When you ask people about which blogging platform is the best to use, the common answer is WordPress. There’s just so many possibilities with WordPress, from all the unique free features they offer to the premium ones that will definitely give your website a significant boost.
But because you can do so many things with WordPress, there’s often a lot of things that can go wrong. So for first-time website owners out there, here are some common mistakes you should avoid when setting up a WordPress page.
Not knowing the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org
The most common mistake is signing up for one type of WordPress, when you should be on the other type of WordPress platform. The main difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org is that the former is a blogging service. These are the websites with the .wordpress.com format in their URL. The latter is what you’ll want if you need a website you can start from scratch. It has features like all the plug-ins you can imagine for social sharing and search engine boosts.
Purchasing features you don’t need
There are so many add-ons available for WordPress users, but the most basic ones you need to make sure you purchase first is a domain name and WordPress hosting. Note that there are Internet domain registrars that will upsell services so that you keep thinking you need all of them like added protection, email account set-up, and more. But evaluate whether you do need some of those add-ons or if you’re website will be fine with the initial set-up.
Once your website has grown both in traffic and conversion, that’s the time when you should be considering additional features which can help you manage the surge in traffic and keep your user’s information safe.
No data backups
Even if you’re still starting with your website, it’s important to set-up an automated backup system so that you don’t lose any data. Especially if this is an e-Commerce business, you’d want backups for your backups too. There are WordPress plug-ins you can download which you can set-up so it can automatically create backups of your page. You should also store backups on a remote location like Dropbox or Google Drive via the UpDraftPlus plug-in.
Not setting up Google Analytics
Google Analytics will tell you the important things you need to know about your visitor’s behaviour when they come on your website. For instance, you’d know which pages don’t work through the bounce rate. You can also check how many have converted in a specific month, see what people are using as search terms, and more. Not setting up Google Analytics would mean that you’re missing out on information that you could’ve used to better your page.
Forgetting to setup a contact form and an email list
What you want is to create a relationship with your visitors. You can do this through setting up a contact form so they can conveniently reach out to you and building an email list so they can get updates on your activities. Remember a huge chunk of your visitors will not come back to your website unless prompted, which you can do through emails. And that most of them will have inquiries that your FAQs will not be able to answer, which you can address through a contact form.
Make sure you keep these mistakes in mind when setting up your WordPress website so that you know what will hinder your website’s growth.
