Did you know?
In 2020 WordPress was powering a whopping 40% of all websites on the Internet.
So, that’s the true power of WordPress!
And why shouldn’t it be! When you can easily create a website from scratch and get a multitude of customization options, nothing could ignore the importance of WordPress.
But it’s not as easy as it seems!
Maintaining a WordPress site could be potentially daunting and you must adhere to the latest techniques and best industry practices. Well, we all aware of the fact is that it is open source as it provides a multitude of functionalities and opportunities to grow your business to an unprecedented scale!
But here’s the catch!
Since it has an open-source, it could allow hackers to breach its security and corrupt your website or hack your business data using unethical practices. This would ultimately result in inferior performance and less conversions, ultimately putting your brand at risk.
This is where this post has come to the rescue!
In this post, we’ll discuss the mistakes that you need to avoid while managing your WordPress site.
Here we go!!
1. Glue to the Old Version
No matter how busy you are, you must not consider sticking to an old version. As a matter of fact, make sure that you never leave your website on the version that it has been earlier created.
This could land you in trouble!!
Make sure you never overlook the burgeoning cybercrimes taking place in today’s tech-dominating world. When you don’t update and stick to the old version, you are likely to allow hackers to steal any crucial business information, compromise your ranking, or can do any more suspicious activity that could land you in a legal problem.
That’s the reason; WordPress generally offer regular updates all year.
These updates offer performance improvements and fix bug that could improve your website performance to an unprecedented scale.
Note: Before you apply changes/updates to the live website, you must check their compatibility on a test server.
2. Avoiding Backup
No matter whether you have applied the best techniques to keep your site optimized and secured. You, however, cannot ensure they are 100% safe.
If you are a part of today’s tech-driven world, you must know that data is sacred! And you cannot even think of losing the data of your site even in your worst nightmare.
This happens when you avoid backing up of your data!
Most people deliberately avoid backing up of data and end up losing sensitive information such as personal user data and login credentials.
Make sure you don’t repeat the same mistakes!
Many WordPress hosting providers, nowadays, offer backup features already included in their packages that you must set up.
For those who don’t know, a backup could be quintessential in scenarios like some bugs from a recent update, a server crash, or any information that is lost can be restored right away!
Note: Make sure you choose backup only from WordPress hosting providers!
3. Considering Unverified Plugins
This is something that most users do and end up compromising their business credibility!
It’s often observed that people simply install plugins from not known or trusted platforms without checking their features. Although installing plugins (ensure they are right) could be a lucrative option to save time and resources, make sure you know where you are using them from.
There are additional aspects that you must adhere to if you want to make the most out of your plugins!
There are some plugins available on the market that you might not need for your WordPress website. Instead, they could add burden (might slow down) your website and break your business in the long run. Whereas some plugins may run hidden processes in the background that might steal the confidential or private information of your company and send it to other platforms without knowing you.
If you want to use plugins that are safe and absolutely free, you must consider installing them from your WordPress Plugins Directory. And the best part is that these plugins are reviewed by the WordPress team in almost all important aspects like security, use, code standards, etc..
Note: Consider checking the reviews of the plugin you are about to use on your WordPress website.
Also, you can hire an experienced WordPress developer who can help you build an ideal custom plugin for your website!
4. Not Leveraging Caching Mechanisms
Well, it couldn’t be wrong to say that website caching is one of the crucial technologies you can harness to make your WordPress website perform better.
When you effectively leverage caching mechanism, you are likely to increase your website’s ranking in searches and turn your frequent visitors into potential customers.
Let’s say!!
If your website is running on a “Managed WordPress hosting”, then you already have got caching feature that you can simply set up and use. When you efficiently utilize these features, you can increase the performance of your website and let it load faster than the usual.
Also, you can alternatively use a WordPress plugin to optimize the cache without any difficulty. But you must keep this in mind that you must use only one caching plugin at one time. If you, however, use more than one cache, you are likely to break the deal and all efforts may go in vain.
When you apply any plugin, make sure you test it first to avoid falling into any kind of pitfall. You simply just need to try them carefully.
5. Underestimating Comments Moderation
Well, if your WordPress site has comments enabled, you are already bombarded with spam messages and even links that could direct to suspicious websites (might even hack your website).
To gain new links and promote their services, these practices are usually done by amature marketers.
Here comes the best part about WordPress!
The platform may easily let you moderate the comments on your website! If you, however, want to enable that, go to setting and select “Discussion”.
As a site owner, you must adhere to the necessary settings and at the same time, ensure that the comments must be approved manually so they cannot appear without your permission.
By going to the comments tab in the Dashboard area, make sure you frequently moderate your WordPress site comments. Make sure you do it at least twice a week.
Note: Make sure you moderate the comments daily if your website has a significant number of visitors.
6. Overlooking the Company’s Contact Form
If you think you can overlook a contact form, then it could potentially be a bad idea that comes back to bite you.
If you want to offer seamless communication with your visitors, you must consider a contact form. Let’s discuss the potential benefits of having a contact form on your WordPress website.
- Getting significant leads.
- Making yourself and the brand more reachable among your target audience.
- Communication – if someone is interested in your product, then they can easily interact with you and get profound information.
Looking for the best contact forms? If so, the WordPress plugin directory may lend you a helping hand!
The directory has some of the best contact form plugins to choose from. If you want to make your investment a lucrative one, make sure you choose one that has a high rating, customers’ reviews, and may seamlessly adapt to your requirements.
Also, you must ensure that it is compatible with your WordPress website!
7. Leaving Idle Themes on your Website
When your website was in the development phase, you might have tried downloading different plugins to check whether they suit your website or not.
Well, everybody does that!
But if you chose a plugin and you are not using it now, then there are chances that it is still in the plugin directory of your website.
And if you don’t delete or use it, it may slow down your site. And not only this, it can make your site prone to threats and attacks and hackers might even try to steal your business information through your website.
If you, however, don’t want it to happen, make sure you just delete it right away! Make sure you deactivate it first and then uninstall it.
After doing so, you need to optimize your database with a third-party solution. Before diving into database optimization, you must have a backup of your website.
Final Thoughts
So, that’s a wrap up to the mistakes that you must avoid when it comes to managing your site!
Developing a WordPress site right from the scratch could be both exciting and daunting. You will be excited as your business is likely to mark its presence and at the same time, you must adhere to the latest updates, practices, and even perform regular maintenance.
When you do so, you are likely to save significant bucks and protect you from threats and hackers in the long term.
Our blog is on WordPress but the main bizibi ecommerce portal is not a non WP site, mainly due to security and also the greater complexity required us to have more control and direct access. Although it is possible to achieve it in WP. Woo Commerce which is used by many online stores in Trinidad and Tobago is a WordPress plugin.
Have got questions related to the WordPress website? If so, please let us know in the comment section!!
bizibi is a full turnkey solution for an ecommerce platform purely focused to the Trinidad and Tobago market. A feature rich multivendor platform that includes delivery and payments as well as a fully powerful marketing engine that not only generates a whole portfolio of marketing material for you, but also with its integration with social media we can also deliver it to your audience.
If you would like to have an online store go to bizibi and signup here.