Enhancing your WordPress Website: The do’s and don’ts.

Having a WordPress website is an exciting thing. We are playing with an array of options and resources that we get after signing up with the platform. We also set our eyes on reaching success with our online venture, making an ideal personal blog or one of the best WordPress e-commerce sites.

But the first shot of success has not even arrived yet, and it has been months. What could be the reason for it? It may perhaps be that you are totally missing out on some important modifications which would upscale your website and make it better.

At the same time, it could be the wrong practices which you need to stop immediately. It is important to understand where you are wrong. This article is dedicated to the WordPress do’s and don’ts that you all need to keep in mind.

Image by Werner Moser from Pixabay

Do’s…

Center your WordPress web design on the mobile version

We have already talked about mobile marketing and web design, and it is one of those topics that everyone talks about, but hardly most of the website owners pay attention to it. If we do a survey of web page designers today, we will realize that they are still designing the desktop version as the basis for later adapting to the mobile version.

But for quite some time now, we have noticed a significant change in this regard. The relevance of the use of the smartphone and other devices can no longer be ignored as a means of accessing web pages. Therefore, we must seek to optimize and improve the experience of our WordPress website on these devices and then see how it adapts to the desktop version, either in responsive or adaptive web design mode.

Faced with the fact that more than 60% of our users access from mobile, design our website for the mobile device first, and then go to the desktop version. It can save us many headaches because we would be going from the most difficult to the most simple.

This way of working is what is known as mobile-first. It is very important to adapt to this reality, and we have seen many cases where the adaptability of the web to the mobile version is usually the best.

Plan and design experiences tailored to the end-user

This is one of the most important tips to improve any WordPress website, which should be implemented right now. Each WordPress website should be different since it caters to different niches in the market.

In the future, we will see how web pages are designed in WordPress based on the knowledge of the needs of the client we want to capture. The layout of the information, the font size, even the colours, come into play when we are going to design a WordPress website.

For example, an older adult does not have the same computer skills as a teenager, and therefore, a website that is aimed at senior citizens should consider functionality adapted to the skills that the user has.

The biggest problem with the design of web pages, either in WordPress or some other CMS platform, is that the user is idealized because this makes it much easier to define a profile.

Currently, it is recommended to opt for more real user models. It is about including exceptions to the rule and with this it is intended that the page be more functional.

The truth is that very few people are like the ideal that companies build when they plan the design of a web page, which causes the result to not meet most of the expectations of the real user of the web.

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

In this sense, we can already see how we try to satisfy all the individuals within our niche, and we should be thinking about how to achieve it to improve our WordPress website.

In general, this is achieved with a more friendly content structure, a font size for texts that can be read comfortably, elements of easy interaction, colour schemes that make the experience more pleasant and some other considerations like that.

Offers SSL and secure connections over HTTP

We make this recommendation because there are still web pages in WordPress that offer only unsecured access  The HTTP vs HTTPS debate is pretty clear.

Unsecured access is a negative point for our website in almost any commercial sector we find and the services we offer via the web. In many cases, it is a barrier to access the web content itself. If a user finds our website and an unsecured connection is established, then the conversion funnel will not follow a customer.

The way to move to a secure website is to buy and install an SSL certificate. Buying these certificates should not be a major problem. In fact, hosting services offer these certificates with an annual payment.

Use your own images and photographs, run away from free galleries!

When planning how to improve our WordPress website, we must focus on being unique, and that is achieved, in part, with the images. If you spend as much time on the Internet, you will have noticed that all blogs and even corporate pages, or the vast majority, use images from free galleries for their web pages. That detracts from the originality of the website.

As we know that the use of our own images can improve the perception of users regarding our business proposal, so the new strategy is to forget the graphic resources that we find on the Internet and create our own. We will not deny that this may mean an additional cost to the creation of a website, but it is necessary to do so, and the benefits that this brings well make it worthwhile.

We are not only talking at the level of icons but about the referential images that we place so that the content is more attractive.

The photographs should be your own. We are already tired of using the same photographs on all the web pages we visit. Again, it is a matter of originality.

Personally, we think that the subject of photography is something we can, and should, immediately include in our digital marketing strategy. It costs us nothing to photograph whatever we are talking about on our website, in fact, that can give us greater flexibility with respect to design, colours and other aesthetic aspects.

If we understand that in recent years there has been a photographic revolution with the release of smartphones with very good cameras, then we will not find it very difficult to believe that we can have our own high-quality images on our website.

Improve your WordPress website and automate processes with paid plugins (SaaS)

What we have seen so far, are plugins that install and work alone, without anyone administering them. That trend is on the side. Now the approach of plugins, and we will see it this year, is the installation of software that is managed by its creators and for which a monthly or annual amount is paid.

Of course, this will happen in cases where it is justified. For example, we can see it in plugins that have to do with the functionality of the website, perhaps in SEO or web analytics plugins. Plugins that add pieces of codes for the web to perform some very specific action will not be susceptible to this trend.

Don’ts…

Fail to configure permanent links correctly

It is one of the things that less importance is given at the beginning and that more headaches can bring you in the future. Just as it is important to have a good structure of categories, it is important to have a good structure of URLs.

Users who start in WordPress, with impatience and desire to publish things, begin to write and publish without looking at the URL structure of the content they have just published, and many times we see URLs with dates or even more strange things. This is not only bad for SEO, but also for the experience of visits to your site.

Image by formsteller_de from Pixabay

Overpay for services

You will have a more than a clear idea that in order to have your website on the Internet, you need a domain and hosting. Almost all hosting companies offer different plans to hire: there are basic plans and more advanced plans. Many people hire the most expensive option thinking that it will be better for their website, but it really doesn’t have to.

If you are starting with a blog or are going to set up a simple page for your company, you will not need to pay more for plans with more storage or transfer capacity. There will be time to hire a superior plan as your website grows. Look for promising service providers like The WP Help, which astonishingly offers a money-back guarantee!

Not creating backup copies of data

This may be one of the most serious mistakes. The problem is that you will not realize the importance of having a backup of your site until you have a big problem. And it doesn’t have to be because of a hacking, a bad update or touching where it shouldn’t be is enough for your website to jump through the air.

We strongly recommend that you install and configure a backup plugin. Many allow you to schedule periodic backups that will also be stored in your Dropbox or Google Drive account.

Not installing important updates

This is terrible. Many users find a warning that there are 7 or 8 pending updates (at least). Sometimes it is for fear of clicking something, and that everything is sometimes broken it is for carelessness, sometimes for not giving it importance, for lack of time… the fact is that there are always things to update and this can even be dangerous.

Playing with PHP files

There are WordPress users who follow Internet tutorials to add items or functions to their sites. In many of these tutorials, you have to touch the PHP files found in Appearance> Editor.

Be especially careful every time you touch these files. If you are not sure that you are doing it, we recommend that you do not, because there is a danger of loading the entire web. In the event that in the end, you decide to touch them, remember to make a backup and edit the files from the WordPress editor itself.

So, now that you know what the do’s and don’ts of having a WordPress website are; make sure you follow our sound tips and steer clear from the mistakes we have added. Sometimes, it is all a matter of staying on top of these fundamental details that give your site the edge you are looking for!