Images have a huge impact on your blog’s visual appeal. And while adding high-quality images to your content will definitely improve its readability and deliver value to your readers, WordPress featured images will do that – and more.

Surprisingly so, some WordPress themes don’t allow users to add featured images. Thankfully, there are a few different ways you can start using featured images even if your theme doesn’t offer support for them.

In this post, we’ll show you how you can use featured images on your WordPress website following the industry’s best practices. But before we begin, let’s take a look at what featured images are and what the fuss is all about.

Let’s get started.

Ever wondered why the URLs on your WordPress site are the way they are? I promise you that it’s not magic. WordPress isn’t consulting some cosmic power to structure your URLs. No, it’s actually the result of how your WordPress permalinks are set up.

One of the best ways to increase your WordPress site’s security is by installing an SSL certificate. It prevents hackers from stealing personal information by encrypting the connection between a visitor’s browser and your site. However, installing one can be incredibly difficult and costly.

Fortunately, this is no longer the case with Let’s Encrypt, which offers free, automated SSL certificates to anyone who needs one. In this post, we’ll walk you through a step-by-step tutorial on how to secure your WordPress site with HTTPS using a free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt.

Let’s put everything into context before we begin.

You spend a ton of time creating quality content for your WordPress site. You need to write the text, add your images, insert the links, and then perform all those niggling formatting details. Then you’re ready to publish, right? Wrong! Sorry, I’m going to add one more thing to your plate – you need to optimize WordPress images. And if you’re not optimizing your images before you publish them, you need to start today.

There are dozens of ways to go around growing your business and increasing your profits using WordPress. One of the most effective happens to be affiliate marketing, which – despite requiring some work to set up –  enables you to leverage your users, and get them to help you expand your business.

If executed properly, an affiliate program can bring in a lot of revenue and turn your business into a success story. All you need is a product to market, to pick the right tool for the job, and provide enough incentive for your affiliates to get the word out. It may sound like a lot of work, but the benefits can be significant.

Google Analytics is a powerful analytics tool that allows website owners to monitor who visits their site, which pages they’ve been looking at, and how they got there. Tracking these metrics (in addition to a number of others) makes it possible to boost your site’s conversion rates, increase product sales, and grow traffic.

Having some insight into how your target audience interacts with your site is vital. Fortunately, integrating Google Analytics with WordPress is a cakewalk – all you have to do is install a plugin, configure its settings, and you’re good to go.

With this in mind, in this post, we’ll show you how you can integrate Google Analytics to your WordPress site – the easy way – and cover some essential metrics that you should be tracking. But before we begin, let’s take a look at why it’s a good idea to have Google Analytics in the first place.

Let’s get started.

Most users don’t get to spend that much time digging into the WordPress back-end or tinkering with databases. If you fall into that category, you may be doing yourself a disservice by not getting to know how databases work, since they can enable you to improve your site’s performance and tighten its security.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take long to get to know the basics of WordPress databases. Once you understand how they work and how to make your way around them, you’ll be able to troubleshoot your site more efficiently and even reduce loading times (which is always a plus).

Website building platforms have evolved over the years to include users who aren’t particularly programming literate. WordPress page builders have lead the way in allowing website owners to bring their ideas to life without having to stare endlessly at a dull text editor.

WordPress page builders pack powerful functionality that makes it easier for users to build custom layouts for their websites. Not only do they save you a bunch of time but they also allow you to live preview the front-end while you’re designing.

WordPress users are always on the lookout for resources that can do just about everything. Although there are a number of excellent WordPress page builders – both free and premium – to choose from, in this post, we’ll take a step back and discuss the pros and cons of using them.

Let’s get started.

Optimizing your WordPress site for speed is integral to keeping your audience happy. Users tend to have short attention spans, and they aren’t likely to stick around if a website takes too long to load. The bad news is, slow loading times may persist even if you’ve already implemented some basic optimization measures (usually due to your web host). That means you need to look outside the box for alternative solutions.

“Lazy loading” enables your site to respond faster when other optimization efforts have not reduced loading times suitably. It succeeds in this endeavor by delaying the loading of specific site elements until they’re actually needed. That way, users get to enjoy faster page loads, you get a lower bounce rate, and everyone’s happy.

Are you struggling to find the best FTP client to upload files to your servers? It can certainly be confusing. If you’re digging through your options, you may have noticed that the world of FTP clients is filled to the brim with “helpful” acronyms.

FTP. SFTP. FTPS. Those three alone are probably enough to make your head spin!

So, if you want some help making your decision, keep reading to learn more about some of the top free and premium FTP clients out there.

When you think of a trail of breadcrumbs, the first thing that may come to mind is the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel. While WordPress breadcrumbs work in much the same way – providing users with a simple navigation system to find their way “home” – they do require a bit more work to set up than just dropping food along the way.

As a tool to improve user experience and make your site more friendly to search engines, breadcrumbs can be a useful addition in most cases. If you’ve never used breadcrumbs before, then you’ll be happy to know that WordPress offers several ways to add them to your sites.

I think you’ll agree with me when I say that performance and security are two concerns on the minds of most WordPress site owners. So what if I told you that you can boost both with one simple tool? Guess what – you can. It’s called CloudFlare for WordPress.

At some point, you might find yourself in a position where you want (or need) to change your WordPress username. This should be an easy task by all accounts, but unfortunately, the platform doesn’t make it as simple as it could be.

However, where there’s a will, there’s a way – or two, in this case. Our recommended approaches aren’t complicated, and getting acquainted with them may save you some trouble in the future if, for example, your credentials get compromised.

In recent years, WordPress has steadily increased in popularity among website owners and bloggers. As a side effect, the platform has become a juicy target for malicious attackers. This, of course, makes increased online security – including knowing how to scan your website for malware – a necessity for website owners.

As a WordPress user, it’s vital that you understand which types of threats you’ll be facing. You’ll also need to become acquainted with the best WordPress security tools out there and learn how to use them. This way, you’ll be prepared for any type of attack on your website and your data will remain secure at all times.

Low website loading times are paramount to an enjoyable browsing experience. If your website takes too long to load, visitors may outright abandon it, and your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will be hurt as well. However, figuring out why your website feels sluggish and how to improve it isn’t always easy.

That’s where Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool – commonly referred to as the “Google Speed Test” – comes in. This service provides you with a performance score for your website (both its mobile and desktop versions) and several recommendations on how to improve it. Furthermore, since this is Google we’re talking about, you can be certain they know their stuff.

As many website owners do, you’ve likely spent countless hours learning the ins and outs of on-page Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and how to use it to best optimize your WordPress site. And while on-page SEO certainly plays a significant role in your website’s engine rankings, what’s even more important is ensuring that your website allows search engine bots easy and unfettered access to your site.

Fortunately, there’s a pretty quick fix for this universal necessity. Proper optimization of your WordPress website’s robots.txt file (and the creation of one, if necessary) can ensure your website is accessible to and understandable by search engine bots, thus putting you in the best possible position to benefit from increased search engine rankings.

It’s no secret that WordPress packs some pretty neat functionality into its core software. Widgets are easily one of the best features it has to offer. They have intuitive interfaces, they’re incredibly handy, and best of all, they allow you to integrate useful functionality to your site without having to modify your theme.

The WordPress Plugin Directory offers all kinds of neat widgets; however, with thousands of options to choose from, separating the wheat from the chaff can be difficult – especially if you’re a newcomer to this field. In this post, we’ll run the rule over eight of the most useful WordPress widgets out there to supercharge your website.

WordPress is a powerful Content Management System (CMS) that offers a wide variety of options for user management. However, not many people pay attention to the platform’s user roles – which is a shame, because they happen to be one of its most robust features. Furthermore, failing to define clear roles can lead to problems down the road, like authors deleting each other’s content.

Fortunately, the WordPress user roles system is relatively straightforward, and it includes several pre-defined types, which should make your life much easier. These roles will enable you to establish a clear hierarchy among your colleagues, prevent users from tampering with your site’s functionality, and protect your site in general.

WordPress is a fantastic tool for content publication and management, but the platform can be intimidating for new users. If you’re using the Content Management System (CMS) for the first time, you may be taken aback by the sheer volume of options available within the WordPress dashboard.

While the dashboard may appear complex at first, things get less intimidating once you get to know its main components. Additionally, studying each widget area and sidebar tab individually will get you a long way towards understanding the platform.