Mistakes are the part of human lives, isn’t it? Some mistakes can be corrected while some put you in deep trouble. Though, thoughts apart in this write-up, I am going to unveil some top mistakes that you need to avoid during WordPress Development or set up. Despite all the mistakes, the platform will not create any issue regarding configuration and continue to run smoothly. But, it’s you who need to take care of the things to reduce the chances of mistakes.
Let’s have a look on some common mistakes one by one:
Choosing Wrong Platform
Be specific with you needs, while choosing WordPress platform whether you want WordPress.com blog or a self-hosted installation. Due to lack of awareness, most of the beginners pick the wrong platform by mistake, and it is pretty common.
To make most from your WordPress site, you have to make sure which one suits your needs the best.
Let me make it little more clearly for you, a free WordPress.com blog is highly preferred by bloggers and photographers while if you choose WordPress.org, you will have full control on your website which may be missing in free WordPress.com.
Ignoring the Best Plugins
Consuming knowledge about numerous WordPress plugins is a tedious task. You will find the best WordPress plugins through experimenting. Still, I am trying to make you (as a beginner) familiar with some must-have plugins for your site:
- Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin help you generate XML sitemap of your site for search engines to get indexed better.
- Contact Form 7 – It manage multiple contact forms.
- Woo Commerce – One of the most powerful plugin that enable you to sell anything directly to your visitors.
- All in One SEO Pack – With almost 30 million downloads; it is the most downloaded WordPress plugin. This plugin helps you optimize your site for search engines.
- WP Super Cache – This plugin generates static HTML files from dynamic pages.
- Jetpack – It is a free plugin that helps you get more traffic, speed up images, and provides visitor stats.
- Akismet – It checks your comments to avoid look like spam.
Not Keeping Regular Backup
Well, in the world of constant research and development, nothing works perfect. The moment we consider something complete in it and suddenly found an error is pretty common these days, whether websites or mobile apps, crashes often occur and put people in the most terrible situation where they feel helpless and lost all crucial data. Don’t get victimize to these crashes, be smart and start to take regular back up of your website, whether manually or you can rely on the automatic backup plugin like WP-DB-Back up.
You can create your site back up manually or can use the automatic backup plugin such as WP-DB-Back up.
So, avoid creating backups may prove costly for you. Otherwise, it can make you stand at the position where you were some years ago and reached here after a lot of hard work and failures.
On WordPress.com, you can take backup by going to Tools>Export in the Dashboard. If you are using a self-hosted WordPress installation, then you can use plugin like BackWPup.
Sticking With Default Permalink Structure
Take a look at on these two examples:
www.abc.com/2016/03/sample-post
www.xyz.com/seo/on-page-seo
WordPress by default create numeric permalinks as you can see example one. But, sticking with these default permalink structures can prove worthless for your SEO. So, don’t ignore it and change it as soon as you can. An SEO-friendly permalink structure helps you to gain high rankings in SERPs and provides a clear understanding to your readers.
To change your default permalink structure you need to go to the Dashboard then go to Settings > Permalinks.
Not Using Gravatar and Google Authorship Markup
Don’t behave like an anonymous; if you do so then you might not succeed in building your brand on the web.
Use Gravatar, it is also known as Globally Recognized Avatar. By using this, you will show up whenever you comment on a blog post or take part in discussion forums. It personifies you and your brand across the internet.
If you haven’t used Gravatar yet, then start using as soon as possible.
Further, Google Authorship provides enhance your exposure and gives credibility. It is a one-time process and set up is quite simple. It will show your picture next to the Meta description in SERPs which gives an authentic feel to the visitors.
Not Using Analytics
To get detailed insights about your website, you can rely on Google Analytics, it is absolutely free. If you are not using it, then you will not get any idea on your site’s performance.
With the help of Google Analytics, you can quick monitor your site’s traffic, the keywords that are bringing traffic to your site, what piece of content is performing well, and where you need to work for improvement.
Not Using Webmaster Tools
There are plenty of benefits of using Google Webmaster tools. Relying on the same, you can get all pages of your website indexed in search engines. It is one of the most common mistakes made by beginers while using WordPress. By relying on Google Webmaster tools, you will be able to capture maximum SEO benefits.
Overlooking CDNs Importance
If you want to get all the benefits for your website, then you can’t underestimate the power of a Content Delivery Network. Several organizations worldwide that adopted WordPress rely on CDNs as it improve the value of your content and enhance your reader’s experience.
CDNs make your site handle heavy traffic without crashing. Further, it improves site’s performance by reducing load time. So, never overlook its importance.
Ignoring Importance of Content
If your website is a lead generating machine then probably your content is your power. Thus, never ignore its importance. At the time of designing your website, you have to focus to keep it simple for your readers. Reader likes simplicity, so, it is advised to avoid overloading your website by putting extra stuff on it.
Making Categories and Tags Too Complicated
WordPress offers a great way to organize content through categories that not only help admin to publish content category wise but also for users who can go through a particular category of their interest to read that information. So, it is advised to keep your categories and tags simple. Don’t make these too complicated as doing so will make your site difficult to navigate, badly affect your SEO, and also ruin its overall user experience.
Avoid Making Site Mobile-Friendly
Make your site responsive, if you don’t want to miss it exceptional benefits. We all know that mobiles have dominated desktops regarding searches and undoubtedly, mobile is the future. Further, Google have already announced that responsive websites will be ranking factor.
If you avoid making your site mobile-friendly, then it will be biggest business gaffe. Today, entire world search information through smartphones so, it is mandatory to have a site that can run smoothly on smartphones, laptops, PCs, and tablets. You can use WPtouch or WPTap plugins to make your site responsive.
Ignoring Image Optimization
Slow page loading is one of the biggest concerns among internet users and mobile audience, and it occurs due to ignorance of image optimization. You have to believe that a slow loading page affects user experience that can ruin your brand completely. So, never avoid image optimization.
Optimized images boost overall performance of your web pages and improve user experience. Thus, it is advised to never ignore image optimization.
Conclusion
I tried to mention the most common mistakes doing WordPress development. Did you like the post and let us know if you have any one or more of the mistakes mentioned above. Your comments are valuable to us.