Lost with WordPress? No worries! We heard you. Here are four essential tips and tricks of WordPress that will help you do more. Let’s get started!

#1 Do you know WordPress allows you to schedule blog posts?

This function is very useful for bloggers. You don’t have to physically press the publish/upload button every time you wish to publish a post. With WordPress, you can schedule your posts to go live at a particular time and date.  Here is how you can do it. Go to the Edit screen for the post you wish to schedule.

WordPress Publisher Area Schedule Publication option

#2 Do you know you can change the URL of your WordPress site?

WordPress allows you to customize the URL yourself. No kidding.

  1. At the WordPress editor, fill in the title and also the content.
  2. Below the title, click the “edit” gray button and change your URL.

edit permalink WordPress

However, there are a few things you should take note when changing the URL:

  1. Try to remove special characters such as %, &, $, @ or * . This is because these characters make it difficult for search engines to read, and can be troublesome for browsers.
  2. Keep your URL short. It’s recommended that high-ranking keywords appear at the beginning of the URL.
  3. It’s not a good practice to change permalinks after the post/page has been published.

 

#3 Do you know the WordPress Editor can do a lot more?

All of us know about the features of WordPress editor, but I bet you haven’t discovered them all. Let’s try out the tips below:

  • Remove formatting from copied text:

WordPress editor features

WordPress understands that sometimes, you need to copy and paste text from other platforms. When you do this, bear in mind that the original formatting will be copied as well. So to save your time on resetting everything, you can just click on the “eraser” button to clear all the formatting.

  • Create a line break:

At the WordPress editor, you want to create a single line break only, and not a paragraph break (a big gap) between two lines. For example, for a postal address, you don’t wish to see something like this:

140 Paya Lebar Road,

#08-02 Az @ Paya Lebar,

409015 Singapore.

In this case, you can fix it by just clicking Shift + Return to create a line break.

140 Paya Lebar Road,
#08-02 Az @ Paya Lebar,
409015 Singapore.

This also makes adding your organization’s address to your contact page a lot easier.

 

  • WordPress Keyboard Shortcuts

Some might not be aware that WordPress editor has shortcut keys as well. If you are familiar with them, I’m sure they can save you a lot of time. Here are some of the best shortcuts to try out.

Bold: Control + B
Underline: Control + U
Italic: Control + I
Heading 1: Control + 1
Heading 2: Control + 2
Heading 3: Control + 3
Heading 4: Control + 4

For a full list of WordPress “Hotkeys,” click the “Help” button with a question mark on the WordPress editor, and click the “Hotkeys” tab.

#4 Do you know that you can change blog post author easily?

If you have different writers writing for you site/blog, you can easily change the author’s name for each of your blog post.

WordPress enable author

Just go to the Edit screen of the blog post and click “Screen Options” at top right of the page. Next, you will see a dropdown list for you to choose from. Check the “Author” box and select your author for the blog post.

Take note: Remember to add all your writers as users so that you can select their names from the list.

WordPress has tons of other great features you might not know about, but many of us often miss out on the ones mentioned above.

Do you have other tips to share?  Tell us!

Cheers!