Today we want to talk to you about mistakes in WordPress websites. So you have a limited budget for creating your website and you are quite tech-savvy. Most likely you will decide to build your website yourself on WordPress. After all, it is a widely used platform, where most of the tasks can be done by an enthusiast DIY business owner, without writing a single line of code.
Sounds appealing? Well, it certainly is. But even though WordPress is not a very complicated self-maintenance-websites’ platform, you can still end up making some mistakes in WordPress websites that can potentially harm them or expose them to hackers’ threats.
But fear not, we’ve prepared a list with the 10 most common beginner WordPress websites’ mistakes. Avoid them and you are good to go!
- Not choosing the WordPress theme wisely:
It may be very tempting to choose something free from their library, but that’s not always the best option. While choosing a theme, pay attention to its reviews and to when was the last time it was updated. The problem with free themes is that usually their creators stop updating them at some point. And since WordPress is constantly being updated to keep up with new security and functionality needs, it is absolutely crucial that your theme’s creators do the same.
Another thing to check is whether the theme looks equally nice on all devices, and if it’s optimised in terms of page load speed.
- Installing an unnecessarily large number of plugins:
One of the reasons why WordPress is so popular is its plugins’ library – where you can find a plugin to do virtually anything. But installing a big amount of plugins might put your website at risk. First of all, plugins can significantly slow down your website. Secondly, you will need to keep all of them updated, so more routine work for you. And third, plugins might not be coded in the best possible way (again, always check the reviews before installing) and can potentially even break down your whole website. So choose and install your plugins wisely.
There is one plugin though that we recommend everybody to install: a security plugin. Let´s state the ‘ugly truth’: nobody can be 100% protected online, there are no guarantees. But having a good security plugin in place, will at least make the task of hacking your website a more difficult one. There are quite a few options, some are paid some are free. Just browse through the WordPress plugins’ library, read the reviews, and make your choice. And don’t forget to keep this plugin updated too!
- Not changing your login from ‘admin’ to something else, or using a very simple and easy to crack password:
WordPress is one of the most popular platforms in the world, and therefore the fact that hackers choose it as one of their first targets comes as no surprise. By not choosing a secure login and password you are leaving the front door of your website wide open for those who might want to harm it.
So, keep your login and password difficult to guess. Hackers will not even need to actually hack anything if your login is ‘admin’ or ‘your website domain’ and your password one of the standard ones (‘qwerty’, ‘abc123’, ‘admin’, etc). Get creative!
- Not setting up automated backups:
In case the worst happens – your website is hacked or broken by an unfortunate choice of plugins, for instance – do you know what would make you feel good? Having a ‘fresh’ backup that you can use to restore your website with just a couple of clicks. You can use the solutions that your hosting company provides, or even use a plugin (yes, it is OK to use a plugin in this case too!).
- Not changing the permalinks:
Permalinks are the URLs that your pages will have. Just by looking at the name, you can easily guess that they should be permanent. It is thus important to choose a suitable permalink structure from the get-go to avoid wide-scale changes in URLs once your website goes live. To do so, you need to go to ‘Settings’ – ‘Permalinks’ and choose the structure. We recommend always choosing the ‘Post Name’ option, as this way your URLs will coincide with your pages’ names.
- Not using a child theme:
If you need to customise the theme you’re using a little, you might need to add some code to the theme files. If you do it directly on said theme files, the next time your theme is updated, all the changes you’ve made will disappear. To avoid this, you need to create a child theme for your website’s theme and make all the changes only within this child theme. This way you will be able to update your theme without losing your customisation. There are plenty of articles, explaining how to do it, just search Google for ‘create child theme WordPress’, and you will definitely have all your questions answered.
- Not deleting the default content:
When creating a website on WordPress, it automatically generates a ‘Sample Page’ and a ‘Hello World’ post. These are pages with thin content, duplicated for numerous other websites, so you will definitely be better off deleting them.
- Not changing the tag line:
Similarly to the previous point, by default, the tag line of your website says ‘Just another WordPress Site’. And while we are passionate advocates for SEO optimisation and creation of appropriate titles and descriptions for each page, if you don’t have the possibility to do it now, at least make sure you customise your website title and tag line in its settings.
- Not updating everything:
Having a WordPress website, means you need to keep an eye on updates, as you need to maintain your WordPress version, your theme and all your plugins updated. If you skip this step you are leaving your website potentially vulnerable to hackers.
Why is that? Because if a new vulnerability is discovered, WordPress itself, and the themes, and plugins in it, will prepare updated versions to fix it. Leaving your website with the old outdated versions makes it potentially easier to hack.
- Not optimising your images for web:
We’ve already talked about how website speed is very important. It influences your Google rankings and what’s more important, if your site takes too long to load, users won’t wait for it and will never see your content. Uploading images to the website ‘exactly as they are’ will slow your website down immensely. So, be sure to optimise them for web (using Photoshop, an online solution like, for example, TinyJPG/ TinyPNG, or even a plugin).
If you need additional clarification on any of the points above, or if you wish to discuss any other mistakes in WordPress websites, feel free to reach out, and we will happily give you some more tips on this matter.
