The idea behind owning a website has been appealing to many people. It is also one of the best online money-income sources available where the sky is the limit. You can go from 0-100 very quick but also end up wasting your time creating a website that is no match for your competitors.
We all make mistakes, it’s what makes us human, but learning from them and anticipating them before they happen is the key factor for success in the website business. There are close to 2 billion active websites by now and only 20% of them are making some money.
There are many reasons why websites fail within the first year, and in this article, we decided to highlight some of the key mistakes that everyone should avoid.
- Choosing Free Themes
Even though you might be running on a tight budget, and choose the free theme option for your website, you have to know that most of them are not good looking. Obviously, they are not terrible and might be good for beginners to practice with, but if you want to create a successful website you must invest in a premium theme.
Most of the free themes do not have a variety of options and features, which might not represent your brand well enough. That is why it is always important to choose a well-structured premium theme and offer users graphics and features as exciting as a Kentucky Derby horse race in order to get users engaged.
- Forget to do Back Up
Most of us are going to start looking for a solution once a problem occurs. In this case, it is probably too late, just because there are many crushes, hackers, and viruses that can destroy your website. WordPress is doing an amazing job keeping all crushes to minimum and applies some protection on every website. However, you should always keep your website backed up just in case something wrong happens.
- Choosing the wrong WordPress
Beginners often do not know that there are two different WordPress platforms. There is a self-hosted one – WordPress.org and the other one which is free – WordPress.com. Both have their pros and cons, but it is very important that you know the difference between the two in order to avoid future migrations.
- Not paying attention to website comments
Once your website starts getting some traffic, you will see some comments on your posts and pages. If you do not pay attention to them you might lose the opportunity to get in touch with some users and answer some questions. Most of the time there will be spam comments or external links to malware websites which are potential risks for your website and the users browsing your website. You must install plugins that will clean them right away.
- Creating overcomplicated design
After you buy your premium theme, there will be many features and widgets free to use. It is not necessary that you use all of them. You have to create a pleasant experience for users where they can find the content they are looking for without breaking a sweat. Too many widgets also will slow down your website and affect your rankings. Keeping it simple is the best wayto create your website.
- Too many plugins
Most of the time plugins will act as life-savers especially for beginners or people who do not know how to code. However, installing too many plugins will make your website extremely slow. In order to avoid such problem, you should only install plugins that are necessary and delete everything else.
These are some of the most common mistakes that everyone should avoid in order to have a better chance of creating the perfect website. It is important that you always stay updated with the latest news, just because running a website might seem simple, but there are many things to do in order to be successful.
