A good article was posted on Business2Community.com listing 8 ways to succeed with WordPress in 2013.  According to the post the tips include:

  1. Have an attention grabbing landing page
  2. Emphasizing titles and descriptions
  3. Keeping your sidebar clean and simple
  4. Only using necessary plugins
  5. Using your images to attract attention and draw in visitors
  6. Make your permalinks readable and attractive
  7. Making use of your footer
  8. Keeping up to date with WordPress releases

For more details about these tips and to read the entire article, click here.

These are also considered best practices when designing a new website and/or something you should take a look at if you already have a website in place.