Creating a website on WordPress can seem simple at first glance. After all, this builder offers plenty of convenient tools, settings, and thousands of themes and plugins. However, with this ease and flexibility come a lot of nuances that are often overlooked, leading to common mistakes that can hinder a website’s performance and drive away visitors. Let’s look at the 10 most common mistakes and how to avoid them so your site not only looks good but also serves its purpose effectively.
1. Choosing a Theme Based Only on Appearance
Mistake: One of the first traps many newcomers fall into is choosing a theme based solely on its visual appeal, without considering functionality or technical aspects. A beautiful theme may end up overloaded with unnecessary scripts and styles, making the site slow and hard to customize.
How to Avoid It: When choosing a theme, focus not only on design but also on optimization, plugin compatibility, regular updates, and developer support. For business websites, it’s often better to choose premium themes, as they are typically optimized and supported for a longer time. And always check if the theme is responsive – many users now access websites on mobile devices.
2. Installing Too Many Plugins
Mistake: Plugins add extra features to your site, but having too many can significantly slow it down, cause conflicts, and even create security vulnerabilities.
How to Avoid It: Be selective with plugins. Use only trusted plugins that are regularly updated and well-supported by developers. Before installing any new plugin, ask yourself if it’s really necessary. Maybe the needed functionality is already built into your theme, or can be added with a bit of code without overloading the site.
3. Having an Unclear Site Structure
Mistake: A disorganized structure makes it hard for users to find information and can hurt SEO. If users have a hard time navigating your site, it leads to lost visitors and lower conversions.
How to Avoid It: Before starting your site, plan its structure. Define the main sections, subpages, and categories based on your users’ needs. This is especially important for corporate websites and e-commerce sites, where well-planned navigation is crucial to user experience.
4. Ignoring SEO from the Start
Mistake: SEO is often seen as “something for later,” but smart optimization from the start can save a lot of time and increase your site’s visibility in search engines.
How to Avoid It: Include SEO aspects in the site development process. WordPress has excellent SEO plugins like Yoast SEO or Rank Math, which help you optimize key pages. But beyond plugins, pay attention to heading hierarchy, unique text content, and keywords.
5. Neglecting Site Speed
Mistake: Users rarely stay on a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. However, many overlook this, filling the site with heavy images and unnecessary scripts.
How to Avoid It: Optimize images before uploading them and avoid large files that slow down the site. Use plugins like Smush or ShortPixel to compress images without losing quality. Be sure to use caching, which you can do with plugins like WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache.
6. Overlooking Security Measures
Mistake: Security is often seen as a secondary issue, especially for new, low-traffic sites. However, any site can become a target for attackers, regardless of popularity.
How to Avoid It: Implement comprehensive security solutions. Install security plugins like Wordfence or Sucuri Security. Create strong passwords for all accounts, limit login attempts, and update WordPress, themes, and plugins regularly to eliminate vulnerabilities.
7. Not Considering Responsive Design
Mistake: Some sites look great on desktops but are inconvenient on mobile devices, causing up to half of potential visitors to leave.
How to Avoid It: Ensure your theme supports responsive design. Test page displays on different devices and, if needed, adjust styles using CSS. WordPress has tools for previewing how your site looks across devices to ensure it’s convenient for everyone.
8. Making Forms and Processes Too Complex
Mistake: If your site has registration, order, or contact forms, making them too complex may drive away visitors. Nobody likes spending extra time filling out multiple fields.
How to Avoid It: Simplify forms, making them intuitive. Minimize the number of fields to just the essentials. Add visual cues, and make sure forms display correctly on mobile devices.
9. Skipping Regular Backups
Mistake: Backups are often postponed as a “future task,” but any error or attack can result in the loss of important data.
How to Avoid It: Install an automatic backup plugin, like UpdraftPlus or BackupBuddy, and set up regular backups. Keep copies of your data not only on your hosting but also in remote cloud storage for easy access.
10. Neglecting User Experience (UX)
Mistake: The desire to make a site flashy and visually rich can often hurt usability. A site may look impressive but be inconvenient for users.
How to Avoid It: Always design with users in mind. Think about each interface element in terms of usability, accessibility, and intuitiveness. Avoid overwhelming the site with animations, and make sure users can find what they need with minimal clicks.
These mistakes may seem minor, but each one can impact the success of a website. By avoiding them, you’ll increase the chances of creating a site that not only attracts visitors but also adds real value to your business.
