Common WordPress Mistakes Beginners Usually Make

It is common to make mistakes when we learn something new. The same goes for starting a WordPress blog. When you are learning how to build and maintain a WordPress blog, you will make mistakes. The point is, we should learn lessons from the mistakes.

Common WordPress Mistakes

So, here in this post, we list out some common mistakes a WordPress beginner will make and we provide solutions too.

Mistake 1: Picking up a Wrong Platform

As a WordPress beginner, you are likely to choose a wrong platform, since you know little about it. In general, there are 2 platform options for WordPress blog: hosted or self-hosted platform. The first platform is free and provided by WordPress.com. The self-hosted platform is paid and available at WordPress.org or from web hosting providers. Check out best cheap WordPress hosting solutions at bigcheaphosting.com.

Besides costs, differences lie in hosted and self-hosted platforms are plugins, unlimited adverts and premium themes that self-hosted platform supports.

Solution: Think about your goals, your costs and features of the 2 platforms when you pick up a platform for your WordPress blog.

Mistake 2: Using The Default Permalink Structure

We often see URL of web pages like http://xxx.com/?p=123, and it is a default permalink structure, which is ugly, hard to remember, harmful to rank high in search engines, etc. Though default permalink has such many defaults, many WordPress beginners still make that mistake.

Solution: Access back-end dashboard of your WordPress blog. Change permalink structure in Settings menu. You can use post name structure to tell your readers what your page talk about via the page URL. Or you can use day and name, month and name, and even custom structure.

Mistake 3: Ignoring the Admin User

WordPress is the most popular software for blogs. However, it is also a target for many hackers. Especially many WordPress beginners do not delete the admin user, making it easier for hackers to access their back-end WordPress dashboard and gain their important data. With the admin username, hackers need to only guess the password. By some software, the process gets easy too.

Solution: To improve the security of your WordPress blog, you can create a new username and delete the default admin user. Just move to Users page from dashboard menu. Then add a new user to complete a form. Remember use another email address different from that of the admin user. Next, log out and log in with the new username. Finally, delete the admin user.

Mistake 4: Installing Superfluous Plugins

Plugins help a lot to run your website. However, too many plugins may cause conflict so that the plugins may not work properly. Superfluous plugins bring some potential security issues as well.

Solution: Install plugins that are really useful for your blog and regularly update them.

Mistake 5: No Backups

One of the common mistakes WordPress beginner make is not to create backups. However, you cannot ensure you would never need data restoration. As a matter of fact, there are many occasions that you lose data and you need a restore. If you have backups, that is simple.

Solution: You can use free plugins or premium backup services for backing up.

Some good plugins you can trust include BackWPup, UpdraftPlus, BackUpWordPress, and Duplicator. Optional premium services are blogVault, VaultPress, and BackuUpBuddy.

Mistake 6: Block Search Engines and Forget to Unblock

If you have not already configured your WordPress blog, it is a good idea to block search engines so that they cannot index your site and your readers cannot see your site either. However, many WordPress beginners forget to unblock search engines when they have done configurations, causing no traffic to the site.

Solution: Remember to unblock search engines. If you forget, WordPress will alert you with a notice of “Huge SEO issue.” When you see that notice, do not ignore it and check out whether you unblock search engines.

Mistake 7: Not Updating WordPress

Almost every 120 days, WordPress has a new release with new features and security updates while developers always write plugins and themes complying with the newest WordPress version. However, many WordPress beginners ignore new releases and continue to run their blogs on the out-of-date releases. Some of them think it is too risky to update. Or they think it is troublesome. But considering what the new version brings, why not upgrade?

Solution: Regularly update your WordPress version to the latest release. But you should backup firstly. Waiting for a week or a dozen of days to update is also recommendable.
To know more about create a WordPress site, please check out this webmaster blog at BigCheaphosting.