30 Common Website/WordPress Mistakes by both Novices & Pro Authors

1. Allowing your content to be author-focused instead of reader-focused
2. Using WordPress.com instead of self-hosted WordPress (.org)
3. Using a generic or defective theme
4. Not designing for mobile use
5. Not optimizing pages and images for SEO
6. Not properly integrating social media
7. Not setting up the permalinks properly (A.K.A. ugly permalinks)
8. Too many categories, not enough tags
9. Letting it be too design heavy or too boring
10. Overwhelming your visitors
    Too many navigation links
    Too much on the home page
    Too many pop-ups and moving graphics
    Too many ads
11. Not using video to the best of your abilities
12. Not making it easy for visitors to connect with you on social media
13. Not making your book’s buy-now button easy to find
14. Not offering an easy way for visitors to get on your list (appealing incentives?)
15. Not using effective calls to action (where are you leading them?)
16. Not taking full advantage of the scripts that are available such as
    Google XML Sitemaps
    Contact Form 7
    Akismet
    All in One SEO Pack
17. Running too many unnecessary scripts
18. Trying to run e-commerce plugins on WordPress
19. Not posting on the blog often enough
20. Not having a regular backup of your database & site files
21. Not using Google Analytics
22. Not using Webmaster tools to get your site indexed
23. Ignoring Google Authorship Markup
24. Not using a Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar)
25. Not customizing the Favicon
26. Not taking advantage tools like CDN and CACHE that help your site load faster
27. Ignoring WordPress updates
28. Going with a faulty hosting company just because it is cheaper
29. Not taking steps to further “harden” your WordPress site (here are just a few)
    Not using proper security plugins
    Not changing the default username from “admin”
    Not changing the “wp_” prefix of your database table

30. Not talking to your website designer about all of this!

Contact Cherished Solutions today to discuss your website and WordPress needs.

Free Submission list of Universal Search Engines and Directories

 1. Frames – a HUGE SEO no-no. Since new content is loaded in a new frame, every page has the same URL. Search engine’s (SEs) simply can’t properly crawl and index your site if it’s in frames. The last time I checked, Inktomi and AltaVista won’t even try indexing your page if it sees frames. It’s also terribly dated, doesn’t print properly, and doesn’t display properly in some browsers.
 

2. Flash – I love flash animation, but it should be used sparingly – not as your entire site. SEs can’t see “inside” the flash file, all they see is that a flash file is there. So, if you have all or most of your text inside a flash file – the search engines won’t see it. Try putting a link on every page to a regular HTML version of that page, so the SEs can see, and index, the actual page content.

 3. Missing Meta Tags – I can’t believe how many sites I saw without any keyword or description meta tags. These are what the SEs look at first to tell what your site is about and index it properly. If you don’t know how to add keyword and descriptions, ask your web person, or do a Google search for “meta tags” for some great tutorials.

 4. Title Tags – Just about everyone has a title tags but there are two common problems I’ve noticed. First problem: your title is the same on every page, and is usually just your company name. Every page should have a unique title related to that individual page. Second problem: each page has a unique title, but the company name comes first. A word’s placement in the title is important. Instead of writing “Amy Brown’s Illustrations” write “Illustrations by Amy Brown.”

With Statbrain.com you can find out how many visits any site has.

Statbrain uses different resources on the web combined with mathematical and statistical methods to estimate how many visits a website has. Please enter the URL of the website that you would like to check.

1. Title lines – Make sure that your Title Line, Meta Tag Description and Meta Tag Keywords (These are embedded into the HTML script of your website) have the main keywords that you want people to search for. We can help you with this.

2. Home Page Keywords – Prominently list the main keywords on your home page starting at the top left-hand side of the page in a text format. The search engines look for these keywords starting at the top left hand side and move down line by line, reading from left to right. Words that are part of an image will not be recognized.

3. Keyword Frequency – A search engine will also look at how often a keyword is listed on your page. The keyword needs to appear naturally in the text. You can’t just put a keyword 20 times, right after each other. The search engine eliminates those.

4. Links – Find other websites, that you would consider to be a support to your website and not a competitor, to link to your site. The more popular sites that link to you, the greater the ranking you’ll receive to your website.