Due to the digital age, we live in, having a website is crucial for businesses and individuals to establish an online presence and reach a wider audience. WordPress, a popular content management system (CMS), is an excellent platform for building websites due to its user-friendly interface, vast customization options, and extensive plugin library. However, while creating a WordPress website, it’s essential to avoid common WordPress mistakes impacting its performance, security, and user experience.
This article will highlight ten important WordPress mistakes people should avoid while building a website. Then, we will discuss each mistake in detail and provide tips and tools to help you avoid them. After reading this article, you will know what to do & what not to do to build a successful WordPress website.
1. Choosing a lousy hosting provider
When building a WordPress website, choosing the right hosting provider is crucial for ensuring its performance, security, and reliability. A hosting provider is responsible for storing your website’s data on its servers, making it accessible to visitors. Therefore, selecting a reliable and efficient hosting provider that can handle your website’s traffic and provide fast loading speeds is essential.
Some common hosting mistakes people make include,
- Choosing a hosting provider only based on price
- Selecting a provider without researching their reputation
- Not considering the provider’s server locations
WordPress mistakes
can lead to slow loading times, frequent downtime, and security breaches.To avoid these WordPress mistakes, choosing a hosting provider that offers fast loading times, reliable uptime, and robust security measures are essential. In addition, researching the hosting provider’s reputation, reading customer reviews, and comparing prices can help you make an informed decision.
Additionally, consider the provider’s server locations, as closer servers can offer faster loading times for visitors in your target audience’s geographic location. Finally, choosing a reliable hosting provider ensures your website runs smoothly and stays secure.
2. Not backing up your website regularly
Regularly backing up your WordPress website is crucial to protect your valuable data and prevent any unexpected data loss due to hardware failure, hacking, or human error. Unfortunately, losing your website data can be a nightmare, and recovering it can be costly and time-consuming.
Creating and sticking to a backup schedule is crucial to avoid this mistake. You can manually create backups using plugins or automate the process using backup services. Many hosting providers also offer built-in backup services. However, relying solely on your hosting provider’s backup service is not recommended, as they may not have the most recent version of your website.
When creating backups, it’s essential to store them in a secure location away from your website’s server. Cloud storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Amazon S3 are excellent storage options for securely storing your backups.
Several plugins and tools are available to help you back up your WordPress website effectively. Some popular backup plugins include,
These plugins can automate the backup process and send files to cloud storage services.
3. Ignoring website security
Ignoring website security is a common mistake that people make while building WordPress websites. Hackers can exploit vulnerabilities in your website’s code and gain access to sensitive information like login credentials, customer data, and financial details. Therefore, it’s crucial to implement robust security measures to prevent such attacks.
Some common security WordPress mistakes people make include using weak passwords, not updating WordPress regularly, using insecure plugins and themes, and not using SSL certificates. Unfortunately, these WordPress mistakes can leave your website vulnerable to attacks, and avoiding them is essential.
Using strong passwords, limiting login attempts, and implementing two-factor authentication are essential to avoid these security mistakes. Updating WordPress regularly and using only reputable and secure plugins and themes can also help prevent security breaches. SSL certificates can also encrypt the data between the website and the user’s browser, ensuring fast data transfer.
Several security plugins for WordPress can help you strengthen your website’s security. Some popular options include,
4. Not optimizing your website for speed
Organizing your website for speed is another common mistake people make while building WordPress websites. Slow-loading websites can lead to a bad user experience, increased bounce rates, and reduced search engine rankings.
Optimizing your website’s speed is essential for enhancing user experience and improving search engine rankings. Users expect websites to load quickly; a fast-loading website can keep them engaged and prevent them from leaving your website. Search engines like Google also prioritize fast-loading websites, and a slow website can negatively impact your rankings.
Optimize images, reduce HTTP requests, and enable caching to improve your website’s speed. Optimizing images involves compressing the file size without losing image quality. Reducing HTTP requests means minimizing the number of submissions to the server to load the website. Finally, caching can improve website performance by storing frequently accessed data in the user’s browser, reducing the time it takes to load the website.
Several tools and plugins are available to help you optimize your website’s speed. Google’s PageSpeed Insights, Pingdom, and GTmetrix are popular tools that analyze your website’s performance and provide recommendations for improvement. In addition, popular caching plugins that can improve your website’s speed and performance includes,
5. Not using a mobile-friendly theme
Not using a mobile-friendly theme is another common mistake when building WordPress websites. With more and more users accessing the internet on their mobile devices, it’s essential to ensure your website is accessible and user-friendly on mobile devices.
Using a mobile-friendly theme can help you provide a great user experience for mobile users. A mobile-friendly theme is designed to adjust the layout and content of your website to fit the screen size of the user’s device. It ensures your website is accessible and easy to navigate on mobile devices without zooming in or scrolling horizontally.
When choosing a mobile-friendly theme, make sure to select a responsive theme that is optimized for mobile devices. Avoid using themes that require users to download additional plugins or apps to access the website on their mobile devices.
Test your website on multiple mobile devices to ensure it works correctly and provides a great user experience. You can use tools like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check your website is mobile-friendly and make necessary adjustments.
6. Not testing your website
Not testing your website is a common mistake people make while building WordPress websites. However, testing your website is crucial to identify and resolve technical issues, enhancing functionality, and improving user experience.
To test your website effectively, you can start by conducting a comprehensive review of your website’s functionality, design, and content. Google Analytics and Search Console can monitor website traffic, track user behavior, and identify potential issues.
Additionally, you should test your website across different devices & browsers to ensure that it works correctly and provides a great user experience. You can use tools like BrowserStack and CrossBrowserTesting to test your website on different devices & browsers.
Furthermore, it’s important to conduct user testing to gather feedback from your target audience and identify areas for improvement. You can use tools like UserTesting and Hotjar to conduct user testing and collect feedback.
7. Not optimizing your website for search engines
It is a common mistake people make while building WordPress websites not to optimize them for search engines. However, optimizing your website for search engines is vital for driving traffic to your website and improving visibility.
Your target audience’s keywords and phrases can identify by conducting keyword research to optimize your website for search engines. To conduct keyword research for low competition and KD, you can use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and SEMrush.
Next, you can optimize your website’s on-page elements, including meta titles, meta descriptions, header tags, and image alt tags, to include your target keywords and improve visibility in search results.
Creating high-quality, suitable, engaging content for your target audience is also crucial. For example, creating informative blog posts, articles, and videos can help attract and retain website visitors, ultimately improving your website’s visibility and search engine rankings.
In addition, you can use tools like,
To optimize your website’s content and ensure it’s optimized for search engines.
Finally, building high-quality backlinks from ethical websites is vital to improving your website’s authority and visibility in search results. You can contact other website owners, participate in guest blogging opportunities, and create high-quality content to attract backlinks.
8. Ignoring website analytics
Ignoring website analytics is a common mistake people make while building WordPress websites. However, tracking website analytics is essential to gather valuable insights and making data-driven decisions.
Website analytics can help you understand your website’s traffic, including where your visitors are coming from, how they interact with your website, and which pages are most popular. This information lets you make data-driven decisions to improve your website’s performance and user experience.
To track website analytics effectively, you can use tools like Google Analytics, which provides detailed insights into your website’s traffic, including the number of visitors, demographics, and behavior on your website.
By tracking website analytics, you can identify areas for improvement, such as pages with high bounce rates or low engagement, and make data-driven decisions to improve your website’s performance and user experience.
9. Using too many plugins
Using too many plugins is a common mistake people make while building WordPress websites. While plugins can add valuable functionality to your website, using too many can slow down your website’s performance and increase the risk of technical issues.
Every plugin you add to your website requires additional code, which can slow down your website’s load times. Additionally, some plugins may conflict, causing technical issues and errors on your website.
To avoid using too many plugins, you should carefully evaluate each plugin you add to your website and only install those essential to your website’s functionality. You should also regularly review your installed plugins and remove any that you’re not using or causing technical issues on your website.
It’s also essential to keep your plugins up-to-date to ensure they’re compatible with the latest version of WordPress and to patch any security vulnerabilities.
10. Using a wrong theme
Using the wrong theme can significantly affect your website’s performance, security, and overall user experience. Therefore, when choosing a theme, it’s essential to select a reliable and well-designed theme that is regularly updated.
Some common WordPress mistakes people make include using outdated or unsupported themes, using too many features that slow down the website’s performance, and using themes with poor design and coding practices that can compromise the website’s security.
To avoid these WordPress mistakes, choosing a theme compatible with the latest version of WordPress, regularly updated, and has good ratings and reviews from other users is essential. You should also carefully consider the theme’s design and features and choose a theme that meets your website’s specific needs and goals.
Additionally, it’s essential to keep your theme up-to-date to ensure it remains compatible with the latest version of WordPress and to patch any security vulnerabilities.
Final Lines
The importance of each of the 10 Important WordPress Mistakes to Avoid While Building a Website and their potential impact on website performance, security, and user experience.
So, take proactive steps to avoid these WordPress mistakes, such as
- Selecting a reliable hosting provider
- Regularly backing up your website
- Implementing robust security measures
- Optimizing your website for speed and search engines
- Using a mobile-friendly theme
- Testing your website
- Monitoring website analytics
- Avoiding excessive plugin use
- Selecting a reliable and well-designed theme.
