Things to avoid while working in your WordPress Dashboard

As I create new WordPress Self-Hosted Websites for Small Business Owners, many of them want to have full Administrative Access to the Dashboard. I usually fore-warn them that “With Great Power, comes Great Responsibility”, because I have experienced many follow up requests to fix a site that they inadvertently broke. There are a few areas that seem to be common actions that will bring a website down.

A Common Mistake

It seems harmless, But… The most common mistake has been loading a Plugin update without a good backup plan. If the new Plugin includes a change that is incompatible with the current theme or child theme, how do you uninstall the change you made and take one step back in your site configuration? Be prepared or you may have to spend money with a consultant to help you out after your site crashes.

Another has been amateur editing of files through the “Appearance – Editor” Dashboard access. If you are not a skilled PHP or CSS programmer, you are asking for trouble to make modifications to these files. I recommend my favorite theme, “Canvas” by Woo Themes, which provides you with a CSS snippet entry area to test your code first. Then if you break it, you can recover a little easier. This theme also provides you with a custom.css file which is easier than creating a child theme for tweaking your website. It also has more theme modification options than most.

Sometimes, the “Do It Yourself” method of website management can cost twice in time lost and mistakes than to just let an experienced Webarketer do it for you. It’s usually faster, easier, and results in less site downtime. And, the search engine bots will like your website code better for better search results in the end. It may seem insignificant, but it’s the little things that usually make a big difference.

Just saying…