WordPress is one of the most popular and common website-building platforms on the planet. Many of the world’s top sites rely on WordPress to deliver content to millions of readers from all over the world.
One of the most important parts of having a website for your business or passion is to get people to convert. This could be to buy a product, subscribe to a newsletter, leave a comment, or even share the site. Unfortunately, there are a lot of mistakes many people and companies make when it comes to WordPress.
Many people avoid these mistakes altogether by working with a WordPress outsource company that can handle all of the tasks for your website or business. But if you are intent on making your own, here are a few mistakes to watch out for, as they will surely cost you conversions.
Choosing the Wrong Theme
One of the most important parts of your site is choosing the right theme. The design and look of your site are crucial for how many people convert and how people enjoy the site. Many people just look at themes for a minute and then choose one simply to go forward with. This is generally a bad idea unless you somehow found the perfect theme on the first try.
There are a ton of themes to choose from, so don’t hesitate to experiment with a couple and see which provides the best results and has the best reception. The site theme should look good on all devices and should fit with your branding/messaging. Of course, ensure the theme plays nice with the plugins you work with, too. If a site doesn’t look good, first and foremost, it is going to be tough to attract people to it.
Not Monitoring Your Performance/Speed
Another thing to keep in mind is the performance of your website. In fact, website speed is very important to how successful your site will be. People today don’t only want their information, they want it incredibly fast. Many people will leave a site if it doesn’t fully load for them in about two seconds. Always be doing what you can to boost site performance, to ensure you don’t lose impatient visitors.
Also, navigating your site should be quick and different pages/images should load instantly. If people need to wait a long time for your content to load, they are likely to simply head elsewhere. If your site can load quickly and perform well, you will generally see conversion rates improve.
Poor or Confusing Navigation
While it might seem quite simple, navigation of your website is actually a very robust topic and is quite important to your conversion rate. Your navigation panel should not confuse visitors but should make it incredibly simple for them to visit the various pages of your site.
Many sites try to get too cute and their navigation style only ends up confusing people when they can’t get to where they want to go. Also, with plenty of people surfing the web from their mobile devices, you need to ensure your navigation is crisp and simple for these users, as well.
These mistakes are sure to cost you conversions, so be careful to avoid these mistakes when creating or managing your WordPress website.