8 WordPress Mistakes And Easy Ways To Avoid Them
No one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. Making mistakes is not a sin in any way. But, not learning from your mistakes and making no efforts to eliminate their repetition is definitely a crime.
The same holds true in the context of WordPress. Individuals try to create WordPress sites using themes and plugins & start their web-based business as soon as possible. In this way, they make a number of mistakes that are likely to affect their sites sooner or later.
Here, we have highlighted some main WordPress mistakes made by the individuals and suggested the appropriate ways to avoid those silly blunders. Let's go.
1. Using A Free WordPress Theme From An Unreliable Source
All those who begin their WordPress journey have not enough bucks to buy expensive premium themes to create their favorite websites. As a result, they download free WordPress themes from anywhere available on the web.
Free WordPress themes definitely make the things cheaper for you. But, in the long run, using free WordPress themes can bring several problems to your site as they may have malicious codes and various security loopholes.
Solution
You should choose a free theme from reliable resources only. Furthermore, before selecting a theme for your site, you must review it from all angles and make sure that it fits your needs perfectly. If you can afford, you should buy a good-quality premium theme. This will help you to make your WordPress site look attractive, appealing, and different from other similar sites.
2. Using Too Many Plugins
A large number of WordPress plugins are definitely a boon for non-coders. With the help of WordPress plugins, you can easily add necessary features to your site without writing any code.
But, when you integrate too many nonessential, bloated and misconfigured plugins on your site, they consume a lot of bandwidth & create the massive HTTP requests on your site's server. It makes your site slow, which affects its ranking and performance, both.
Solution
Just delete all unused and illegitimate plugins from your site. Use only those plugins that help you to expand the clout of your site and achieve your goals. It would be better for you to learn the basics of different programming languages. This will help you to increase the features of your site easily by writing the codes yourself. It also helps you to manage and maintain your site like a professional.
3. Using Easily Predictable Login Credentials
WordPress has a single login mechanism, which allows site owners to sign into their sites easily by filling the username/Email and password. The problem with most of the webmasters is that they are extremely careless about the security of their sites. They use easily predictable and common login details to protect their sites.
Malicious hackers and expert cyber criminals can easily break into such sites and can create havoc, causing a great loss to their websites and reputation.
Solution
Never be reckless about your website security. Use a strong, random and unpredictable username and password to protect your site. Keep changing your password/username regularly to leave hackers clueless about your site's login details. You can also use 2-factor authentication to add an extra layer of security around your site. You can use Password Managers to boost your site's security manifold.
4. Not using Automated backups
Most of the site owners don't take the backup of their sites regularly. When their sites go offline owing to some unpleasant reasons (such as cyber attacks, server downtime, excess traffic, etc,) it becomes very difficult for them to retrieve their website.
Solution
You should have an automatic backup system to recover your site fully once it goes offline. For this, you can use WordPress backup plugins.
5. Ignoring New updates for WordPress, themes, & Plugins
When you operate WordPress sites, from time-to-time, you get several notifications to update your site, themes, and plugins. There are many website owners, who ignore these important updates considering them unimportant. However, this makes their websites, prone to various online security vulnerabilities.
Solution
Update your WordPress site, themes, and plugins whenever you get notifications about that. New updates can help you add new features to your site and make it more user-friendly. You can also get rid of your site's security loopholes and increase its performance up to a great extent.
6. Using a bad hosting server to run the site
The majority of WordPress site owners look for an inexpensive hosting company to operate their sites within a restricted budget. But, when they run their sites on a low-quality server, they invite many problems such as malicious traffic, frequent downtimes, slow loading speed, lack of sufficient bandwidth, etc. All these can destroy online businesses.
Solution
Get rid of the temptation of low-priced hosting services. Invest in a reliable hosting company to keep your site live 24*7 and ensure its smooth performance.
7. Not using Google Analytics
Google Analytics provides you a comprehensive report on how your website is performing and how visitors are reacting to your content and offerings. Several site owners don't use Analytics service on their sites, which makes them clueless about what's working or what's not working for their site. This results in the wastage of lots of their efforts and resources and they don't get the desired results.
Solution
Just install Google Analytics on your site as soon as possible and analyze its report on a daily basis. Based on the report, you can make improvement in content marketing and digital marketing campaigns and get the desired results.
8. Not Adding An XML Sitemap To Your Site
An XML sitemap is a list of all the pages that are available on your site. It allows search engines to find and index your site or its pages easily and effortlessly. If your site has no XML sitemap, then you may face problems in getting your site or its pages indexed and ranked by search engines.
Solution:
Add an XML sitemap to your WordPress site as soon as possible. You can use WordPress Plugins to complete this important task easily. Once your site has an XML sitemap, you can easily get it indexed by search engines.
Final Words
Creating a WordPress site an easy work. Anyone can easily do that. But, while running WordPress sites, be careful about the above-mentioned blunders. Just avoid these silly mistakes and have a successful career in WordPress blogging or web-based business.
Author Bio
Brandon Graves is an expert WordPress developers. He has an excellent command on how to deal with different WordPress issues easily. He keeps writing on custom wordPress development services, plugin development services, etc. For more info on the WordPress, please follow him on Twitter.
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