Having your own blog or website on WordPress can be exciting. It is easy to rush through the design and content and then show it off to the rest of the world. But if you read this article, you will be able to avoid making the most common WordPress errors. Here’s a quick run through of the most common WordPress mistakes that beginners make, that end up costing them a lot of time, energy and sometimes money.
1. The difference between WP.COM and WP.ORG
This is the first hurdle faced by most first time bloggers. WP.com is perfect for beginners and first time bloggers, or practically anyone who would just like the experience of a smoothly running blog with a content driven approach. This is because WP.com takes care of all server and security issues. WP.org is great for those like to have complete control over their websites and have the technical know how to handle all the aspects of installing and updating WordPress as well as security issues and fixing the site if problems arise.
2. ‘Just another WordPress blog’ tagline
WordPress automatically adds the tagline ‘Just another WordPress blog’ to every blog. Forgetting to change that is a common mistake. This default tagline gets indexed by Google, which is bad and looks sloppy and unprofessional. The tagline can be changed from your WordPress dashboard by going to Settings >> General.
3. Caching
If a user has visited your site before, caching uses a stored page in the user’s browser rather than reaching out to the server for the same files each time. This reduces the work of your database and server as well as allowing for a speedy user experience. Caching can help prevent downtime during high traffic as well. Caching is made easy with the W3 Total Cache plugin.
4. Tags, categories and summaries
It is easy to get caught up in the posts and miss out on some of the important aspects of blogging that make for a smoother navigation experience and better SEO. It is important to add tags, categories, and excerpts while you are posting, because they can be extremely tedious and time consuming to do after the fact. Only a few extra minutes taken to update them while posting will make for a much better organized site.
5. Too many categories
Since it so easy to make categories on WordPress, people do sometimes tend to get carried away and add a category for every post. In the end, it results in a chaotic and unorganized website or blog. Instead, create a few broad categories when you are starting the blog or website and classify all your posts into those categories.
6. Too many plugins
Plugins make life easy. But if you install too many of them, you may slow your site down and crash it complete if there is a plugin conflict. Install plugins only where they are absolutely necessary.
7. Not labeling and tagging images while loading
At some point when you want to change or update an image, the one labeled Black Cat and with the description ‘Cat sleeping on a rug next to the fire’ will be a lot easier to for you to find than IMG_4569. Labeling and tagging with the correct keywords also results in better SEO for Google Image Search.
8. Out-dated plugins
Outdated plugins is one of the things that make your site vulnerable to hackers. So keep your plugins up to date. Or remove plugins you are not using anymore. Make sure you also find and delete any plugin files they may have been left behind on your server.
9. Failure to moderate comments
Without proper moderation for comments, your site could likely be flooded with spam and trolls. If you do not want comments on your site you have a couple options. First, you install a plugin to turn them off.
But if you want to avoid “Mistake 6” above, then you can turn the comments off by commenting them out of the template code. You can also turn comments on or off on a page by page basis. Under the text editor in any post you’ll see a “Discussion” section with two check boxes. Turn them on and off as you please and save the post.
Note: You may have to turn the “Discussion” section on by opening on the “Screen Options” menu in the top left of the page (scroll all the way up) and then check the box beside “Discussion”.
10. Forgetting SEO settings
When the blog is still under construction, folks often check the option that stops the search engine bots from indexing their site. If you forget to uncheck this, your site never gets indexed. Similarly, your entire site could be de-indexed when you are redesigning your theme. Remember to go back and uncheck that option.
You can find that setting under Settings >> Reading.
11. WordPress themes from an unreliable source
Always download free themes from either WordPress.org or from another trusted provider. Many people who download free themes from unreliable sources find that they have to deal with their sites being infested with malicious links.
12. Ignoring analytics
When you are running a blog or a site, it is important to keep an eye on visitor behavior and to analyze the cause and effect of any updates you make to the site in terms of content, style, or SEO optimization. There are a range of free analytical tools that help you do just that: Google Analytics is one of the best free tools.
13. Forgetting to delete the sample page
WordPress comes with a default sample page. A lot of people don’t know about it and it stays on their blogs, but it does invariably come up on the search results if it is not deleted.
14. Not having a contact form
A contact form is a simple tool that allows your audience to interact with you. Putting an email address on the site makes it easier for spammers to flood you with emails, burying the important communications from your users. It’s much better to create a contact form. Contact Form 7 is a great, free, form creator.
15. Forgetting responsive design
It is important to make sure that your site is easily accessible to users on mobile devices as well as those with different screen resolutions. WordPress gives a few different options to make your site accessible to users on a wide variety of devices.
Running a WordPress site does not have to be too complicated and there are many tools to help you, but you do need a thorough understanding of the basics. More importantly, you need to know what not to do. Keep these tips about what newbie mistakes to avoid in mind and they could save you a lot of time and frustration.