones need to be improved.
- Include CTAs in your blog posts.
One of the most common mistakes marketers make is not including CTAs in their blog posts. CTAs are mainly used in websites and landing pages, but are often times left out on stuff like blog content. Blogs are actually a great place to use CTAs and there are many different types of CTAs you can use. For example, you can add simple callouts to other services within the post or include fancy CTA graphics to catch the reader’s attention. You can also create sidebar CTAs, header CTAs, and many, many more.
In other words, you have a ton of options for adding actionable interactions that’ll make your website more profitable so don’t just focus on your website’s CTA and include them in your blog posts. Plugins like Lead Magnets or Thrive Leads are perfect for creating CTAs and expanding your email list in WordPress.
- Optimise blog posts for shareability.
Google loves social media as much as it loves keywords. Creating content that’s optimised for social media sharing can benefit your website in many ways like generating organic traffic and affecting your website’s visibility in search engine rankings. When it comes to WordPress, there are a ton of options for creating content that’s shareable on social channels. AddToAny Share Buttons is a plugin that allows readers to easily share any page without the need to copy and paste its URL.
You can also try other plugins like Quoteability and Perfect Pull Quotes. The former allows users to tweet favorite quotes from your blog post while the latter adds visual cues for shareable content. As you know, links play a huge role in Google’s algorithm which means the more ways you can get users to link your site, the better your rankings will be.
- Enable comments and respond to them.
Comments are great. It gives you insight on how your content is perceived by your audience and provides constructive criticism on how you can better improve your website. Not only that, but comments are great for SEO. It adds to your word count and helps boost your traffic numbers for Google. One downside to enabling comments is the potential for spam which can bog down your site.
Fortunately, there’s a good workaround for this. You can install Akismet which is a plugin that filters out spam from your blog posts. Don’t forget to respond to comments which can jumpstart a community around your content. Disqus is an awesome WordPress plugin that helps achieve just that.
- Use SEO in every single blog post.
There’s no denying that SEO is one of the most powerful tools in a marketer’s arsenal. People spend years mastering the craft of generating organic search results because the results have a snowball effect over time. A successful website revolves around optimised content for SEO and if you want to make the process easier, you should definitely install Yoast. Yoast helps make your website search-engine friendly as possible and it only takes a couple minutes to optimise a single blog post.
- Manage your editorial calendar
Creating and optimising blog posts can be a bit tedious and disorienting. You don’t have to switch back and forth from your editorial calendar to your WordPress dashboard because there’s a simple solution called Editorial calendar. This plugin organises everything for you in a neat and simple manner. It allows you to drag and drop changes to post dates, publish posts straight from the calendar, and quickly edit posts from the title right down to the publishing time.
Implementing these tips for better marketing results
WordPress comes with all of the necessary tools to take your marketing game to the next level. It’s all about finding the right plugins that make the process much easier. Almost any task that’s essential to marketing can be managed in your WordPress dashboard whether it be SEO, image optimisation, landing pages, and many more.
These tips are proven to be effective and to help you simply marketing in more ways than one. Give it a try and see how much of a difference it can make to your WordPress site. Otherwise, speak with your local digital marketing agency should you have any additional questions.
