There are so many ways to customize your WordPress website and use it more efficiently. However, it takes months for new users to discover the most useful tips and tricks.

In this article, we will share some of the most wanted WordPress tips, tricks, and hacks that will help you use WordPress like a pro.

Here is a list of all the tips, tricks, and hacks mentioned in this article. Feel free to jump to the one that catches your interest.

1. Use a Custom Homepage

By default, WordPress shows your latest posts on the homepage of your website. You can change that and use any page as your site’s homepage.

First, you need to create a new page in WordPress, and you can name this page Home.

Next, you will need to create another page, and let’s call this page Blog as you will use it to display your blog posts.

Now go to Settings » Reading page in your WordPress admin and under ‘Front page displays’ option and switch to ‘A static page’.

After that, you can select the pages you just created as your home and blog pages.

You can also create a custom template for your home page.

1. Create Custom Template in Site Editor

If you use a newer block theme on your WordPress site, you can create a custom template for your home page using the site editor.

Simply go to the Appearance » Editor page and click on the Add New button at the top of the template chooser screen.

From the fly-down menu, you can choose what type of template you want to create. You can choose Front Page which will automatically include header and other settings, or you can choose a Custom Template to start from scratch.

If you choose a custom template, then you will be asked to give your template a name. After that, Site Editor will open it for editing.

You can design your custom template in the block editor. Once you are finished don’t forget to save your changes.

You can now edit the Home page you created earlier. On the page edit screen, click on the Template option under the Summary box in page settings panel.

Select your custom homepage template from here.

You can continue editing the page or save and publish your changes to see your custom home page design in action.

2. Create a Custom Template Manually

You can use this method if you are using an older theme or want to write the code manually.

Simply create a new file on your computer using a plain text editor and add this code at the top of it.

Save this file as custom-homepage.php on your desktop.

Next, you need to connect to your website using an FTP client and go to /wp-content/themes/your-current-theme/ folder. Now upload the file you created earlier to your theme folder.

Return to the WordPress admin area and edit your home page.

You will be able to select your custom homepage template under the Summary metabox in the post settings column on the right.

For more details, see our guide on how to create a custom page template in WordPress.

Now this page will be completely empty, and it will not show anything at all. You can use custom HTML/CSS and WordPress template tags to build your own page layout. You can also use a page builder plugin to easily create one using drag-and-drop tools.

2. Install Google Analytics in WordPress

Google Analytics is one of the must have tools for WordPress site owners. It allows you to see where your users are coming from and what they are doing on your website.

The best way to install Google Analytics is by using the MonsterInsights plugin. It is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and shows beautiful reports right inside your WordPress admin area.

Simply install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. For more details, see our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin will walk you through the set up. Simply follow the on-screen instructions to finish the setup.

For detailed instructions see our step-by-step guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

3. Password Protect WordPress Admin Directory

The WordPress admin directory is where you perform all administrative tasks on your website. It is already password-protected as users are required to enter a username and password before they can access the admin area.

However, by adding another layer of authentication, you can make it difficult for hackers to gain access to your WordPress site.

Here is how to enable password protection for your WordPress admin directory.

Login to your WordPress hosting account control panel. Next, click on the ‘Directory Privacy’ option under the Files section of your website’s Advanced settings.

Next, you will be asked to select the directories you want to protect.

Navigate to your WordPress website’s root folder and click on the Edit button next to the wp-admin folder.

On the next screen, simply check the box that says ‘Password protect this directory’.

If you like, you can also give your directory a name like ‘Admin Area’ to help you remember.

After that, click on the Save button to store your settings.

This will take you to a page where the confirmation message will appear. Click on the Go Back button to continue.

On the next screen, you will be asked to enter a username and password, and then confirm the password.

Make sure to note your username and password in a safe place, such as a password manager app.

Make sure you click the ‘Save’ button when you’ve done that.

Now, when someone tries to access your /wp-admin directory, they will be prompted to enter the username and password you created above.

For alternate methods and more detailed instructions see our guide on how to password-protect your WordPress admin directory.

4. Show Images in Rows and Columns

By default, when you add multiple images to a WordPress post, they would appear right next to each other or on top of each other.

This does not look very good because your users will have to scroll a lot to see all of them.

This can be solved by displaying images in a grid layout. You can use the Gallery block to display images in a grid of rows and columns.

You can also use the columns block to display image side by side. If you want to display an image next to the text, then you can try Text and Media block.

For more details, see our guide on how to add an image gallery in WordPress.

Normally when users leave a comment on your website, they will have to manually visit the same article again to see if you or other users replied to comments.

Wouldn’t it be better if users were able to get email notifications about new comments on your posts? Here is how to add this feature to your website.

Simply install and activate the Subscribe to Comments Reloaded plugin. Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » Subscribe to Comments to configure the plugin settings.

For detailed instructions see our guide on how to allow users to subscribe to comments in WordPress.

6. Limit Login Attempts

By default, a WordPress user can make an unlimited number of attempts to log in to a WordPress site. This allows anyone to try guessing your password until they get it right.

To control this, you need to install and activate the Login LockDown plugin. It allows you to set limits on the number of failed attempts a user can make to login.

For detailed setup instructions see our guide on how to limit login attempts in WordPress.

7. Display Excerpt (Post Summary) on Home and Archive Pages

You may have noticed that all popular blogs show article summaries instead of full articles on their home and archive pages. It makes those pages load faster, increases page views, and avoids duplicate content across your website.

For more on this topic, see our article on excerpt (summary) vs full posts in WordPress archive pages.

Many premium and free WordPress themes already use excerpts on home and archive pages. However, if your theme doesn’t display excerpts, then see our guide on how to display post excerpts in WordPress themes.

8. Add Custom Default Gravatar Image

WordPress uses Gravatar to display user profile photos in WordPress. If a user does not have a gravatar, then WordPress uses a default image which is called ‘Mystery Person.’

This default gravatar image will appear many times in your WordPress comments area simply because a lot of users do not have a gravatar image associated with their email address.

You can easily replace this default gravatar with your own custom default gravatar image.

First, you will need to upload the image you want to use as your default gravatar image to your WordPress media library.

Go to Media » Add New page to upload the image. After uploading it, click on the Copy URL to Clipboard button.

Paste the URL you copied in a text file on your computer, you will need it in the next step.

Now you need to add the following custom code to your website. We suggest using the free WPCode plugin.

add_filter( 'avatar_defaults', 'wpb_new_gravatar' );
function wpb_new_gravatar ($avatar_defaults) {
$myavatar = 'http://example.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/wpb-default-gravatar.png';
$avatar_defaults[$myavatar] = "Default Gravatar";
return $avatar_defaults;
}

Don’t forget to replace $myavatar value with the URL of the custom gravatar image you uploaded earlier.

You can now visit the Settings » Discussion page, and you will notice your custom default avatar added to the default avatar choices.

For detailed instructions check out our tutorial on how to add and change the default gravatar in WordPress.

9. Adding custom CSS to a WordPress Theme

As a WordPress site owner, sometimes you may need to add Custom Css to your site. There are multiple ways to add custom CSS in WordPress. We’ll show you two methods.

1. Add Custom CSS using WPCode (Recommended)

Normally, you can add Custom CSS code in your theme settings. However, your custom CSS will disappear when you change the theme.

What if you wanted to reuse that CSS on this or some other website?

You can solve this by adding your Custom CSS by using the WPCode plugin. It is the best custom code plugin for WordPress and allows you to easily insert custom code and CSS anywhere on your website.

Plus, you can organize your code snippets by giving them names or save them to the cloud library and reuse them on other websites.

First, you need to install and activate the WPCode plugin.

Note: There is also a WPCode free version that you can try. We recommend upgrading to the paid version to unlock more features.

Upon activation, go to Code Snippets » + Add Snippet page and click on the Use Snippet button under ‘Add Your Custom Code (New Snippet)’ label.

On the next screen, provide a title for your custom CSS snippet and then under the Code Type select CSS Snippet.

After that, you can add your custom CSS code in the Code Preview box.

Scroll down to the Insertion section, from here you can choose where you want to add this custom CSS snippet.

If you want to add it site-wide then you can select Site Wide Header. Once you are finished, don’t forget to click on the Save Snippet button and flick the toggle from Inactive to Active.

WPCode will now save your Custom CSS and add it to your website according to your settings.

2. Add Custom CSS in Theme Customizer

The easiest way to add custom CSS to any WordPress theme is by visiting the Appearance » Customize page in your WordPress admin.

If you cannot see the Customize menu under Appearance, then you can manually visit the Theme Customizer by adding the following URL in your browser’s address bar.

http://yourwebsite.com/wp-admin/customize.php

This will launch the WordPress theme customizer, and you will see your website’s preview in the right panel.

Now click on the ‘Additional CSS’ menu in the left panel to expand it.

You will see a plain text box where you can add your custom CSS.

As soon as you add a valid CSS rule, you can see it applied on your website’s live preview pane.

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save & Publish’ button on the top when you are finished.

For alternate methods and more detailed instructions, check out our beginner’s guide on how to add custom CSS in WordPress.

Note: Some themes, such as Divi from Elegant Themes, also have a spot in the theme options to include Custom CSS. Many of these mirror the Additional CSS section of the Theme Customizer, but we highly recommend choosing only one spot to keep CSS code on your website, whether it’s in WPCode, theme options, or the customizer.

10. Using Inspect Element Tool to Customize WordPress

Adding custom CSS sounds great, but how do you know which CSS classes to edit? How do you debug it without actually having to write CSS?

Using Inspect Element tool, you can edit HTML, CSS, or JavaScript code for any webpage and see your changes live (only on your computer).

For a DIY website owner, these tools can help you preview how a site design would look without actually making the changes for everyone.

Simply point and right-click on any element on a page, then select ‘Inspect’ from your browser’s menu.

This will split your browser window, allowing you to see the HTML and CSS source code of the page.

You can move your mouse around the code to see the relevant area highlighted in the live preview.

Any changes you make here will be immediately visible on the page above. However, keep in mind that these changes are only happening in your browser and you are not actually editing the page.

This allows you to figure out what you need to edit and how. After that, you can go ahead and change your actual theme files or custom CSS code.

For more on this topic, see our article on the basics of Inspect element and customizing WordPress as a DIY user.

11. Add a Facebook Thumbnail Image

Facebook can automatically pick up an image from your articles when they are shared by you or anyone else. Usually, it picks the featured image of an article. However, sometimes it may pick a random image from the article that may not be suitable.

If you are using All in One SEO plugin, then you can select a Facebook thumbnail image in All in One SEO Settings box on the post edit screen, under the Social tab.

You can also select a default Facebook thumbnail image by visiting the All in One SEO » Social Networks page.

You can upload a custom image or select an image from the media library.

If you scroll further down this settings page, you’ll be able to choose a thumbnail for your homepage as well.

You can see our guide on how to fix the Facebook incorrect thumbnail issue in WordPress for more details.

WordPress RSS feeds show a list of your most recent articles. If you show full articles in the feed, all images inside will be displayed. However, it does not include the featured image or post thumbnail in the article.

To fix this, you can add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file or by using WPCode, which is a safer method and can prevent your site from breaking with minor errors.

function rss_post_thumbnail($content) {
global $post;
if(has_post_thumbnail($post->ID)) {
$content = '
' . get_the_post_thumbnail($post->ID) .
'
' . get_the_content();
}
return $content;
}
add_filter('the_excerpt_rss', 'rss_post_thumbnail');
add_filter('the_content_feed', 'rss_post_thumbnail');

For more information, see our tutorial on how to add post thumbnails to RSS feeds in WordPress.

By default, WordPress shows your full article in the RSS feed. This allows content scrapers to automatically fetch and steal your full articles. It also prevents your RSS feed subscribers from visiting your website.

To fix this, head over to Settings » Reading page and scroll down to ‘For each article in a feed, show’ option. Select summary and then click on the save changes button.

14. Add a Click to Call to Button in WordPress

As mobile users make up the bulk of users for most businesses, sometimes a quicker way to contact can help you acquire new customers.

While you must have a contact form on your website, adding a quick button to make an instant call can be much faster for users.

The easiest way to add a click-to-call button is by using the WP Call Button plugin. This free plugin allows you to simply add your business phone number and show a call button on your website.

You can choose the button position, color, and where to show it on your website.

If you don’t want to show the button sitewide, then you can show it on select posts and pages, or turn it on for mobile users only.