A WordPress website can be a dream to manage. But things can go wrong if you try to manage your website without the proper knowledge.
Inexperience or lack of training managing a WordPress website can lead to disaster. For example, I’d like to refer to the YouTube videos (I’m always watching YouTube videos) where inexperienced drivers of exotic cars take a turn too fast or try to show off in front of a crowd. They wind up embarrassing themselves by crashing and destroying their precious vehicle. The same thing happens all too frequently when the untrained try to take over their WordPress-built websites—surprisingly.
Nearly 500 million websites are now developed on the WordPress…
WordPress has grown to become a fantastic tool to build and manage websites. Nearly 500 million websites are now developed on the WordPress open source content management system (CMS). The system is free to use and there are many add-ons that allow those with little web programming knowledge to customize them.
At Trillion, we receive many calls and inquiries to design, build, and manage WordPress websites, so we’ve heard and seen it all. Since WordPress is a dominant CMS, many of the websites we design utilize it (including ours). We are very familiar with its limitations and nuances, so our goal is to clarify some misconceptions that website managers may have regarding using WordPress.
You can quickly upgrade to the newest version of WordPress
WordPress makes it exceedingly easy and convenient to upgrade to its newest version. A colored alert box at the top of your dashboard may appear, and before you know it, one-click of the Update button, your website is no longer working the way it should. This is why a thorough understanding of the update process is critical. Sometimes older plugins, widgets, or custom code are not compatible with the new WordPress release. If you upgrade, some features may stop functioning correctly, causing errors on your site or making it disappear altogether. This is the most common way to break a website temporarily.
Formatting content in WordPress is easy
Although this statement is true, many marketing managers and small business owners managing their websites miss doing so correctly. The biggest problem stems from copying a formatted Word document and pasting it into the visual editor of a new post or page. This process causes ancillary styling code, yielding text that has various and inconsistent formatting. When you are about to paste text into your new post or page, make sure you do so through the “Paste as Plain Text” button or directly into the HTML editor.
Also, a properly coded theme will have all of the predetermined text and image formatting available in the “Format” drop-down menu. Similar parameters are also applicable to images and placed art. These features maintain the integrity and consistency of a website design but a website manager needs to be aware of them.
You can change your design to a new theme and everything will work
There are thousands of themes and design templates that exist for WordPress users to take advantage of. Many are free, but there are also varying levels of paid templates ranging from acceptable to terrible. Recently, a business owner asked us about several features that were not working on his website only to discover the culprit was an uncooperative plugin. When we design WordPress websites for our clients, we build a custom theme that delivers the appropriate experience for customers. Once created, changing the theme is not necessary.
It’s easy to move pages around
WordPress does allow you to move content around fairly easily, though with some limitations. A carefully planned out website won’t require moving pages. However, sometimes things need to move.
WordPress can make moving pages as easy as selecting a drop-down menu item. However, something to keep in mind is the URL structure for that page and if any other pages on the site are linked to it. Moving the page can change that URL structure and cause broken links on your site or from other inbound linking sites. In addition to creating a poor experience for your website visitors, having the broken links can cause Google and other search engines to penalize your website regarding page rank. The good news is that WordPress does an excellent job of creating proper redirects from the old URL to the new one. On the flipside, having too many redirects on your site is potentially harmful and not recommended. So, all in all, moving pages around is easy; however, you must do so with extreme caution.
You can easily download and install the latest, trendy plugin
Many times, plugins are no more than a few clicks away from being installed onto your website. Trends drive what many businesses want on their website, and plugins can make it easy. However, plugins are likely to need additional development to be more visually tied to your brand’s website. Also, depending upon the plugin’s quality, it could make the website load slower or cause a formatting inconsistency. When you want to add a new trendy feature to your site, make sure it aligns with your brand values and genuinely makes the user’s experience better. Then make sure it’s seamlessly integrating into your website’s appearance.
WordPress handles all the SEO factors for your site
WordPress is regularly advancing to the point where it takes the guesswork out of improving your ranking on search engines. Nevertheless, WordPress is only a site that can create results based on what you feed it.
Your content determines how well you rank on search engines, but there is metadata which is made up mainly of SEO titles and meta descriptions that contributes to your ranking as well. When you use WordPress, you have access to a plugin called Yoast SEO that shows an SEO analysis of your post so that you can tweak the information to what is most favorable strategically. It is a collaborative effort; although Yoast SEO can steer you in the right direction, it is up to you to create applicable information.
Trillion has been able to successfully generate organic traffic to our website as well as our clients. How did Trillion Achieve 10.5 Million Organic Impressions? is a straightforward layout for how Trillion and any business can generate substantial website traffic within a reasonable timeframe without paid search.
Do you need help managing your WordPress website?
When we create a WordPress website at Trillion, we plan out a thorough blueprint of the site before designing the look and feel, so our clients aren’t burdened with some of the misconceptions listed above. We also create YouTube tutorial videos for our clients on how to manage the key tasks of their website. This helps them learn at their own pace or refer back to the videos as needed in the future.
Our team is always available to discuss or help implement additional features our clients would like to include on their sites. In the event that our clients do not want to spend the time to manage their day-to-day website needs, we do it for them—and provide marketing services too.
If you are wondering if WordPress is the best fit for your website design or redesign project, give Trillion a call at 908.219.4703 or use our contact form to ask us any questions. On the other hand, we can also design, build, and manage a WordPress site for you.
