Are you running your website using WordPress? If you’re not, then here’s an article we recently published on why WordPress is the best content management system for your business website.
If you are, then great! You’ve got that first step right. But then comes the real work.
Perfecting your business website takes a lot of time and efforts. And there’s too much advice to follow when it comes to creating a website that attracts new leads and converts them into long-lasting customers. In this article, we’re going to do the exact opposite.
We’ll share with you 7 common mistakes website owners make after launching their websites. If you avoid making these 7 easy mistakes, you’ll save yourself months of hard work and lost potential growth opportunities.
1- Not Backing Up Your Website
Things can go wrong with your website at any time. You may delete an important file by mistake. Your package may expire without you paying attention to it. Or even worse, your website could be hacked or infected by malware.
We’ve seen endless examples of businesses losing everything they’d been working on.
Months or even years of efforts can disappear because of a tiny error.
And the worst thing about all this is that — unless you have a backup for your website — everything will be gone forever.
To avoid that, here’s what you can do.
Back up your website regularly using plugins like Updraft Plus. You can always go back to previous versions and restore them whenever you lose valuable data.
Install and activate a website backup plugin. Then use it to backup your website.
If anything goes wrong in the future, you’ll be just fine.
With just a few clicks, you’ll have everything back as if nothing happened.
Also, some hosting providers will allow you to backup your website files and MySQL database.
(That could be a strong reason for you to pick one hosting provider instead of another.)
2- Using Free Themes
It’s not easy to select the perfect theme to fit your WordPress website and represent your business.
But not using a premium theme and settling for a free one is not the answer either. After all, the only good thing about free themes is that they’re free.
Free themes come with so many disadvantages and inefficiencies. And that will slow your growth and damage your reputation as a professional business.
Why are free website themes bad?
- No automatic updates to keep your website up to date.
- Don’t work on all devices— so you’ll lose most of your traffic.
- No support or help from professionals.
- Full of bugs and errors.
- Also, options panels are too simple to provide you with any freedom over how you want your website to look like.
- On top of that, almost all free themes are not optimized for SEO and provide a terrible user experience. And these are two major determining factors when it comes to having your company grow online.
Fix:
Invest in an elegant easy-to-use theme. Most premium themes cost between 30$ to 100$ — which is a wise investment if you want the best for your business.
3- Not Updating WordPress, Themes, and Plugins
There are many reasons why the team behind WordPress is continuously working on improving their system. Therefore, it would be smart of you to assume the necessity of always keeping your version up to date.
Not updating your WordPress version will put your whole website at risk.
For instance, with each released versions, there are thousands of lines of code added to improve security. These updates prevent hackers from using vulnerabilities detected in previous versions — which helps keep all websites safe from old system weaknesses.
By updating your WordPress system to the latest version, you’ll have greater safety and more fixed bugs. Your website performance will go up and serve your customers in a much more appealing manner.
And most importantly, you’ll ensure the compatibility of your system with the latest plugins and themes.
Which brings us to why you should be updating your themes and plugins.
Let’s face it.
There is always going to be bugs and errors in coding and creating new products. A plugin can’t be a 100% error-free and themes are often targeted by hackers because they take time to be updated.
That’s why the step of updating your themes and plugins is just as important as updating your WordPress. They all work together to keep your business running and your customers pleased and satisfied.
Fix:
Log in to your WordPress account on your website.
Under Dashboard from the left sidebar, click on Updates.
Check for any available updates to your WordPress, Plugins, or Themes. If available, complete those updates.
4- Permalinks
Permalinks are permanent URL structures for pages and blog articles on your website. They come in many different formats and should only be changed when your website is first created.
A common mistake that happens with permalinks is not updating the default settings when your website is new. And that makes your URLs complicated and also negatively affect your SEO in major ways.
It’s important to note that this can’t be changed after you build lots of backlinks. If you do it late in your journey, all the links on your website as well as other websites would have to be manually changed.
Fix:
First, log in to your admin account on WordPress.
From the left sidebar — click on Settings then Permalinks.
You’ll see common settings on this page where the default option is “Day and name”.
Check “Post name”, and then Save Changes.
Your URLs will now be shorter, easier to remember, and fully optimized for SEO.
5- Using Too Many Plugins
For lots of reasons, plugins are the number one cause for technical problems in WordPress.
That’s partly because plugins are easy to install and forget. So website owners don’t pay close attention to them and how they affect their websites.
The truth is, too many plugins will hurt your website and your business. 
For example, most website hacks happen because of mistrusted and unnecessary installed plugins.
Plugins also affect your website loading speed and user experience. And that can increase your bounce rates and lose you countless customers over time.
Fix:
Try to stick to a short list of plugins that your website can’t function without.
You should also always delete unwanted and outdated plugins.
From the left sidebar, click on Plugins then Installed Plugins.
You’ll see the list of your installed plugins.
Delete the ones that you haven’t used in a while or that have the same functionality.
And finally, avoid switching back and forth between plugins that have the same functionality. In the long run, it only slows your website down in.
6- Editing Your Themes Files
Editing code on your WordPress theme is an amazing thing to be able to do. But it’s also a risky business.
Imaging customizing everything about your website and making dozens of changes only to have everything disappear with the next theme update.
That’s a common problem WordPress users face when customizing their themes through coding.
That issue comes up assuming that you’ve successfully customized the theme. But the real problem arises when customizing the theme and editing multiple lines of code.
There’s a possibility of you making a minor mistake that’ll make your website look like a newspaper from the 1940s.
Then you end up paying someone hundreds or even thousands of dollars to fix it for you.
Fix:
- Purchase a premium theme that you like from the beginning.
- Use free or premium page builders.
- Hire a professional to edit your themes for you.
7- Writing Short Content For Your Blog
Content marketing has become an extremely effective digital marketing technique.
In today’s world, search engines quality content now more than ever.
But with all the giant websites in competitive industries producing large amounts of content every day, it’s virtually impossible to rank in page #1 for most difficult keywords.
Especially if the majority of your blog articles are only 500 words long.
In a recent study by Ahrefs, experts found that the average length of articles ranking #1 on Google is about 1950 words.
And that number is only going up in the next years.
Therefore, if your website is relatively new and isn’t full of content, it’s probably not the best idea to go for short content.
Google wants to provide the best user experience by giving online consumers all the answers they need. That’s why algorithms now prioritize relevant long-form blog articles that are likely to answer all the questions and more.
Fix:
Search for the main keywords you want to rank for and look at the average length of articles on the first page.
If you want to be in their place, you have to produce content that offers everything they have offered and more. Go for in-depth articles with a much higher word count.
If you’re consistent with it for months, the results will shock you.
Conclusion:
WordPress is a great content management system. You can use it to create any kind of website you want at a very affordable price and can be highly optimized for search engines.
But with all the functionality and amazing features it has, it’s easy for you to make unnecessary mistakes with your website that will slow your growth process and keep you behind.
You can’t create a perfect website for your business, but you can at least not make a horrible one. Watch out for the mistakes we discussed in this article and revisit it every once in a while. That way, you’ll make sure you’re always on the right track.
