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Top 20 Wordpress mistakes beginners make
For a large number of people, WordPress is the first script that they have have installed online for the first website they have ever developed. As a result of this, WordPress beginners make a lot of basic mistakes.
The WordPress platform provides a hell lot of functionality that helps to manage the content on your site in a very suitable and concise manner. However, the learning curve for starters can be quite steep and beginners tend to make mistakes. This article lists 20 possible WordPress mistakes that beginners make at their start of journey.
#1. Installing WordPress in a Sub Folder Called “WordPress”
The WordPress zip file places all core files in a folder entitled “WordPress. Beginners make the mistake of simply uploading this folder to their website using FTP rather than uploading the files and folders contained within the folder. This results in their website being located at www.website.com/wordpress rather than www.website.com.
WordPress does allow you to install WordPress in a different directory than the one it is installed. However, for most people, it is simpler to just install WordPress in the same location it is being displayed. This is usually the root of your domain or in a sub-directory such as blog.
#2. Not Using Permalinks – A common wordpress mistake
Out of the box, the default permalink structure for WordPress is /?p=<postid>. This displays URLs such as www.yourwebsite.com/?p=57 rather than something like www.yourwebsite.com/blog/.
Many beginners do not change this default permalink structure to a more user-friendly option that uses keywords. This is sometimes referred to as using “Clean URLs“.
The WordPress “Permalink Settings” page.
I use category name – post name (/%category% / %postname%/) on most of my websites as it keeps links short and allows me to insert keywords into the URL (to do this, simply change the post slug in the post editor). News blogs that publish dozens of articles per day tend to use day and post name (/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/) to avoid any problems with duplicate post slugs.
To change permalinks through the WordPress admin area, your .htaccess file has to be writable. To do this, WordPress recommends that you change the file permissions of .htaccess to 644.
.htaccess can also be updated manually via File Transfer Protocol (FTP).
#3. Publishing Incomplete Pages
Nothing screams out “NEWBIE” more than a website that has incomplete pages. Beginners frequently launch their website before it is ready. Due to this, visitors click on a navigation link and are welcomed with incomplete pages with messages such as “Coming Soon” or “To Be Updated”.
As a rule, you should never link to any page that is not complete. Doing so will alienate visitors and give the impression that you are not taking your website seriously.
My advice is wait until your website is complete before you launch it. Whilst building your website, you can use a maintenance mode plugin to keep interested parties informed of your launch date.
#4. Installing Unnecessary Plugins
Plugins that are not being used should be deactivated and uninstalled if you do not plan on using them again.
Beginner WordPress users do not adhere to this mindset. They install plugins and do not deactivate them. It is not uncommon for a new WordPress user to install dozens of plugins; even if he is only using a few. This slows down their website and increases the resources required to run their website.
I encourage you to only use plugins that are important to your website’s success. Do not fall into the trap of installing dozens of widgets you are not using and statistical plugins that you are not checking every day. All this does is make your website slower.
#5. Not Keeping WordPress Up to Date
It is important to keep WordPress, and any themes and plugins you are using, up to date. Failure to do this will increase the chance of your website being hacked and make it difficult for you to use any new WordPress products.
WordPress are aware of the problems associated with using older versions of WordPress. Which is why the release of WordPress 3.7 in October 2013 included a fantastic new auto-update feature. This allows important maintenance and security updates to be applied to your website as you sleep.
By default, updates to the WordPress core will be applied automatically if you are using WordPress 3.7 or higher.
Plugin and theme updates are not enabled by default. In order to activate automatic plugin updates on your website, you need to add the following code to your wp-config.php file:
add_filter( 'auto_update_plugin', '__return_true' );
To activate automatic theme updates, simply add the code below to your wp-config.php file:
add_filter( 'auto_update_theme', '__return_true' );
If you are using a version of WordPress that is older than 3.9, I encourage you to download the latest version from WordPress.org so that core updates are applied automatically in the future. This will ensure you never miss out on important updates in the future.
#6. Not Using a Strong Password
Guessing a user’s username and password remain the number one way that unauthorized parties access WordPress websites. The situation has improved a little since WordPress stopped forcing WordPress users into using the username “admin” for the master account, however easy passwords are still the main way hackers break into websites.
When it comes to setting passwords, simple passwords are just not good enough. You need to something that a script cannot easily guess.
A strong password should be made a priority.
There are many great free services online that allows you to generate a strong password at the click of a button. One of my favorites is PasswordsGenerator.net. It allows you to select the password length and complexity.
You can also take advantage of password solutions such as Keeper to store your strong passwords in a secure location.
#7. Not Backing Up Regularly
New WordPress users (all new website owners for that matter) fail to recognize the importance of backing their website up regularly. This is a mistake they usually continue to make until their website is hacked and they lose a lot of data.
It is a shame that most people need to experience data loss in order to learn the importance of backing up, as backing up is so easy to do. Professional backup and restore services, such as VaultPress, are available for only $5 per month. There are lots of free solutions available too, such as the popular WordPress Backup to Dropbox plugin.
With so many backup solutions available for WordPress, you really have no excuse for not backing up regularly.
#8. Not having a contact form
Another common mistake made by many beginners is not adding a contact form on their blogs. Instead, they create a contact page and simply mention their email there. That’s not the right way to get your audience in touch with you, as after a few months you’ll notice that your inbox is getting flooded with insane amount of SPAM. The best solution to this problem and way to allow your audiences directly interact with you is adding a simple contact form to your site. For this purpose, you can install Contact Form 7 or Gravity Forms plug-in. We recommend you to try Gravity Forms plug-in, because it allows you to create any type of form using a simple drag-drop interface.
#9. Forgetting to install a caching plug-in
A lot of beginners ignore to install a caching plug-in, as they don’t know that website speed plays a major role in getting higher rankings on Google. In order to make sure that your site can sustain a lot of traffic at once without crashing, you should use a caching plug-in and Content Delivery Network (CDN) as well. Caching is used to increase efficiency, prevent downtime, and decrease load time of your site, whenever it gets huge loads of traffic. There are two best free plug-ins that you can use to speed up our WordPress blog: W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache. Additionally, we recommend you to get started with a CDN such as MaxCDN or Cloudflare.
#10. Not using Google Analytics
Would you like to drive a car that doesn’t have headlights? Absolutely not! Then why would you run your blog without using an analytics program like Google Analytics. As WordPress dashboard is not enough to get detailed insights about your site, you should use one of the best web analytics services: Google Analytics. Google Analytics offers you a wide range of free services that you can use to monitor your website traffic, keep track of visitor’s behavior on your site and know about the keywords that can generate more traffic to your site. Apart from this, we also recommend you to sign-up with Google Webmaster Tools to keep track of your website health.
#11. Making life difficult for mobile users
Nowadays, everyone moves between multiple devices, like smart-phones, tablets, laptops, PCs or TV, to browse or purchase something via internet. As people are rapidly adopting multi-screen devices, it has become a must to make your website either fully responsive or mobile-friendly. If you still haven’t adopted this trend, you have two options. First, you can use a Responsive WordPress theme that automatically adapts to whatever the screen size or device is. Second, you can make your site mobile-compatible by using a mobile plug-in like WPtouch or WPTap. The choice is yours!
#12. Ignoring gravatar & Google authorship markup
Have you heard of Gravatar? No! Well, a Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar) is a small picture that represents you throughout the World Wide Web. It appears next to your name when you comment on a blog post or discuss in a forum. We suggest you to start using it right away to get identified and build a brand around web. Just like Gravatar, Google Authorship Markup lends credibility and maximizes exposure. Setting up Google Authorship Markup is a quite simple one-time process, which will show up your photo next to the Meta description in Google’s search results. Get started with it as soon as possible.
#13. Ignoring image optimization
One of the worst mistakes we all make is often forgetting to optimize images, while publishing an article. Specially, beginners don’t care at all about it. If you want to make your WordPress site load faster, then make image optimization your first priority. Using HD images can have a tremendous impact on your site speed, while optimized images can improve the overall performance of your site in a dramatic way. So don’t forget to optimize images before uploading them to your WordPress site.
#14. Choosing the wrong platform
Free WordPress.com or self hosted WordPress.org? Most of the WordPress beginners often get confused between these two, and it’s one of the most common mistakes, which is seen among beginners. While you’re going to start out as a beginner, it’s extremely crucial to know what’s the difference between them and which one can be the right choice for your new WordPress blog. As both of them have their own pros and cons, it’s a big challenge for you to decide which option is perfect for you. WordPress.com (run by the folks at Automattic) is most suitable for bloggers, photographers, and artists – almost everyone. On the other hand, WordPress.org is made for those who like to have total control over their websites. Whatever option you choose, be careful.
#15. Forgetting to change the default admin username
When you install WordPress, it automatically creates the username “admin” with administrator privileges. It’s the username that is obviously predictable to hackers. Using the “admin” username, they can easily perform a brute force attack to crack your login and take control over your site. As WordPress gives you the option to change the username during installation, it doesn’t make sense to stick with the default one. Therefore, while installing WordPress, make sure to change your default WordPress admin username to a different username. Also, use a combination of numbers, letters and special characters in your username and password.
#16. Using an inappropriate or defective theme
Choosing the perfect theme is a crucial thing that decides the future your WordPress blog. You wouldn’t believe that the structure of your design plays a vital role in search engine rankling. There are three things you should keep in mind while picking a theme – the ease of use for you, a reasonable price, and a reputed company. If you’re looking for a free WordPress theme, then there is no better option than WordPress Themes Directory. But if you’re interested in purchasing a commercial theme, we recommend you to give a try to any one of these trusted theme providers: Elegant Themes, StudioPress, Headway Themes, Themify, or ithemes.
#17. Staying with the default tagline “just another blog”
A tagline is a one-line description about what your site is. By default, WordPress adds “Just Another Blog” tagline to every WordPress install. Most of the WordPress newbies forget to remove/change it and get it indexed by Google, which is not a good practice. Hence, it’s advisable to choose a unique and witty tagline that has some relation with your blog niche or content. You can change the default tagline by going to Settings >> General in your WordPress dashboard. Also, don’t forget to delete the sample page that ships with WordPress install.
#18. Using the default favicon
The favicon is considered as the identity card of your website. It’s a little icon associated with your site, typically displayed in the browser’s address bar or next to the site name in a list of bookmarks.
Mostly WordPress newbies ignore their favicons, so their blogs/sites usually have favicons displayed by WordPress as default, or provided by their Theme Company or Web Hosting Provider. To look more professional, you really need to change your favicon right now if you haven’t already. You can either make a favicon by yourself, or create one using one of the free favicon generators available around the web. Once you’ve generated your favicon, you need to upload it in the images section of your theme in order to replace the default one.
#19. Complicated categories & tags
One of the best features of WordPress is the capability to categorize content with tags. Taking advantage of this great feature, most of the people create too many categories and tags, as they think this will make ease for users but in fact, it isn’t so. Instead, doing so can affect your site in a negative manner. Too much and complex categories not only make your site ugly and difficult to navigate, but also influence users to leave your website and affect everything from SEO to load time of your site. So, try to limit tags and categories in order to stay hold your visitors for a long time on your website.
#20. Never Moderating Comments
Comments tell you how your readers are responding to your marketing message. But it takes determination and effort to moderate comments especially if you get more than a few. Many small business owners don’t know how to manage their websites, and they end up stuck with tons of comments that require moderating. They keep putting it off until it bogs them down.
Then we have spam comments, which can really hurt your SEO besides scaring away readers. Never approve spam comments even by accident – no matter how well written. How do you tell good comments from spam comments? How do you separate the wheat from the chaff? Well, it’s easy. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck. If it’s spam, you will know immediately.
If you don’t want comments, disable comments via Settings >> Discussion >> Default Article Settings or use a plugin such as Disable Comments Plugin. To keep spam comments in check use Akismet or any of these spam blocking plugins.
If you have any more suggestions, feel free to comment below.