Building a WordPress website is not as straightforward as it seems. There are many pitfalls that can arise which could lead to costly mistakes and lost time. Here are 10 common mistakes to avoid when building your own WordPress site.
1) Choosing the wrong hosting provider – It’s important for any business owner to know what they’re getting into before choosing their provider. This article discusses how you should consider all these things before signing up for an account with your host service of choice.
2) Not testing everything out on a staging server – Developers often forget about this one, but testing everything out on a staging server is crucial because it will help you find any bugs or errors in the code before deploying it live to production servers.
3) Not taking security seriously enough – This especially true for those who have their own WordPress sites because there are always those who try to crack into them and gain access. Failure to take security seriously could lead to a loss of data and much more.
4) Not having an SSL certificate – It’s important to add this one because every time you push up content for your site when you’re live without having SSL certificates enabled in WordPress settings, you run the risk of exposing yourself and your customers to security threats.
5) Not using SSL everywhere you can – If you don’t already, then adding HTTPS support to all elements on your site where possible is something which will go a long way to helping boost security for yourself and your customers. Google is even getting involved with this more frequently these days too so it’s definitely not something you should ignore if you care about the safety of your site or business at all.
6) Not making content accessible – One of the biggest mistakes that can be made when building a website is not thinking about the accessibility of your site’s content. Many businesses often forget to do this and create websites which are so aesthetically pleasing but fail to cater to all their customers needs, something which is obviously very important for companies trying to stay afloat in today’s competitive market.
7) Not having a mobile friendly website – It’s all well and good to have a fantastic looking website, but if it isn’t mobile friendly people aren’t going to be able to access it. This is why having this in mind when designing your site will help you stay afloat in the long run.
8) Getting caught up with the design too much – On the other side of things, another common mistake that can often get made, especially by rookie developers or designers, is investing way too much time into making the design look pretty rather than how easy it is for users to navigate. Design should always support usability first and foremost, this includes ensuring your site remains simple and easy enough for your customers to operate.
9) Failing to update WordPress and plugins – If WordPress and plugins aren’t being updated then not only they are leaving themselves exposed but also everyone else that interacts with their sites. This is why it’s important to keep on top of plugin updates and updates in general – they can save people a lot of time and hassle in the long run.
10) Ignoring GDPR compliance – With GDPR still being relatively new, many companies are failing to take their obligations seriously enough when it comes to reporting security breaches and other notable events. If you fail to report this type of activity, it could hurt your business in the long run now that GDPR is in full swing.
If you’ve ever built a WordPress website before, there’s no doubt that you’ll be familiar with some – if not all – of these common mistakes. But knowing about them can help prevent them from happening again by ensuring that you’re aware of what went wrong last time around and know not to make the same mistake twice. This is important because building websites often takes up valuable time which could be invested doing something else instead, so avoiding any wasted effort is always best for everyone involved.
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https://graticle.com/custom-website-design-and-print-services/wordpress-web-design/
