Introduction
When it comes to WordPress, I believe that the first reaction of POD clothing sellers who have understood it is often “ Open source ” And “ Cheap ” . However, if you only focus on these two points, especially if you focus on “ Cheap ” Above, and did not find the complexity inside, then you may encounter a series of unexpected problems in the actual operation, when the time will inevitably find sigh, this WordPress is really everywhere is pit, not good to use! In order to let POD clothing sellers better understand WordPress, this article will reveal nine common pitfalls in the process of WordPress site construction for you, and provide practical ways to avoid pits to help you in the process of building a site.
Understanding WordPress: Open source and complex at the same time
WordPress is indeed an open source and powerful platform, it provides a wealth of plugins and themes, making it easy and fast to build websites. However, this openness also brings complexity, especially for beginners and some inexperienced developers, the slightest mistake can step into a variety of holes, so, what are the specific holes? How can we avoid it? Next, EZEJ Technology will explain it in detail for you.
1. Plug-in many ≠ Easy to use: plug-in is a disaster
Pit point: The number of WordPress plugins is dizzying, but the quality is uneven.
Method of avoiding pits:
- Select plugins with high ratings and large downloads.
- Clean up unused plug-ins regularly to avoid slowing down your website.
Because of the open source relationship, WordPress has quite a large number of users, and a large number of users leads to a large number of plug-ins developed by developers. As we all know, if a demand has less content to choose from, it will inevitably give us less time to choose, but there will also be a variety of problems, such as high price, high quality, and low quality. Or the functionality is not strong, but the same, if a demand for optional content is very much, in fact, it is not a good thing, because we can not judge whether this choice is the most suitable for us, especially the pursuit of cost-effective partners, but also afraid of high price to buy expensive, low price to buy the difference, which is prone to the above problems, plug-in is a disaster!
Therefore, in the face of complex plug-ins, we should fully understand the effects and content of these plug-ins, carefully choose, each decision, although it is bound to consume us more time and energy, but randomly selected plug-ins, once there is a problem, we will be trapped in endless trial and error, or many times, there is no chance of trial and error. Or in the process of trial and error, resulting in some unnecessary losses and risks, POD clothing industry partners, if you intend to WordPress site, must be careful to choose plug-ins, and actively understand, it is recommended to practical and functional strong priority.
2. Thousands of templates, pit points hidden inside
Pit points: ready-made theme templates look cool, but the code is bloated and poorly optimized.
Method of avoiding pits:
- Choose lightweight themes such as GeneratePress, Astra.
- Don't blindly pursue cool effects, pay attention to loading speed.
Whether it is a plug-in or a theme, one of the most important choices is actually the loading speed, because the loading speed of a website often determines the friendliness of the website, if the website loads slowly, in the pursuit of “ Speed ” In the era, even if you spend a lot of energy or money, introduce a lot of traffic, the other party is likely to leave without seeing your website, so whether it is the choice of plug-ins, or the choice of theme templates, it is necessary to choose without affecting the loading speed, of course, in the case of not affecting the loading speed (or the degree of impact is not high, the user cannot detect the situation, In the case of search engine friendly standards), as far as possible to enhance the user experience, is also what we need to do.
However, it should be noted that improving the user's experience is not a simple “ Cool ” Effect, but for their own target group, do stylized display effect, such as women's independent station in the target group is the youth of the student group, a variety of lively small fresh pictures and content, or the target group is urban sexy women, then more sexy styles, and the corresponding color matching, has become the focus of our planning. And elegant mature women “ A sense of high class” “ Casual style ” “ Lazy wind ” And so on, it is necessary for us to adapt and optimize for the target group.
3. Free hosting? Don't think too beautiful
Pit point: Free or ultra-cheap hosts have poor performance, slow speed, and even serious downtime problems.
Method of avoiding pits:
- Invest in reliable hosting services such as SiteGround and Bluehost.
- Domestic users can consider Ali Cloud, Tencent cloud, faster response.
In addition to the poor performance of the free or ultra-cheap host, the most common reality at present is that because of the volume, the cost of the host in the first year will be relatively low, and from the second year on, the cost of the host will increase year by year, so the POD clothing partners who have the intention to do WordPress independent stations must calculate the cost of this series. In addition, any independent station is not a short time to produce results, it takes a year or even longer to precipitate, in order to obtain the desired effect, so when we do independent stations, we must be patient, ready for long-term persistence, because unlike the online store of the e-commerce platform, the e-commerce platform has its own precise demand of traffic, as long as you are willing to pay, It can be converted in a short time, and then according to the advertising strategy, after accumulating enough sales, it can naturally obtain natural traffic import, which is caused by the ranking mechanism, and independent stations are different, independent station users often come from the drainage of search engines and social media, the former is mostly “ Seek knowledge ” Users, the latter are mostly “ Interest ” Users, both with the e-commerce platform “ Demand ” Users are different, need longer time and cycle transformation, so that these potential demand users, a little trust in your website, but the same, once trust, purchase, get a good shopping experience, she has a great probability to stay and become your loyal fans, which is difficult to do on many e-commerce platforms.
4. Database problems, don't wait for the explosion to regret
Pit point: WordPress relies on MySQL database, but many people do not understand database management.
Method of avoiding pits:
- Back up the database regularly, using a tool such as UpdraftPlus or All-in-One WP Migration.
- Set up caching for the database, such as WP Rocket combined with database optimization features.
Database is the most important core component of a website, paying attention to the database, such as listening to a few MySQL database courses, understand the operation mechanism and principle of MySQL database, may be of great help to you, of course, the operation mechanism and principle we can actually not explore, but the database management must be understood. At least learn to use the appropriate tools, this is very important, must not be overlooked.
5. The website is too slow, the user has no patience to wait
Pit point: theme bloated, too many plug-ins, image is not optimized resulting in slow loading speed.
Method of avoiding pits:
- Use an image compression tool, such as the TinyPNG or Smush plugin.
- Enable caching plug-ins such as WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache and work with CDNS such as Cloudflare to speed up global access.
Before talking about plug-ins and theme templates, it has already mentioned the problem of website loading, and with the continuous construction of the website, with the increase of content, if you add too much content on each page, especially on the home page, even if your plug-in is not much, the theme template is clear and simple, it will still cause you to load more and more slowly, so, Developing good page editing habits is a very important thing, we can not only use image compression tools in the actual process, maximize the retention effect at the same time, adjust the size of the image, but also use preload, cache plug-ins, etc., to improve access speed.
Of course, there may be more technology in the future, we should continue to pay attention to, finally, say again, the speed of website loading is very important, very important, whether it is for users, or for search engines that want to get natural traffic, the speed of website loading is a very important standard, small partners must pay attention to, Optimize our site at all times.
6. Ignoring security issues, the website becomes a hacker nest
Pit point: WordPress is open source, and its openness brings convenience, but it also becomes a key target for hackers.
Method of avoiding pits:
- Regularly update WordPress cores, plugins, and themes to fix bugs. Install security plug-ins such as Wordfence or Sucuri.
- Set complex passwords to avoid weak passwords.
Network security has always been a difficult thing, but fortunately, our host generally chooses a large service provider, which can ensure that we are not attacked by the vast majority, and has basic network security and data security, which is also one of the core reasons why it is recommended that you choose a good host service provider before, in this case, We just need to protect our passwords and secure the Internet environment. Although it is very simple, it is also quite important, and with the accumulation of more and more rich websites, the more attention should be paid to the arrangement in this area.
7. SEO is not good, efforts in vain
Pit point: WordPress has obvious SEO advantages, but many people think that everything is fine with a plug-in, and the results of keyword layout, link structure, content quality are not good, and the ranking is naturally not good.
Method of avoiding pits:
- Install Yoast SEO or Rank Math plugins to optimize page titles, descriptions, and keywords.
- Improve the quality of article content, focusing on originality and user experience.
SEO is something that all independent stations need to consider, just like opening an online store on the Amazon platform, the most concerned is natural traffic, independent stations also need natural traffic, and want to get, you need to do SEO optimization, for now, after there is a theme template and optimized loading speed, the focus of each page next, It's about SEO+ user experience, and many times, the two are often linked.
For example, the core point: Keywords, choose the most accurate matching keywords, meet the needs, pay attention to the pain points of the keywords, not only can attract a more accurate target group, and based on these keywords to create content, whether it is the product details page, or blog, will inevitably contain the solution to the needs, or pain points of the content, which for users, is what they want to know. If you can discover or get the content you want, the user experience is naturally good, of course, the user experience is not only the content, but also your layout design, and even the narrative or writing skills are in line with each other's reading habits, as well as website operation habits, and this point, you need to refer to excellent peers or TOP websites.
8. Oneself toss later difficult to maintain
Pit point: Many people in order to save money, build their own website from beginning to end, the result is a pile of bugs after the website is online, and no one can take over the later maintenance.
Method of avoiding pits:
- If your budget allows, enlist the help of a professional team or reliable freelancer.
- It's okay to learn the basics on your own, but don't pursue them blindly “ All on my own ” .
Many times, we pay attention to the cost, often ignore an important cost component, that is, their own labor costs, many start-up teams, or single entrepreneurs, when considering the cost, usually will not calculate their own labor costs, ignore their own labor value, which leads to a lot of times they like “ Do it yourself ” Whether it is important or not, whether it is good at it or not, I would rather spend a lot of time learning some skills or techniques that may only be used once, rather than looking for “ Mature ” Of course, we have an old saying that more skills do not press the body, but similarly, the professional things to professional people to do, but also one of the ancients wisdom summary.
Therefore, with the most effective way, the most cost-effective (short -, medium - and long-term considerations) program to solve their current problems, is what we should consider the most, in addition, we should not refuse to learn, but also, when doing things, we must learn to calculate their own labor costs, to put limited energy and time, Spend on things you're good at, more valuable, and more productive, rather than gobbling it all up.
9. Migrating websites is more difficult than expected
Many people think that moving a WordPress site from one host to another is easy, but in practice, you may encounter routing errors, database issues, and even some functionality failures.
Method of avoiding pits:
- Use a Migration plug-in, such as Duplicator or All-in-One WP Migration.
- Be sure to back up all files and databases before migrating!
Backup is a network worker, or even any professional should do the most thing, we can not use the backup, but must leave the backup, because only with backup, we have the confidence to deal with sudden crises.
Key steps to improve WordPress security
Keywords: WordPress security
While the openness of WordPress has brought convenience, it has also made it a key target for hackers. Here are some key steps to improve WordPress security:
- Regular updates: Regularly updates WordPress cores, plugins, and themes to fix known vulnerabilities.
- Install security plug-ins: Install security plug-ins such as Wordfence or Sucuri for increased protection.
- Make passwords complex: Avoid weak passwords and make passwords complex and hard to guess.
Conclusion
WordPress is indeed a powerful and flexible platform for building websites, but its complexity also means that you need to face many potential problems, for the vast majority of our website architecture, code and other content is not enough to understand POD clothing sellers, make use of a variety of web tools, It is very important to understand the corresponding principles and knowledge and the use of the corresponding tools. In the end, I hope that with the tips provided in this article, you can better address these challenges and ensure that your WordPress website is both efficient and secure.
FAQ
1. How to choose the right WordPress plugin?
- Select plugins with high ratings, large downloads, and frequent updates.
2. Which topics are suitable for beginners?
GeneratePress and Astra are two themes that are lightweight and easy to use.
3. Is free hosting really unreliable?
- Yes, free hosting is usually poor performance and slow, it is recommended to invest in reliable paid hosting services.
4. How to improve the loading speed of WordPress websites?
- Use the image compression tool, open the cache plug-in, and cooperate with the CDN service.
5. How to ensure the security of WordPress website?
- Update your system regularly, install security plug-ins, and set complex passwords.
