40 Most Common WordPress Mistakes Every New Blogger Makes

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WordPress is the world’s most popular platform and 33% of the world’s websites are built on WordPress. When you make your first blog or website on it, you have to take care of many things.

Today in this article I am going to tell you about 40 common WordPress mistakes so that when you create your blog on WordPress, do not make all those mistakes.

40+ Most Common WordPress Mistakes Every New Blogger Makes

If you are a new blogger and want to start your blog with WordPress, then obviously you can make some mistakes.

Here are the common WordPress mistakes that you need to avoid,

1. Choosing the Wrong Platform

If you are brand new to blogging and looking to start your website or blog on WordPress, WordPress.com and WordPress.org might confuse you. Wrong platform can cause trouble for you later.

There are many bloggers who choose WordPress.com instead of WordPress.org. WordPress.com and WordPress.org are both completely different platforms.

If you are very serious about blogging, then I recommend you to start a blog on WordPress.org. But if you have made your blog on WordPress.com, then do not worry, you can easily move it to WordPress.org.

2. Choosing the Wrong Web Hosting

Although, there are many web hosting providers in the market that promise to be the best, but after buying hosting from them, you feel that they have cheated you.

If you choose a wrong web hosting, it will affect both your WordPress SEO and traffic. Because of this, your website will be in downtime most of the time and your site will load very slowly.

3. Incorrectly Installing WordPress

Although all web hosting companies allow to install WordPress with 1-click. But there are many users who manually install WordPress by downloading zip file from WordPress.org. In this case, some bloggers make a mistake. I recommend you to install it with 1-click.

4. Not using Maintenance or Coming Soon Page

If your own site or blog is currently launched and it is not completely ready for the visitors, then maintenance mode or coming soon page should be used. For this you can use WordPress Maintenance Mode Plugins. It shows your professionalism and makes a good impression on the user.

5. Leave Tagline as Default

When you create a WordPress blog, the default tagline is “Just another WordPress site”. Many WordPress beginners leave this as default which shows that your blog is brand new and people might not take it seriously.

Use a unique tagline for your blog. All you have to do is click on Settings >> General and enter your unique tagline in the Tagline box.

6. Not Delete Sample Content

When you install WordPress, you will get to see some sample content like “Hello world” and “Sample page”. If you don’t delete it, it makes you unprofessional.

To delete it, click on Post >> All post and delete Hello world post. Similarly, to delete the sample page, click on Page >> All pages and delete.

7. Don’t use your own Favicon

This is another common mistake that new bloggers often make. They do not use their own favicon. This favicon file is very small to look at but reflects your brand and professionalism. Here I have made a list of some favicon generator websites, using which you can easily create a good favicon for your WordPress blog.

After creating a Favicon, you can upload it by going to Appearance >> Customize >> Site Identity section.

8. Using Google Images

Every blogger uses images for his article. But you choose the image for your article very carefully.

If you need images for your article, then you cannot use Google Images because those images can be copyright protected and they can get you in trouble later.

There are many websites in the market (FreeDigitalPhotos, MorgueFile, Pixabay, Pexels etc.) that offer free stock images. You can use a website that gives images for free and is related to your article.

9. Ignoring Security

WordPress is the most popular Content Management System (CMS) in the world. According to W3Tech, 32% of websites are built on WordPress. Due to its popularity, hackers target it more.

If you do not secure your WordPress website, hackers can instantly hack your site, infect or delete all the data. They can steal any secret information, demand ransom, ruin your years of hard work.

Here you can learn – Website Security Tips – Full Guide

10. Using Admin for Username

The admin username is saved by default when you install WordPress. Although you can change it but the login username of your WordPress website or blog is admin, so change it immediately.

11. Using Weak Password

Hackers constantly try to login by guessing your username and password. so that they can access your site. If you use Weak Password for your site, then hackers can easily hack your blog.

Use the hardest password for your site, so that no one can guess the password. Also, it changes at intervals of some time. Make the password as complex and strong as possible, using uppercase A, lowercase a, number 1, the special character #$-‘^& etc.

12. Not Using Well-Coded Theme

There are many themes available for WordPress in the market. Not all of them are well coded and secure. And if you install such themes on your site, then it greatly affects your website SEO. Also your blog can be hacked.

Apart from this, use a fast loading theme for your site. You can install premium themes from Mythemshop, Themeforest and StudioPress on your site which are well coded and speed optimized. But if your budget is less, then you can use free themes like GeneratePress or Astra theme.

Note: Never use pirated themes. This can put water on your hard work, that is, your website can be hacked or your traffic can be redirected.

13. Not taking complete backup of website

Backup is the most important part of any website. However, when you start a website, it is not that important. But there are many users who never pay attention to it.

If you do not take backup of your WordPress site from time to time and there is any problem with your blog, then you will not be able to restore your blog or website and all your hard work will be in vain.

14. Do not take backup before making any changes

There are many users who do not back up their site before making major changes to their site and when their site breaks, they start looking for solutions.

But some of the same users make any changes by doing a full backup of their site and if there is a problem or issue in their site, then they immediately restore their site by backup and do it as before.

So when you make any major changes to your site, do a complete backup first.

15. Not Updating WordPress Core, Themes and Plugins

The WordPress developer team regularly updates WordPress to fix its bugs, security patches, etc. If you do not take the update seriously, then you may have to face security vulnerabilities. Hackers can inject malware into your site.

Also, keep plugins and themes up-to-date. If you do not update your site’s themes and plugins regularly, you may face security vulnerabilities. So whenever updates come, update them immediately.

But keep one thing in mind, do not use plugins and themes that have not been updated for years. You use their alternatives.

16. Won’t Change WordPress Database Table Prefix Name

The name of the WordPress database table prefix begins with wp_. To view it, login to cPanel and go to the phpMyAdmin section. Here you will see the name of the site’s Database Table Prefix wp_comments, wp_options, wp_links etc.

Hackers are well aware of this default database table prefix. SQL injections can severely damage a site’s database. But you can avoid such attacks by changing the name of Database Table Prefix. For example, by changing wp_, some can name it accordingly. Like, mywp_, xizq_, istc_, xzxi_ etc.

17. Not Disabling File Editing

If a hacker hacks into your blog, he can edit or delete any of the themes and plugin files from the dashboard. Therefore it is very important to secure the dashboard.

To Disable Theme and Plugin Editing from WordPress Website Dashboard /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. Paste the code below before the */ line.

define( 'DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true );

Add this code to the wp-config.php file. This will disable the editing feature from your site’s dashboard. To enter the code, log in to your hosting’s cPanel, then navigate to File manager >> Root Folder. Here you can see your wp-config.php.

Note: Before entering the code, back up your wp-config.php file.

18. Not securing the WP-Config.php file

The wp-config.php file stores important data such as MySQL settings, secret keys, database table prefixes, etc.

So it is very important to secure it. To secure, login to cPanel. After that navigate to File manager >> Root Folder. Here you will see the wp-config.php file. Now you have to set its Permission to 400 or 440. So that no other user can read or write it.

Apart from this, you can disable the WP-Config.php editing feature by putting the following code in .htaccess,

<files wp-config.php>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</files>

It is very important to keep the wp-config.php file safe, otherwise the data of the WordPress website can be hacked and hacked through this file.

19. Keeping Directory Browsing ON

Directory browsing means that people can easily see your site’s photos, files, folders, subfolders, directories, etc.

Through this hackers try to know which file of your site is where, and what weaknesses are hidden in it.

Some WordPress folders like wp-content, wp-includes store sensitive data. Which can be easily seen by directory browsing. So not disabling directory browsing is an open invitation for hackers to hack.

To disable directory browsing, you have to paste a simple code at the end of the .htaccess file.

Options All -Indexes

20. Not Using HTTPS

HTTPS is one of the Google ranking factors. Because Google wants a more secure web right now. So Google is using it as one of the ranking factors. Sites that have HTTPS enabled perform well in the SERPs and get more traffic.

If your site is still HTTP, move it to HTTPS immediately.

21. Edit or Customize functions.php or .htaccess file without backing up

The functions.php Or .htaccess file is the most important part of your site. If you edit or customize it without backing it up, then a small mistake in it can break your site. There may be a 403 forbidden error or some other issue in your site.

Therefore, before editing or customizing them, make sure to back them up so that you can easily restore them in case of any problem.

22. Instead of making changes in the child theme, making changes to the parent theme

There are many bloggers who, while designing or customizing or editing their blog, start editing or inserting code in their parent theme which is absolutely wrong. If you do this too, don’t do it again. Cause when the theme update will come and when you update it, it will be default again i.e. all your customization and editing will be deleted.

But all these changes you make in the child theme, then even after updating the parent theme, your customization and editing will not be affected.

23. Using Too Many Plugins

I have seen many bloggers who each use a plugin for a small thing. Too many plugins can slow down your site. You use plugins that can do multiple things for your site.

Like Yoast SEO – When you install it on your site, there is no need to install different plugins for site indexing, sitemap, custom title, meta description etc.

One thing to keep in mind, always use well-coded plugins. There are many such plugins in the market whose coding is very bad. If you install them on your site, then they can badly affect your site performance.

24. Deactivate and Do Not Remove Unused Plugins

If there are any deactivate plugins on your site, delete them immediately. Otherwise you may face security issue. With the help of Deactivate plugin, hackers can install malware in your site.

On the other hand, Unused Plugins affect your site performance and increase the size of the backup file.

25. Uploading Images Without Compressing

If you use a lot of images on your blog or website, then it is very important to resize and compress them. It reduces your image size and improves your site load time.

27. Not Using Cache Plugin

Cache Plugins is a must-have plugin for every WordPress blog or website. It boosts your website loading speed.

There are many Caching plugins available for WordPress. But W3 Total Cache is the best plugin among them all which comes with features like page caching, browser caching, object caching, database caching and minification. Alternatively you can use WP Super Cache plugin.

28. Not Using a CDN

CDN also boosts website loading speed. It creates a cache version of your site on its servers and serves content to users through those servers that are closest to the user’s location. It reduces your server load and improves website loading speed.

Currently, I use CloudFlare on my site. This is a very popular CDN company.

29. Ignoring Website Speed ​​Loading Speed

No one likes to visit slow loading website. If your site loads very slowly, then visitors will not visit your site.

Also Google is using page speed as a ranking factor. If your site loads fast, then it will perform well in SERPs.

Fast loading affects both website ranking & user experience and ranks well in search results.

Quick tips to improve website loading speed

• ​​​​​​​upgrade to PHP 7.2
• Optimize your image size
• Keep only useful plugins
• Delete unwanted media
• Minify CSS and JS Files
• Use a good Cache plugin
• Minimize Redirects

Here is a detailed guide to increase the loading speed of WordPress website –

30. Not Changing WordPress Permalink Structure

WordPress default URL structure is not SEO friendly and it looks something like this.

https://domain.com/?p=123

But don’t worry you can easily convert it to SEO friendly URL. All you have to do is click on Settings >> Permalinks option and select “Post name”.

https://www.domain.com/sample-post/

31. Not Unchecking Search Engine Visibility

WordPress comes with a built-in Search Engine Visibility setting. When you launch a new site, by checking this option, you can prevent search engine bots from having website Crawl & Index.

But if you forget to uncheck after checking it, then your site will not appear in Google search result.

To uncheck it, log in to your WordPress site and go to Settings >> Readings page and uncheck the Search Engine Visibility option.

32. Not Submitting Sitemap

Sitemap helps search engine bots to crawl your website content better and index it faster in search engines.

33. Making the Site or Blog Too Colorful

Select a clean and simple theme for your site or blog. But there are many beginners who make their site so colorful that they start distracting the attention of the reader.

Bad design reduces the number of visitors. Whereas a good design increases the number of visitors to the site and makes a good impression on the visitors.

34. Not Using Social Share Buttons

Add a social share button at the bottom of each of your posts or at the beginning of the post so that visitors can easily share your post on their favorite social platform. It helps in increasing your website traffic and helps in attracting the attention of other readers.

35. Using Too Many Categories

Categories do the work of navigation on your site. Create the necessary categories on your site. As you can see on this site only four categories have been used.

36. Not Using Contact Form

Contact form reflects your professionalism. Apart from this, if you list your email in the contact form, your email inbox will be filled with lots of spam emails.

37. Not Filtering Spam Comment

Spam Comments take unnecessary space on your WordPress hosting. There are many ways to remove and block spam comments from WordPress site. If you want, you can manually remove and delete it one by one, in which you will spend a lot of time.

Alternatively, you can use the Antispam plugin to deal with spam comments. This plugin automatically blocks spam comments on your site.

38. Not Creating Required Pages

There are many new bloggers who do not create necessary pages after creating their blog such as About me, contact us etc. Any site or blog looks unprofessional without these pages. If all these pages are not present on your site too, then create this page quickly.

39. Your blog is not mobile friendly

More than half of the searches are done by mobile and mobile searches have completely dominated desktop searches. In such a situation, if your site is not mobile friendly, then visitors will not stay on your site till late. Because your site will not look properly in their device. here is a guide – How to make wordpress website mobile friendly

40. Not Using Google Analytics

Google analytics shows your site stats that how is your site or blog performing? Where are the visitors to your site from? What do visitors like to read on your site etc. By analyzing all these data, you can easily know the interest of the visitor, you can boost your site traffic by creating content on the same basis.

41. Not Submitting the Site in Google Search Console

You can use Google Search Console to track your website performance (how is your site performing in Google). You can get valuable insights of your website such as Crawl errors, Ranking Keyword, impressions and many more from your Google Search Console account.

Apart from this, if any errors occur in your site, then Google Search Console will mail you.

42. Not setting the target country

If you want to get your website ranked in a specific country or are thinking of targeting the users of a specific country, then you can select the particular country in Google Search Console and let Google target the users of that particular country. can ask to do.

Go to the old version of Google Search Console, and click on Search Traffic >> International Targeting.

43. Do not use Authore Bio

Author Bio contains your image file and your detail (Bio) which is present at the bottom of your content or in the sidebar. It makes your content even more reliable. If your theme doesn’t allow showing Author Bio, you can use Author Bio plugin.

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Conclusion

Here I told you about 40+ Common WordPress Mistakes which are often done by new bloggers. So keep these mistakes in mind while building your own WordPress site, and try to avoid them!