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3 Common WordPress Mistakes To Avoid

WordPress is the most widely CMS (Content Management System) in the world today. Many well-known organizations such as Harvard University, NASA, Boston College, Vogue, IZOD, TechCrunch, Sony Music, TED along with many more rely on the WordPress CMS to run their website or blog. The WordPress CMS has become extremely popular due to the fact that it is easy to use, free, open-source, easy to customize, has loads of plugins/extensions that are easily available and much more. Below, we will discuss what are 3 common mistakes that can be avoided during the WordPress development process by either yourself if you are doing it in-house or with the WordPress development partner you are working with or even if you already using the WordPress CMS:

✓ Not Updating WordPress – You may have WordPress already running or are in the process of creating a new WordPress-based website. Whatever the case may be, updating your WordPress website is one of the most important things to keep your website safe as well as functional. For example in the year 2013, they were 7 updates for WordPress and 4 of them were related to maintenance/security features. Unless you have a major reason to not update the WordPress CMS after your WordPress development such as plugins not being compatible, this is something that needs to be taken seriously as it can affect the stability or up-time of your website. It is strongly recommended that you get your website updated by the WordPress development company you are working with as they will have the necessary expertise to do this easily. If you are using someone else or doing it in-house, you need to ensure that your website is completely backed up before you update the WordPress CMS so that you don’t have any problems. Many times, if you update WordPress incorrectly, many features will be disabled or your website can also stop working! However, the more up to date your CMS is, the less problems you will have both from a security perspective as well as functional perspective.

✓ Not Updating Your Plugins – This is another common mistake that occurs after your WordPress development is complete and your website is live. If you aren’t updating your plugins when you see the update notice within the WordPress CMS (updates page on your dashboard), you can put yourself into majors problems or frustrations. It’s a very good idea to keep all your plugins up to date and do them one by one as sometimes WordPress plugins conflict with each other. As earlier recommended when updating the WordPress CMS, ensure that you backup your complete website before applying any updates to your WordPress plugins. The benefit of updating your plugins is that you are up to date security wise as well as whenever updates happen on your WordPress plugins, you will get more features. Lastly, if they are any confusions or concerns, you should address them with the WordPress development company you are working with who can advise you on the best course of action. Not keeping your WordPress plugins updated is a very common mistake that occurs and something that can be easily avoided with some proper planning.

✓ Not Backing Up Your Entire Website – This further emphasizes beyond point 1 and 2 the importance of backing up your entire website. Just simply backing up your database will not solve your problem if you run into any issues. You want to backup your full website including plugins, themes, widgets, settings and so on in case you have any problems so you can easily restore your website without any hiccups. One of the best tools to use is a premium WordPress plugin known as BackupBuddy which is super easy to use and highly recommended tool. This plugin backups and literally clones your whole website including settings so that in case you face any problems such as your website getting hacked or issues while updating your plugins or your CMS, you can easily restore your website as is without any issues with the BackupBuddy plugin. It is good practice to backup your whole website at least weekly to ensure you don’t have any problems. If you are using a WordPress development partner to work with, ask them what the protocol around this is so that you are not faced with any issues. The biggest thing about having a complete backup is that in case your website gets hacked or someone updates it incorrectly, you can easily restore your whole website without a problem.

Summary
They are many common mistakes that happen during WordPress development or even after your website is launched but the most common is backup/update related issues that occur. The above list is some of the most common as well as major problems that occur with the WordPress CMS in our experience. The common theme amongst this list is that by keeping your website updated and by backing up your entire website (plugins, themes etc.) you can avoid many of the most common problems which occur with the WordPress CMS. If you keep these simple things in mind, it can save you a lot of future headaches. If you are looking for an experienced, trusted and capable WordPress development partner, please feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital for any of your web development or digital marketing needs. If you have any suggestions or experiences about some common WordPress mistakes that you have encountered or know of, please feel free to share and comment below.