10+ Most Common WordPress Mistakes to Avoid

Published On: December 19th, 2015|Last Updated: July 11th, 2023|Categories: WordPress|Total Views: 1411|Daily Views: 1|

WordPress is web software that helps users to create a website or blog in a few minutes. So a lot of people choosing WordPress to start their business, make an information-sharing site, etc. Since they are new to WordPress, they don’t know the basic settings and doing some mistakes which is commonly done by beginners of WordPress. Below I listed 10+ most common WordPress mistakes to avoid.

#1 Installing with default “WordPress” folder

For installing WordPress, we will download the WordPress package from WordPress.org. By default, all the files will be present in the folder called “WordPress”. So users may upload the entire WordPress folder into their hosting root. Then users have to access WordPress URL as

https://spytm.com/WordPress/

So before uploading the folder, rename the folder to “blog” or something related to it. If you want to install it in a main website instead of a subfolder, then upload all the files present inside in the WordPress folder.

See Also: Top 16 Best Free Essential WordPress Plugins

#2 Not updating the default title tag “Just Another Blog”

By default, your website title will be “Website name – Just Another Blog”. This should be immediately changed after installing WordPress because search engines will crawl your site and display it with the default tag.

#3 Not Removing the Sample Contents

After installing WordPress, we could find sample post, page, category, and tags which helps as a demo for beginners. Millions of people still kept the initial contents without deleting it. This will make a bad user experience and nothing will get impacted by removing this sample content.

Solution: Delete all the sample posts, pages, categories, and tags immediately after installing WordPress.

#4 Not using custom Favicon

All your WordPress pages will be loaded with a WordPress favicon. “Favicon is an icon file with dot [.] ico extension and has 10×10 dimension. It will be displayed in the browser’s tab as an icon which helps to find the corresponding website easily without navigating the browser tabs.”

See Also: Top 3 Best WordPress Security Plugins

#5 No backup planned

WordPress beginners might not be aware of the importance of backup. There are a lot of chances that might crash your blog. In the worst scenario, your backup file is only the source that will help to restore the blog. So take regular backups of your WordPress database. Even you can use plugins that will automatically back up your site at regular intervals.

#6 Using default and ugly permalinks

By default, WordPress will use ugly permalinks which look like,

https://spytm.com/?=12345

Change this to SEO and user friendly permalink structure. Once you change to a friendly URL structure, then the URL looks like,

https://spytm.com/my-title

#7 Not Installing Updates

WordPress will often provide updates to the WordPress software which has lot of enhancements and fixes major security issues. Even plugins and themes will get updates for security fixes and enhancements. So whenever you saw the update notification in your admin bar, try to install the updates. Keep your blog up to date and keep it healthy.

#8 Using Nulled Themes and Plugins

Most of the paid themes and plugins are nulled and made available for free. Did you think its free? Actually, the answer is No. Hackers will inject viruses, malware, malicious code, and unknown links into the nulled files and they will try to hack your site. So never go for nulled themes or plugins. If you have enough money, buy the product from a reputed website or go for free plugins and themes available on wordpress.org.

See Also: Yoast SEO vs All in One SEO

#9 Installing Unwanted Plugin

There are more than 41K plugins available in wordpress.org and its not required to install all the available plugins. Installing a lot of plugins will decrease the page loading speed. So install only the plugins that you really need for your blog.

#10 Not enforcing Security

Security is a major concern for all. If you don’t prevent your website, then you are the victim of a lot of hackers, malware, virus, and malicious code. Prevent your blog by installing the security plugins available on wordpress.org. Security plugins will enforce all the required security settings and safeguard your website in the background.

#11 Not optimized for SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) helps search engines to index and crawl your site. Proper SEO settings will increase your crawl rate and page rank. Optimize SEO with popular plugins like Yoast SEO or All in One SEO Pack. Install any one of these plugins and configure the settings.

#12 Not caching the pages

By using the cache, increase your page loading speed and reduce the server load. There are two options to use cache in WordPress, they are
1. Using cache plugin: W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache
2. Using CloudFlare: It caches all your pages and filters the traffic which helps in the reduction of bandwidth usage.
Since both options are not conflicting, I recommend using both options in your blog.

#13 Allowing SPAM comments

Irrespective of your blog age, daily you will get a huge number of spam comments. These comments will have external links which may point to illegal sites or malware sites. So avoid spam comments by moderating the comments.

Solution: Use the Akismet plugin, a popular moderator plugin that automatically filters all spam comments and sends them to the spam folder.

See Also: Setup Amazon CloudFront CDN in WordPress using W3 Total Cache Plugin

#14 Ignoring Mobile Visitors

Not only from a desktop, will even visitors access your site from mobile-like devices. So make sure your site is responsive.

Solution:
1. Use a responsive theme.
2. Use the WPtouch Mobile plugin, which makes your site mobile-friendly.

Conclusion

Hope you have read and understood all the 10+ most common WordPress mistakes to avoid. Other than this, there are still a lot of mistakes that can be done by beginners. I will constantly update this page with common mistakes and solutions, so please stick to it and keep your blog awesome.

You know any other WordPress mistakes ? Let us know in the comments below

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