Introduction
WordPress, the behemoth content management system is by far the ultimate choice of many businesses and bloggers around the world. In fact, big names like TechCrunch, TED, CNN, NFL and many others choose WordPress to deliver their content online. Started in 2003 just as a blogging platform – WordPress has evolved over the years, and established its reputation as one stop shop CMS for almost all types of online businesses.
The reason why WordPress has been the choice of many people and businesses is its robust framework and easy-to-use functionality that can be used by anyone. And thanks to theme and plugin developers that gave the liberty to customize the websites to any level. WordPress features are myriad, and it continues to add more functionalities with every single release.
We also use WordPress – because we find many reasons why WordPress should be the ideal choice for any business. There are a lot of WordPress features that can make your website AWESOME, but some of them are ‘hidden’ or underutilized by the majority of WordPress users. In this article, we will cover all the significant less utilized WordPress features that will double the productivity and operations of your WordPress website.
13 Powerful & Hidden WordPress Features You Can Use in 2023
Before we uncover the gems of WordPress, we would like to mention a few words, Michelle Ames, a WordPress devotee quoted during WordCamp held in Toronto.
“WordPress really hasn’t hidden everything. It’s just a matter of the fact that we don’t know it has all these great features,” said Ames.
1. Screen Options – let you add more options to the pages
This one is the most untouched option WordPress website owners don’t use. Screen Options tab – that you can see on the right of your WP website has some noteworthy features for your pages. It is not hidden, but users pay less attention to it, and they miss serious WordPress gem by not fully utilizing this option.
Using Screen options allow you to add powerful WordPress features that include:
- Revisions – allows you to keep a check on all the revisions of pages/posts
- Excerpts – allows you to create customer excerpts that can help you in better conversions
- Send trackbacks – allows you to send pings to websites where you have taken the references
- Author – allows you to change contribution of authors
2. Spam Management – let you easily figure out spam types
Spammers and bots are sometimes hard to tackle and can take a lot of your time. When you run a WordPress website, it is for your sure that you’ll be bombarded with spam comments and pings. We know that pings do us in some ways, but spam comments are utterly disastrous for any website.
WordPress has the feature that can single out between pings and comments. To do so, navigate to the ‘Comments screen’ and select only ‘Comments’ from the ‘Show all comment type’ drop down option. This will show you only spam comments that give no benefit to your website and should be deleted.
Isn’t it great WordPress feature? Let’s try!
3. Customize dashboard – let you move, add or delete widgets
The first page you see after logging in to your WordPress website is the dashboard, right? Normally, people pay less attention to the dashboard page and they quickly navigate to their desired options/pages. WordPress dashboard is so powerful, and one can fully utilize the capabilities it has to offer. You will see a plenty of shortcuts on your dashboard and is indeed a great feature provided by WordPress.
The best thing is that you can easily customize your dashboard to design it as per your needs. You can easily drag and drop the dashboard widgets and put all you’d like to see. To do so, you can use the ‘Screen options’ to toggle between different options. You can also use the drag and drop WordPress feature to customize and rearrange your dashboard based on the preferences.
4. Fullscreen mode – let you focus on writing with no distractions
A great WordPress feature that we totally admire is the option to write content in a full-screen mode. This option increases visibility and can certainly help you to focus better on writing content for your website. Why we feel it is a noteworthy WordPress feature is because when you use WordPress Text Editor, you maybe get distracted with the widgets and options right on the screen. With full-screen option in your text editor, you can remove all the distractions and focus only on content.
5. In-line linking in visual editor – let you minimize efforts
Internal linking adds great value to your content and website. Before WordPress released version 4.5 – users required to select the text and hit Insert/Edit link button to append a link. Now, you don’t need to go with this step as WordPress great feature; inline linking allows you to select a text and link it by using CTRL+V command. The powerful WordPress feature, the visual editor, automatically converts the text to link without going to using a popup.
6. Image editor – let you edit images in WordPress
Adding media files in WordPress is easy and simple. The powerful WordPress feature allows you to add multiple images in your pages/post by simply a drag and drop option. What many WordPress site owners don’t utilize is the excellent (basic) image editor option. With this option, you can do basic optimization of your images which eliminate to the process of going to designers.
You can navigate to Media > Library and then click on the image you want to edit. In the WordPress image editor, you can crop, rotate and resize the images as per the requirements. This can also be done when you upload an image directly in the text editor. This powerful WordPress feature enables quick editing of media files that sometimes take more time.
7. Split single post into multi-pages – turn lengthy posts into parts
We all like to educate or customers with detailed posts, right? When it comes to user experience, sometimes long posts don’t look good. To help website owners, WordPress offers a hidden feature that can quickly turn your lengthy post into multiple pages. With this, you can give users a better user experience, and plus, your time spent on a website will also increase.
To do the magic, click on ‘Text’ inside your WordPress text editor and paste this code <!–nextpage–> wherever you want to split your content. WordPress has no limitations so that you can break your content into many pages.
8. Embed third-party content – add links, videos, and multimedia automatically
WordPress features are simply awesome, and the automation it offers is highly likable. We love the embed content WordPress feature that is untapped by many website owners. What it does is – automatically adds/embed third-party content to your WordPress website. You only need to paste a URL from YouTube, Twitter or many others – and WordPress will automatically turn the link into embedded content.
9. Markdown and keyboard shortcuts – help you perform actions faster
Many WordPress website owners spend more time or writing and formatting. WordPress developers understand the time it takes to format the content. Therefore, they continue to improve the process. An excellent way to save time with formatting is to use markdowns and shortcuts offered by WordPress. It is slightly unknown to many WordPress users, but this WordPress feature can save a lot of your precious time.
The markup language lets you apply formatting like headers, bold, bulleted lists, and much more. Below are some of the most popular markdowns & shortcuts we use.
Use * or – to start an unordered list Use 1. or 1) to start an ordered list Use # to format the text into h1 Use ## to format the text into h2 Use ### to format the text into h3, and so on Use > to format the text into blockquote
To see the full list of shortcuts, you can open the post editor’s toolbar toggle and click on the tooltip with a question mark on the right.
10. Themes preview – let you see the preview without activation
One in many reasons why people choose WordPress is the pre-built themes they offer. Since WordPress theme library has gazillions of themes, WordPress users are always willing to try out a new one. A common concern they have is the consequences it may have if they change the theme. For this WordPress offers an impressive feature that allows website owners to see the ‘Live Preview’ of the themes before installing it.
With WordPress, you can install as many themes you like and navigate to Appearance > Themes. There you will find all the installed themes. To see the preview, hover your mouse to Live Preview and check if this is all you wanted for your website.
11. Schedule posts – let keep the freshness alive
Google loves content, and so as your audience, right? WordPress schedule post feature is something really perfect for bloggers and businesses who travels and want to keep their websites active with fresh content. The feature is available in your post/page section where you can upload the content and schedule it for a future date. We also use this WordPress features as we can’t let our fantastic audience go out of content.
12. Sticky posts – give more exposure to stellar content
As a business owner we want all our content to stand out in the market, right? But that is not the case all the time. Some of our content gets more likes than other, and we might want to push content on top all the time, right? For example, if there is an update or promotion you are running, you will want to show it on top of everything? With WordPress feature, Sticky post – you can bring the desired page on the front of your website. While creating content, all you need is to check on ‘Stick this post to the front page’ option, and WordPress will automatically place the content on your homepage.
13. WordPress Multisite – turn WordPress site into network
This is one great WordPress feature that can be used by people managing different websites. WordPress multisite eliminates the process of accessing various admin areas for each site. When you enable WordPress Multisite, you will get a master account in which you can have all your websites. This will increase the control and management process, and you can have the checks on all your website from one admin.
To enable WordPress Multisite, you can check a list of popular plugins that can quickly do the job for you. Alternatively, you can enable WordPress Multisite feature by adding the following line of code in your wp-config.php file:
/* Multisite */ define( 'WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true );
Summing up
We are sure that upon using the above discussed WordPress feature, you can add more functionalities to your WordPress website. If you think we have missed an important feature that others can try, feel free to share it with us.
Let’s together make the WordPress community a better place and share what we know.
That's all for now:
If you've read all the way through this article, we are thankful. We have a large collection of articles, guides, and comparison reviews of eCommerce solutions, web hosting providers, website builders, and more! Feel free to check them out;
- Best website builder programs
- Best website builders for authors
- Best website builder app
- Best website builder for affiliate marketing
- Best website builder in UK
Please share any comments below!