Common WordPress Mistakes Wrecking Your Website Development Efforts

10 Jul 2025
Common WordPress Mistakes Wrecking Your Website Development Efforts

WordPress powers 43.1% of all websites and dominates over 60.5% of the CMS market (as of 2024), making it the most popular platform for website development across the globe. Its flexibility, plugin ecosystem, and user-friendliness make it a favourite for businesses, bloggers, and developers alike.

However, with a large number of users comes a flood of common mistakes — and these missteps can quietly undermine your site’s performance, SEO, and security.

So if you’re building or managing a WordPress site, it’s time to ask yourself: Are these website mistakes silently wrecking your website development efforts?

Let’s uncover the most damaging WordPress errors and how to fix them — before they cost you traffic, conversions, and credibility.

1. Choosing Poorly Coded or Bloated Themes

Your website theme is the foundation of your website. However, many users select a theme based solely on its design, without considering how well it’s coded.

Why It’s a Problem

  • Slows down your site
  • Hurts SEO performance
  • Increases the risk of plugin conflicts and security issues

What to Look For

  • Responsive website design for all devices
  • Clean, lightweight code
  • Compatibility with major plugins
  • Frequent updates and strong reviews

Recommended WordPress Themes

Astra, Schema, OceanWP, Kadence, Divi

110 Digi Tech helps you select and configure high-performance themes built for speed, scalability, and SEO.

Astra website development wordpress theme

2. Ignoring WordPress Security

Over 90,000 websites are hacked daily, and 83% of them are running WordPress. That statistic doesn’t mean WordPress is unsafe. It means many website owners are skipping the basics of security.

Risks of Ignoring WordPress Security

  • Malware infections
  • Brute-force attacks
  • Google blacklisting
  • Stolen user data

WordPress Security Best Practices

  • Use reliable hosting providers
  • Install security plugins like Wordfence, AIOS, or Defender.
  • Set up SSL, HTTPS, and firewalls.
  • Keep everything updated
  • Use strong passwords and enable two-factor authentication.

At 110 Digi Tech, we adhere to enterprise-grade WordPress security protocols to safeguard your site.

3. Installing Too Many Plugins

Plugins extend your website’s functionality, but too many (or poorly coded ones) can cause more harm than good.

Common Issues of Installing Many Plugins

  • Slower website speed
  • Higher risk of plugin conflicts
  • HTML and security errors

What You Should Do

  • Install only essential plugins
  • Remove inactive or unnecessary plugins.
  • Choose plugins that are actively maintained and highly rated.

Essential Plugins to Consider

WooCommerce, WP Rocket, WPForms, All in One SEO, Yoast SEO

At 110 Digi Tech, we conduct regular plugin audits to ensure your site stays lean and fast.

3. Using Poor Navigation and UX Design

Your website’s design isn’t just about looks — it’s about function. User experience (UX) and intuitive navigation play a crucial role in how visitors interact with your site. If users can’t find what they need quickly, they’ll bounce — and probably won’t return.

Poor navigation isn’t just frustrating — it damages your conversion rates, increases bounce rates, and even signals to Google that your site lacks usability.

How Bad UX Impacts Website Performance:

  • Broken or unclear navigation menus confuse users
  • Cluttered layouts overwhelm visitors and distract from your core message
  • Unclear CTAs (Calls-to-Action) lower conversion rates
  • Non-responsive design breaks the experience on mobile
  • Excessive pop-ups reduce trust and interrupt the flow
  • Broken links hurt SEO and user trust

Best Practices for Clean UX & Navigation:

  • Use clear and descriptive menu labels that match user intent
  • Group related pages under logical categories
  • Adopt mobile-friendly navigation like hamburger menus and sticky headers
  • Test all internal links to ensure they lead to live, relevant content
  • Keep page layouts clean and avoid unnecessary clutter
  • Highlight CTAs clearly to guide users toward conversion goals
  • Minimise distractions and focus on a smooth journey from entry to action

At 110 Digi Tech, we design websites with human behaviour and UX psychology in mind. Every layout, menu, and click is intentional, ensuring your visitors feel confident and in control at every stage of their journey.

Pro Tip: Great UX isn’t about doing more — it’s about doing less, better. Simplicity, clarity, and responsiveness will always win over bells and whistles.

4. Not Optimising Your Media

Large, unoptimised media files are one of the most common reasons for slow websites. It impacts both user experience and your Core Web Vitals score.

Common Mistakes

  • Uploading uncompressed images
  • Using the wrong file formats
  • Forgetting to implement lazy loading

Tips for Media Optimisation

  • Compress images before uploading
  • Use formats like JPEG, PNG, or WebP
  • Add thumbnails for large images
  • Enable lazy loading and mobile responsiveness

Our development team uses advanced tools to automate media optimisation across all devices.

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5. Ignoring Website Speed Optimisation

Website speed is a crucial ranking factor and a significant factor in user experience. A slow website drives users away, increases bounce rates, and directly impacts conversions. Worse, search engines like Google penalise sluggish websites, making speed optimisation a must-have in your web development checklist.

Why Ignoring Website Speed is a Problem:

  • Visitors leave if your site takes more than 3 seconds to load
  • Higher bounce rates reduce engagement and conversions
  • Google uses page speed as a ranking signal for both desktop and mobile
  • Speed issues often come from deep within the code or media handling

Common Causes of a Slow WordPress Website:

  • Uploading large, uncompressed images
  • Excessive use of plugins or third-party scripts
  • Bulky CSS and JavaScript files that aren’t minified
  • Lack of caching setup or a missing Content Delivery Network (CDN)
  • Not optimising for mobile loading performance

Tools & Techniques We Use to Speed Up a Website:

  • Image Compression:

Tools like TinyPNG and ShortPixel help reduce file sizes without losing quality

  • Minification of Code:

We clean up your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with tools like UglifyJS and Autoptimize

  • Browser & Server-Side Caching:

Improves load time by storing frequently accessed resources

  • CDN Integration:

Services like Cloudflare or BunnyCDN deliver your content faster, no matter the user’s location

  • Performance Testing:

Regular audits with PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and Lighthouse keep your site in top shape

Even the most beautifully designed site will underperform if it loads too slowly. That’s why every website we build at 110 Digi Tech is engineered for speed, from backend to frontend.

6. Failing to Optimise for SEO

You can have the most stunning website in the world, but without proper SEO, it’s like building a shop in the middle of a desert. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is what drives organic traffic, boosts visibility on Google, and brings qualified leads to your site.

Yet many website owners treat SEO as an afterthought — and that’s where the problems begin.

Why SEO Optimisation Matters:

Without SEO, your website may never reach your audience. From poor meta tags to weak content structures, even small oversights can prevent search engines from properly indexing or ranking your pages.

Common SEO Mistakes in Website Development:

  • Missing meta titles and descriptions that guide search engines and attract clicks
  • Poor heading hierarchy (H1, H2, etc.) that confuses both users and crawlers
  • Lack of keyword optimisation, making your pages invisible in search results
  • Broken or weak internal links, hurting crawlability and user experience
  • Unoptimised image alt text, missing valuable keyword signals
  • URL structures that are messy or non-descriptive
  • No schema markup, missing out on rich results

What You Should Do:

  • Use keyword-rich titles and meta descriptions for every page
  • Optimise headings and on-page content with target keywords
  • Use SEO plugins like Yoast, Rank Math, or AIOSEO for guidance and automation
  • Add alt text to every image for accessibility and SEO
  • Build a clean internal linking structure that guides users and search engines
  • Create and submit an XML sitemap for better crawling
  • Implement schema markup to enhance search appearance with FAQs, reviews, and more
  • Audit for broken links and keep your content updated and relevant

At 110 Digi Tech, we build search-engine-ready platforms from day one. Every page we create is optimised with technical SEO best practices, keyword targeting, and rich metadata, ensuring your business is built to be found.

Bonus Tip: SEO is not a one-time job. It’s a continuous process. That’s why we offer ongoing SEO audits and updates to keep your site aligned with the latest Google algorithm updates.

7. Skipping Theme and Plugin Updates

Keeping your WordPress site up to date is essential for both functionality and security. Outdated themes or plugins are a common attack vector for hackers.

Problems That Can Arise

  • Security vulnerabilities
  • Plugin conflicts
  • Broken site feature

Best Practices

  • Enable safe auto-updates for trusted plugins
  • Regularly check for updates manually
  • Always back up your site before applying major changes

Our website maintenance team at 110 Digi Tech proactively manages updates, ensuring zero downtime and ongoing stability.

8. Not Using Schema Markup

Schema markup helps search engines better understand your content, which can improve your visibility in search results with enhanced listings, such as FAQs, reviews, and product ratings.

Without Schema

  • Your search listings look plain
  • You miss opportunities for rich results
  • Your content is less understandable to crawlers.

How to Implement Schema Properly

At 110 Digi Tech, structured data is an integral part of our SEO and website development strategy.

Frequently Asked Questions to Avoid Website Development Mistakes

Q1. What are the most common WordPress mistakes in website development?

The most common WordPress mistakes include choosing poorly coded themes, ignoring website security, overloading with plugins, not optimising media, skipping SEO fundamentals, missing updates, and failing to use schema markup. These issues can impact speed, SEO, and overall user experience.

Q2. How does a bloated WordPress theme affect my website?

A bloated theme can slow down your website, harm SEO performance, cause compatibility issues with plugins, and increase security vulnerabilities. Always choose a lightweight, responsive, and well-coded theme with frequent updates.

Q3. Why is website speed important for SEO and user experience?

Website speed directly affects how users interact with your site and how Google ranks it. A slow site leads to higher bounce rates and lower rankings, while fast-loading pages improve user engagement and visibility.

Q4. How can I improve the loading speed of my WordPress website?

You can improve speed by compressing images, minifying code (HTML, CSS, JS), enabling caching, using a Content Delivery Network (CDN), and removing unnecessary plugins or scripts.

Q5. What are the key SEO elements to consider during website development?

During development, you should optimise meta tags, header structure, internal linking, image alt attributes, URL slugs, and ensure the use of schema markup. These steps make your website search engine-friendly from the start.

Q6. How does poor navigation affect a website’s performance?

Poor navigation makes it hard for users to find information, leading to frustration, higher bounce rates, and fewer conversions. It also impacts SEO because crawlers struggle to index content properly.

Q7. What makes for good UX design on a website?

Good UX design includes intuitive menus, mobile-friendly layouts, clear CTAs, fast page speed, and minimal distractions. It guides users smoothly through your site and encourages desired actions, such as sign-ups or purchases.

Q8. Is WordPress secure for website development?

Yes, WordPress is secure if managed correctly. Most security risks arise from outdated plugins/themes, weak passwords, or poor hosting. Using security plugins, regular updates, and strong credentials significantly reduces risks.

Q9. Can too many WordPress plugins slow down my website?

Absolutely. Excessive or poorly coded plugins can cause performance issues, conflicts, and security problems. Limit your site to essential, well-maintained plugins only.

Q10. Why is media optimisation important for WordPress websites?

Unoptimised media, such as large images or videos, can slow down your site and negatively impact your Core Web Vitals. Compressing images, utilising lazy loading, and selecting the most suitable formats can enhance speed and user experience.

Q11. How does SEO factor into website development?

SEO should be integrated from the start of development. It includes optimising meta tags, heading structures, internal links, image alt text, and using schema markup to make your website search engine friendly.

Q12. What happens if I don’t update my WordPress themes or plugins?

Outdated themes or plugins can lead to broken features, security vulnerabilities, and plugin conflicts. It’s essential to keep everything up to date and backed up.

Q13. What is schema markup, and why is it important?

Schema markup is structured data that helps search engines better understand the content of your website. It improves SEO by enhancing your appearance in search results with rich snippets, such as ratings, FAQs, and other relevant information.

Let 110 Digi Tech Build Your Website Development with Precision and performance

Many website owners unknowingly make these WordPress mistakes — not because they lack effort, but because they don’t have the right guidance.

Whether you’re developing a new website or rebuilding an existing one, avoiding these pitfalls can be the difference between a high-performing website and one that underperforms in every metric that matters.

110 Digi Tech aims to deliver secure, SEO-optimised, scalable website development that empowers your business to grow online.

Ready to get started? Let’s talk about your website development goals.

Contact 110 Digi Tech today for a free website development consultation or website audit.