With around a 30% of all content managed sites using Wordpress it is no wonder people are big fans. An Open Source platform that is well established it boasts has a high user base of both experienced developers and home coders.
This popularity and the generally easy learning curve to at least get started with Wordpress is also it’s downfall however! Here are 3 mistakes people often make with their Wordpress websites.
#1 - There’s a Plugin for that… #
These words are often uttered in jest in more established design studios, however being that there really is a plugin for pretty much any occasion if you don’t have the skills to create some functionality the temptation is to just add a plugin. Every single one you add is another potential route in for a hacker, especially if the plugin is not from a reputable source. Always have a look to see when it was last downloaded and how many people are using it. If you can avoid using a plugin do so.. The fewer you have, generally the faster your site will be.
#2 - Hi Res Images #
Another common issue and one that is easily fixed is the use if huge images on your website. Generally a good theme should have some sort of image cropping to stop this happening, if you want to go the whole hog there are specific services such as Cloudinary that will deliver specific sized and optimised images to the device viewing your site. However if your theme does not manage the size of your images, try to keep them at an appropriate size and then run them through a website such as tinypng.com.
#3 - Back Ups #
There is no worse feeling in web development than realising your site has been compromised. Actually yes there is, realising you don’t have an appropriate back up system in place to get yourself back online. This is especially crucial if you run an ecommerce website and depend on it for income! There are a few ways to approach this. Firstly your hosting package should come with a back up facility. If so make sure you can access the back ups in the event of your site going down. A back up plugin such as Updraft is another option, or if you use Jetpack it now has back up facilities as part of it’s offering too. Make sure you know the process of restoring a backup and test them occasionally to make sure they really are working.
There is always something you can do to improve your website, but ensuring you are not making these mistakes will result in a faster load speeds, and you will sleep better at night knowing it is safely backed up too!