Hi I am Praneeth Kumar.
This is a beginners guide to WordPress,
In this blog, I will explain why is WordPress bad and if you are frustrated with WordPress, I will share with you all the solutions to frustrating things about WordPress mainly for beginners.
So without further ado let’s get started.
Here is a 30000-foot view of the blog
Why is WordPress bad and frustrating?
Although I have written a detailed guide on why wordpress is so complicated and difficult to use and even frustrating sometimes but I want to make it very clear and concise on why wordpress is bad and frustrating in a few quick concise points.
Here are a few reasons why is wordpress bad.
- Because WordPress is an open-source CMS, if proper security measures are not practiced, websites can get hacked.
- Even though wordpress is highly optimized for SEO it is not optimised for Speed as using lots of plugins can cause slow loading website.
- There are lots of settings which you need to configure after installing WordPress.
- There are constant updates of wordpress themes, plugins, and versions which can sometimes break the website or remove the features which you recently added to your website.
- WordPress is a highly user-friendly and simple platform but it needs a lot of time to learn and get used to the ecosystem and has a steep learning curve.
Well, these are all the reasons that I have found WordPress to be bad and frustrating.
Now let’s have a look at 11 things that are really frustrating with WordPress and what are the easy and simple solutions to avoid those frustrations.
11 frustrating things about wordpress & its solutions.
Without getting into further details,
Let’s take a quick overview of all the frustrating things with WordPress.
- WordPress security, what can I do?
- So many plugins, which one to use?
- So many themes, which one to install?
- Make SEO easy.
- Comments management.
- White screen of death.
- Improve the speed of the website.
- So many updates.
- Customize the website and homepage.
- So many settings to configure.
- So many terms and features to learn.
Let’s learn each of the things and the solutions.
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WordPress security.
According to many studies,
WordPress Websites was found to be the most vulnerable CMS for hacks and attacks.
Despite WordPress team regularly bringing up new updates and versions to WordPress core version and fixing security bugs,
But,
The security of a wordpress website highly depends upon the person who is Managing the website,
Many people get scared when they hear stories of wordpress websites getting hacked.
Although there are lots of ways wordpress Websites can get hack it like,
- Brute force login attempts.
- SQL injection.
- Malware.
Let’s avoid learning about all these technical terms and see what’s really you can do to secure your wordpress website in easy steps.
Solution:
I have written a detailed guide on how to secure a wordpress website with and without using a plugin in easy steps click here.
If you are not interested in reading the entire guide its fine,
I would like to summarise a few important things you need to take to make sure your wordpress website is safe and doesn’t get hacked.
- Don’t install plugins you didn’t hear of or without doing proper research, you will learn about plugins more below.
- Use SSL certificates for your website.
- Use strong passwords and two-factor authentication for your login of WordPress websites.
- Always update plugins, themes, and latest WP versions.
- Take backups all the time using plugins like updraft plus.
- Get a good website hosting.
- Get a security plugin like Wordfence.
Let’s see the next frustrating thing about WordPress.
-
So many plugins, which one to use?
Look,
It appears awesome when you think that there are over 58000 plugins in WordPress.
But when you install WordPress and be a new one to the platform,
You are clueless, confused and eventually frustrated on which one to install and what to do, I can understand your feeling and frustration because I have been through the same state before.
Solution:
First of all,
Just know that, Plugins are an important aspect of wordpress as all of its features revolve around plugins.
But if you get careless with plugins, it can be a reason for hacking of your website, slow Website loading speed, etc.
Read my below guides about WP plugins,
- Which plugins should you install on your WordPress website and why?
- What to see before installing WP plugins?
- Pros and cons of WP plugins.
To summarize quickly,
Before installing any plugin on your wordpress website,
Always consider the following factors.
- It has been updated recently.
- It has lots of downloads and positive ratings and reviews.
- It is developed by a well known developer and a company.
You can follow the above guides to learn which plugins you should install among the 58000 plugins that are there to make your decision easier.
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So many themes, which one to install?
Look, There are more than 30000 themes there in WP.
So, As an absolute beginner to the platform,
It is highly likely that you are clueless, confused and frustrated with wordpress on which one of the themes you should install and activate on your website.
Solution:
First of all you need to understand wordpress themes are a very very important aspect of your website because,
It is not just about the look and design of your website,
As a matter of fact, your website theme plays a huge role in your website loading speed and your website safety from hackers.
So always be highly picky and choose the best theme you can find for your WordPress website so that you won’t run into trouble can get frustrated with WordPress in the future.
If I want to suggest to you a few themes that are Highly popular and best for wordpress websites then they are,
- Astra.
- Generatepress.
- Oceanwp.
- Avada.
- Divi.
But it again comes down to your own choices and interests and website needs.
Whenever you are installing a theme for your website always make sure you follow the things below to make sure your theme is safe and fast.
- The theme must have been updated recently.
- Theme has been created by a reputable company or developer.
- Theme has a good support system for the users and its customers.
- Theme should have lots of installs and good reviews and comments.
- Theme should be mobile friendly yet offers lots of features and fast loading.
You can check all the things of WordPress themes here,
Like this,
Now let’s move forward.
-
Make SEO easy.
Although WordPress offers lots of SEO friendly features like,
- Changing permalinks structure.
- Proper title tags, headings and images optimization.
- Easy to create, write, edit, publish, schedule content and add multimedia.
- Easy website navigation with tags and categories.
- SEO optimized themes and plugins.
But people are confused which seo plugin should they install that would solve all of their plugins issues regarding SEO.
Solution:
I would highly recommend you to install a plugin called rank math for SEO purposes on your wordpress website.
It makes SEO of your WP website very easy,
It is a single plugin that gives you access to features without it you might have to use a bunch of plugins to get those features like,
Creating and managing redirections, scheme markup, broken links checking, on-page SEO, SEO optimization checker of your website, etc.
In a short period of time it is rated to be the best SEO WP plugin of 2021 beating yoast.
This plugin along with its premium plan
makes your job of SEO very easy.
-
Comments management.
Talking about comments,
One of the first things we get in mind is,
Spammy comments.
I know how it feels like when you published a blog post on your website and after couple of months,
You have got like a bunch of comments in the comment section of your wordpress website waiting for your approval.
I know and understand the feeling of how it looks like reading and managing those individual comments,
It is really frustrating when you see almost all the comments are spammy and links to other websites.
Solution:
First of all you need to understand that spammy comments really impact your website performance in terms of safety and rankings in Google.
So, it is very difficult to manage comments of your website individually yourself,
Hence, I want you to install a plugin called,
It is free and very easy to setup plugin.
According to wiki,
Akismet is a spam filtering service that filters spam from comments, trackbacks, and contact form messages.
The filter works by combining information about spam captured on all participating sites, and then using those spam rules to block future spam.
Akismet plugin makes your life easy in the world of WordPress and the internet full of spam.
-
White screen of death.
It is an error with your operating system which is WordPress which may cause the computer or the browser to stop working or rendering the website and show only white blank space when you try to visit your website on your device.
It can really be quite frustrating with WordPress websites.
Solution:
It is nothing to worry much,
The white screen of death is a cause of some effect between your themes and plugins conflict which can interrupt rendering of your website on the browser and cause the problem.
Maybe it’s a conflict between the 2 or compatibility issues of plugin or theme or bad Quality coding issue,
You can just deactivate all the plugins you installed on your website to see if your website renders normally on your device and,
Test each plugin and theme with trial and error method to find out which plugin is causing the problem and remove it or find a better alternative to it.
-
Improve and increase website loading speed.
Your website loading speed is a huge ranking factor both for SEO and users.
WordPress by default is not optimized for speed you know due to plugins and features.
So,
It is quite difficult and frustrating for beginners to know that they need to also optimize their WordPress website speed themselves besides all the things that they normally do.
Solution:
The most important thing of a website loading speed is the hosting of the website.
Always make sure that you always buy a good quality website hosting because your website is stored in it and whenever somebody visits your website, your web hosting servers will transfer the request and send the website to the users.
Apart from that,
There are a couple of other things which you can do to improve your website loading speed to something like this below.
First of all check your website loading speed in websites like pagespeed insights and gtmetrix.
Depending on the suggestion and scores of both the tools,
Optimise your website speed accordingly,
Few things you can do are,
- Optimise and compress your website images because they are the largest files to load.
- Use a performance booster caching plugin like WProcket.
- Use a CDN.
- Minify HTML, JavaScript, CSS files.
- Switch to a better and faster theme like Astra or generate press.
- Reduce the number of plugins installed on your website.
- Always use the latest wordpress PHP version.
These are all the things you can do to improve your website loading speed.
Now let’s learn the next thing.
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So many updates to manage.
One of the biggest disadvantages with wordpress is that,
You constantly get updates of wordpress themes, plugins and its latest version all the time.
If you don’t get updates of wordpress themes and plugins then you might have installed bad plugins which is also a problem.
Read the above sections about plugins and themes of WordPress.
Solution:
It is highly important that you need to update your plugins and themes and your wordpress version for speed, security and better features.
You can easily configure settings where the updates of themes and plugins are auto-installed without you manually updating it but it can be quite risky sometimes because,
Update means addition of new features and new functionality.
Whether it is of theme, plugin or WordPress version.
Sometimes update of these plugins and themes can cause for our website to break down or you can lose some features and changes that you’ve recently made to your website through the theme or plugin like custom coded ones.
So it is highly recommended not to directly update the plugins and themes on your live website.
What you can do then?
Create a staging Website.
What does this means,
A staging Website is clone or exact copy of your website but it is not live,
With the help of Staging website you can easily test plugins and themes updates, test all other changes you would want to make to your website without directly apply those changes on your existing live website,
This has its amazing benefits that because it is a clone and a copy of your website,
It will function exactly the way your live website functions, but whatever the changes you make to your Staging website will not have impact on your existing live website because it is simply a copy of your website.
This way you can test the plugins, themes, WordPress version updates before,
Making those changes on your live Website to see all the things are working smoothly if anything is causing error and breakdown, if anything is happening bad, you can easily identify and fix it with trial and error method.
Many web hosting companies offer Staging feature in their hosting package,
If your web hosting company does not offer a staging feature or you don’t have it in your plan,
You can make your website staging with a plugin or install WordPress on your computer,
Make a backup of your website, download the backup of your website and import the backup to your locally hosted wordpress website and test the changes there and clear the issues.
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Customize the website and homepage.
For any wordpress theme by default you will see a list of posts that you recently added on your homepage,
After publishing a bunch of posts on your website you might want to customize the way your homepage looks.
As a beginner, you might get clueless, confused, scared, and frustrated when you try all the things you can do to customize your website home page but you eventually mess up with the theme code and break your website.
Solution:
I understand the feeling of how frustrating it would be when you try to design something but are unable to figure out how to do it successfully without breaking your website or touching code.
In such a case,
I highly recommend you to use the Website page builder plugin called Elementor.
This is a freemium WordPress page builder plugin that allows you to customize your website or individual pages on your WordPress website with easy Drag and drop features.
You can easily add changes like,
Adding different blocks, changing colors, moving website elements, changing fonts, and many more with drag and drop features.
You can easily change the look and the design of your website within a few clicks.
You can click here to check all the features of elementor plugin.
I used the same plugin to create and customize my website homepage without touching a single line of code in a simple way within a couple of hours.
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So many settings to configure.
This is one of the main reasons why wordpress is so frustrating for many people mainly beginners because,
As soon as they install and run wordpress on their hosting accounts, they are presented Infront of the WP dashboard where they need to manually learn and figure it out all by themselves.
It can feel quite frustrating definitely because of so many features and functions that are there.
Solution:
You can follow the below guides to know exactly what steps you need to take after installing WordPress.
- Read What to do after installing WordPress?
- Read essential SEO settings need to configure in WordPress website.
Now let’s look at the next thing.
-
So many terms and features to learn.
Anyone who is a beginner to the platform will definitely feel the dashboard to be overwhelming initially,
The front-end of WordPress Website can although look simple and easy to navigate but,
It doesn’t reflect the same in its backend as it is alot more cluttery and complex where you need to manage different aspects of your website at different places.
WordPress dashboard is the place where you manage your website content and features and navigate to different parts of your website from the backend.
But the problem with it is,
As a beginner to the platform,
You will have to learn, understand and remember the terms and functionalities of the dashboard and get used to it to learn WordPress without getting frustrated.
To solve this issue,
Here is a complete glossary of wordpress CMS.
These are all the frustrating things i found a beginner could have with wordpress, with that said lets conclude the blog post.
Ending remarks.
There you go I have given solutions to all the reasons that make users go frustrated with WordPress.
Do comment down what else are the features which you think are frustrating with WordPress and want solutions for them.
Share the blog post with your family and friends who are also bloggers to let them know using wordpress is not very difficult that they can easily start a blog on WordPress.
Sharing is caring.
Read my other blogs,
- WordPress FAQs.
- How to start a website on wordpress without hosting?
- Pros and cons of using WordPress.
I will catch you next time till then,
Keep learning and keep growing.