General Trick Blogger

1. Change The Title, Tagline, Time zone, and Favicon

The first three steps can be combined into one because you can quickly make those changes in the same area of your WordPress Admin Dashboard.

To change these, go to your Settings in your dashboard and choose General . Change both your site title and tagline to something that relates to your site.

Now scroll down the page to update your timezone. This functionality is important to show the most accurate date on your site, and it also helps with scheduling posts.

Towards the middle of the page you’re on (in General Settings), you’ll find the option to set your zone. You can choose a city that is in the same time zone as you live in or set by UTC. To find the right UTC setting, you can search a site like this one hereto make sure you select the right time zone.

Don’t forget to save your changes.

The final part of item 1 is updating the favicon. This is the little icon that appears in the browser tab next to your site title which is important for your site’s identity. Often people don’t change this which ends up showing either the default WordPress icon or their hostingprovider’s icon such as Bluehost, etc.

The easiest way to add a favicon to your site is by following our guide on How to Add a Favicon in WordPress.

Unfortunately, the default permalink structure — the URL structure that tacked on the end of your site name — of WordPress is not very Google friendly. As that is the case, you should be sure to alter this to something else.

Go back to Settings and then select Permalink from the menu. There you will find a few different choices for setting a new structure. The best ones to use are either the Day and Name or Post Name options.

Select the one you prefer and then save your changes.

While in the Settings area of your dashboard, you should also configure the Reading settings. Here you can set what your front page display will be.

This part is great if you want to have a custom homepage to display your services and have a separate page to display all your blog posts.

Navigate over to the Reading option in the menu and decide if you want your front page to show your latest posts or if you want to use a static page. Make your choice and then save your changes. You can always change this one later, so don’t feel too pressured.

As a quick note, you can also make some of the above-stated changes using the Customize option in the front-end of your site if you are logged in. However, following this flow of things simply speeds up the process a little.

Most WordPress users will install and test a few themes before deciding on one that’s a keeper. Instead of leaving those unused themes installed, be sure to delete them. Themes even ones that go unused, will need updates.

Leaving them there can create the unnecessary chore of updating them. And not updating them can create a hazard to your sites safety as it can give hackers a way in.

Thankfully, deleting unused themes is a snap. Simply find the menu item named Appearance , and then go to themes. To delete a given theme, you need to hover over it and select Theme Details . After that, a window will open and the option to delete the theme will be available there.

Why a cache plugin? Because it can help speed up your site. Caching helps take the load off your server and make your site faster. This is great for SEO as well as prevents your site from crashing during heavy load times.

Below are a couple of cache plugins that you can use in your WordPress site:

W3 Total Cache – This plugin can likely lay claim to being the most powerful cache plugin available for WordPress users. It has a ton of options for boosting your site and is a popular plugin of choice for CDN integration. The plugin really does pack a punch and can easily mess things up if you’re not sure how to configure it properly. If you’ve never used the plugin before, it may be better to start small before using this one. However, if you’d like to be brave and use this plugin, be sure to check out our step-by-step guide for setting it up:

WP Super Cache – This one is a bit easier to start using, and yes, it’s still a great cache plugin. Simply install it and turn on caching, and you’re one step closer to a faster site. There are other options that come with the plugin, just be sure you know what you’re selecting before you hit save. Want some help with this plugin? Check out our guide below:

When it comes to your website, it is probably best to be of the philosophy that it’s better to be safe than sorry.

First security step that you can take is installing a backup plugin (we will come to that later). After that you need to protect your WordPress admin area.

WPBeginner uses Sucurifor security purposes. If you’d like to know why we chose this one over others, then be sure to give this post a read:

No one likes spam.

Spammy comments are a huge headache for many WordPress site owners. Not only are they irritating, they’re also bad for SEO. To help alleviate the problems that come from this issue, you should install an anti-spam plugin on your site. Here are a few top choices:

– This plugin by Automattic is a premium anti-spam plugin that does wonders for keeping that icky spam stuff out. If you decide to use Jetpack in your site, then you can use that account to activate Akismet for your site. If not, you’’ll need to follow the prompts for fully activating the plugin after install. The free version is limited but can be upgraded it you pay.

Antispam Bee – This is another great free plugin that helps to block out those pesky spammers. Even though the Akismet plugin does a better job, this one is a great option too.

Either way, be sure you use one.

SEO is an important part of any website. To ensure that your blog posts are getting maximum results, you need to optimize them using an SEO plugin. Though these types of plugins don’t automatically boost SEO, they do help you make the most of your blog posts.

A top choice for many is the WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast. It’s easy to use and can even generate an XML sitemapat the click of the mouse. Want to know how to really boost the power of the plugin? Here’s our tutorial:

First off, is this really important? Yes, absolutely! You shouldn’t wait for your site to get traffic before optimizing your site for social shares. The best and easiest way to optimize your site for social shares is to use a Social Sharing Plugin.

There are hundreds of these to choose from, and some of them shouldn’t be used as they tend to slow down site speed. However, there are others that get the job done without bogging you down.

Here is a great article that narrows down the choice a bit:

Now that you’ve spent all that time setting up and customizing your WordPress site, you wouldn’t want to lose any of this right? Well, in that case, you should create regular backups.

Here is our post on the best backup plugins for WordPress:

All ten steps mentioned above are vital for a smart WordPress site. Obviously, there are others that some like to take after installing WordPress, but these ones should be at the top of the list.

Taking the time now to get things in order is important so you’re not scrambling to fix things later.

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The Gay Christian debate rages on, with what seems like more interpersonal casualties every day. How in the world can we find common ground in such a deeply personal and sharply divisive issue? I think we’ve been asking the wrong question. We’ve been focused on the rightness or wrongness of being gay, instead of: whose job is it to determine right and wrong?

Let’s start with the distinctive that is Christianity. What sets it apart from any other world religion? It is Christ. That sounds obvious, but He isn’t interchangeable with any other religious leader or teacher. He offers us an incomparable relationship, both to Him and to the rest of the Trinity. Tragically, the distinctive of Christ gets blurred when we focus on behavior modification or sin management.

Jesus Christ uniquely offers us a personal relationship. Augustine said, “I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: ‘Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.”’ Of all the world religions, only Jesus offers a friendship with God. Every other religion is based on doing right. They all have their “rules” to abide by, the list of do’s and don’ts. Jesus is uniquely the Way, the Truth and the Life — only in relationship with Him, not through our behavior, do we gain access to God in full acceptance.

Christianity gets distorted when it becomes a to-do list. Unfortunately, we see the to-do list in many Christian churches as well. Churches that were founded on faith in Christ morph into faith in ourselves and our own ability to do well and try harder.says: “Did you receive the Spirit by words of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”

God told us clearly not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (the do-don’t list), but to eat from the Tree of Life (Jesus). Every other faith offers the Tree of Knowledge, their own version of the do-don’t list. Only true Christianity offers the Tree of Life.

If you believe Christianity means adhering to a certain set of rules, that is false. The rules sound noble and biblical, but there is no power in this list. Paul makes this clear in Colossians 2:20-23.“If you died with Christ to the way the world thinks and acts, why do you submit to rules and regulations as though you were living in the world? “Don’t handle!” “Don’t taste!” “Don’t touch!” All these things cease to exist when they are used. Such rules are human commandments and teachings. They look like they are wise with this self-made religion and their self-denial by the harsh treatment of the body, but they are no help against indulging in selfish immoral behavior.” We have seen throughout the millennia that no one keeps the rules perfectly. (If we did, why would we need a Savior?) Certainly a civil society needs rules to maintain order, but consider this: we have more laws on the books today than we’ve ever had, and more lawlessness. Rules by themselves do not produce adherence to the rules, and they certainly don’t produce relationship.

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is simply our interpretation of what’s right or wrong, devoid of relationship with God. God says clearly: “Don’t eat from that tree.” But all day long we gobble away at it, saying, “Don’t watch this movie, don’t hang out with those people.” God said don’t eat from that tree for one reason: we are not equipped to make those decisions. God alone is equipped to handle deciding good and evil, which were never meant to be imposed from the list, devoid of relationship. The very word “righteous” in the Hebrew context means “rightly related.” Of course, I’m not saying anything goes; I’m saying that true righteousness comes only in relationship to Him. When we abide in Him, He will lead us exactly where we need to go, even when He surprises us (as when He told Peterto fellowship with the non-kosher Gentiles).

The debate on homosexuality — “is it right or is it wrong?” — is still eating from the wrong tree – regardless of which side of the debate you are on. Insisting across the board that it’s wrong (or right) is just the good or bad side of the same tree. Instead, we need to eat from the Tree of Life, resting in relationship with Jesus and developing relationship with others. We must hold our opinions with humility in an open hand. We’ve seen enough of Jesus’ interactions to know they always go deeper than right or wrong, and always into the heart of relationship with Him.

Jesus offers a sweet, intimate, fresh relationship with Him, but only if we disentangle ourselves from the Tree of Knowledge and let Him graft us to the Tree of Life.