5 Common WordPress Mistakes (And How We Avoid Them)

WordPress is a brilliant platform. It powers millions of websites across the world and gives businesses the freedom to build something that’s truly their own. But like anything that’s easy to use, it’s also easy to get wrong.

At First Internet, we’ve taken over dozens of WordPress sites built by others — and we’ve seen the same mistakes pop up time and time again. Some are minor. Some are huge. But they all have the same result: they hold your website (and your business) back.

So, if you’re wondering why your WordPress website isn’t performing quite as well as it should, this post is for you.

Let’s break down 5 of the most common WordPress mistakes — and how we avoid them when building and managing websites for our clients.

1. Overloading the Site with Plugins

One of the biggest strengths of WordPress is its huge library of plugins — but that’s also its biggest weakness. Too many plugins (or the wrong ones) can:

• Slow down your site
• Create security vulnerabilities
• Cause conflicts that break your layout or functionality

We’ve seen WordPress sites running 30+ plugins, many of which do the same job. It’s a recipe for disaster. And often, site owners have no idea what half of them even do. It’s a classic case of “more is less”.

How we avoid it:
We keep things lean and purposeful. Every plugin we install has to earn its place. If we can build it ourselves in a lightweight, secure way — we do. We also regularly audit our clients’ websites to spot any unnecessary or outdated plugins and remove them safely.

This doesn’t just improve speed — it makes the site easier to maintain, safer, and more future-proof.

Using Off-the-Shelf Themes Without Customisation

There’s nothing wrong with starting from a theme. They’re convenient and sometimes cost-effective. But relying on a bloated, off-the-shelf theme with dozens of features you don’t need is asking for trouble.

• They’re slow
• They’re packed with third-party scripts
• They’re hard to customise without breaking something
• They often fall out of date with WordPress core updates

Worse still, your website ends up looking like every other business in your industry. There’s nothing memorable about it — and that’s a problem in competitive sectors.

How we avoid it:
We design and build from the ground up. Every website is bespoke, using our own custom-built Gutenberg blocks and clean, fast-loading code. You get a unique look, total flexibility, and a site that works exactly the way you want it to — without being weighed down by features you’ll never use.

This also means future updates are easier to manage, and your brand always stays front and centre.

3. Neglecting Website Speed and Performance

Website speed isn’t just a “nice-to-have” anymore — it directly affects everything from user experience to search rankings. Google has made that crystal clear with its Core Web Vitals update. If your site is slow, clunky, or doesn’t load properly on mobile, you’re losing visitors and you’ll be hurting your SEO.

Some of the most common speed issues we see include:

• Huge unoptimised images
• Cheap or misconfigured hosting
• Heavy, uncompressed scripts
• No caching or CDN in place

Even well-designed sites can suffer from these performance issues if they’re not maintained properly.

How we avoid it:
We build for performance from day one. That means compressing images, using lazy loading, stripping out unnecessary code, and only loading what’s needed, when it’s needed.

We also recommend (and work with) reliable hosting partners who offer solid performance, security, and scalability — because hosting really does make a difference. Once your site is live, we continuously monitor load times and performance, making improvements wherever we can.

4. Forgetting About Security

WordPress often gets unfair criticism for being insecure. The truth is: it’s only insecure if it’s not looked after properly. Most hacked WordPress sites are the result of human error — not flaws in the platform itself.

Common issues we’ve seen include:

• Weak admin passwords (yes, still in 2025)
• Outdated core files and plugins
• No two-factor authentication
• No malware scanning or firewall in place
• Default login URLs that are easily targeted by bots

How we avoid it:
We treat security as a priority, not an afterthought. Every WordPress site we build includes:

• Regular updates to WordPress core, themes, and plugins
• Strong password enforcement and user roles
• Two-factor authentication for admin users
• Firewall protection and malware scanning
• Daily backups (stored off-site)

If we’re hosting and maintaining your site, you can be confident it’s in safe hands. And if we’re taking over an existing site, the first thing we do is tighten up the security — because prevention is far better than cure.

5. Not Thinking About the User Experience

Your website isn’t for you — it’s for your users. But this often gets forgotten. We’ve seen websites that look great from a distance, but are full of confusing menus, inconsistent calls to action, poor mobile layouts, and missing accessibility basics.

It doesn’t matter how pretty your website is if users can’t find what they need, don’t know what to click next, or bounce straight off the homepage.

How we avoid it:
Before we even open Figma or write a line of code, we spend time understanding your users. What are they looking for? What problems are they trying to solve? What questions are they asking?

Then we map out the customer journey — making sure every page has a clear purpose, and that users can get where they need to go quickly and easily. On mobile, tablet or desktop.

And we don’t stop there. Once your site is live, we use tools like Hotjar and GA4 to see how real users are interacting with it — and make changes based on real data, not guesswork.

WordPress Done Properly
At First Internet, we’ve been building custom WordPress websites for over 20 years. We’ve seen the platform evolve, and we’ve seen how powerful it can be when used properly.

Whether you’re starting from scratch or trying to fix a site that’s been cobbled together over the years, we’ll help you get it right. No shortcuts. No clutter. Just a clean, fast, easy-to-manage website that your team and your customers will love using.

Want a second opinion on your WordPress site?

Get in touch with us — we’ll give you an honest review of what’s working, what’s not, and how to improve it.