Common Mistakes to Avoid When Setting Up a WordPress Site

Common mistakes to avoid when setting up a WordPress site include:

• Not backing up your site regularly, which risks losing data during updates or errors.
• Ignoring updates for WordPress core, themes, and plugins, leading to security vulnerabilities and compatibility issues.
• Using too many plugins, which can slow down your site and cause conflicts.
• Mixing up posts and pages: Posts are for timely, blog-style content, while pages are for static content like About or Contact pages. Confusing these can make site management difficult as your site grows.
• Confusing categories and tags: Categories are broad groupings (like a table of contents), while tags are more specific labels (like an index). Misusing them can hurt SEO and site organization.
• Choosing the wrong hosting platform, which can cause slow loading times, poor security, and inadequate support.
• Failing to delete default content such as the sample page and "Hello World" post after installation, which can look unprofessional.
• Copy-pasting formatted text or images directly into WordPress without cleaning formatting or properly uploading images, which can introduce unwanted HTML code or hotlink images from other sites.

Avoiding these mistakes helps ensure your WordPress site is secure, fast, well-organized, and easy to manage.