I have managed dozens of WordPress redesigns over the years. Some went smoothly. Most of the ones that landed on my desk did not, because the previous team made avoidable mistakes. Here are the 12 WordPress redesign mistakes I see sink projects repeatedly. 1. Skipping a Content Audit Redesigning without inventorying your existing pages, posts, … Read more
I audit WordPress sites every week, and the same dead weight shows up almost every time. These 12 things slow your site down, confuse visitors, and hurt your search rankings. Removing them takes an afternoon and the results show up immediately. The Cleanup List 1. Image sliders. Less than 1% of visitors click past the … Read more
Every WordPress site collects data. Contact forms, analytics scripts, WooCommerce checkouts, even basic comment forms store personal information. California’s CCPA covers businesses with $25 million in revenue or data on 100,000+ consumers. The EU’s GDPR applies the moment a single European visitor hits your site. Fines under GDPR reached $4.2 billion total through 2024. I … Read more
Footers get 20% of total page engagement according to Chartbeat scroll-depth data, yet most WordPress sites treat them as a dumping ground for copyright text. I’ve redesigned hundreds of footers and the pattern is clear: a focused footer with the right elements outperforms a bloated one every time. The 12 Elements Worth Keeping Trust and … Read more
I’ve launched over 50 WordPress sites. The ones that went smoothly all had one thing in common: a checklist. The ones that didn’t? Someone forgot to uncheck “Discourage search engines” or left the staging URL hardcoded in the database. Here’s the 30-point WordPress launch checklist I run through on every project. Pre-Launch: Foundation (Items 1-10) … Read more
I audit Sacramento business websites every week, and the single fastest way to lose a visitor is bad navigation. According to a KoMarketing study, 50% of visitors use the navigation menu to orient themselves on a new site. If that menu is cluttered or confusing, they leave. Here are eight WordPress navigation rules I follow … Read more
I used to install slider plugins on every WordPress site I built. Revolution Slider, Smart Slider, Soliloquy. They looked impressive in client demos. Then I started measuring what they actually did to performance, and I stopped using them entirely. WordPress Sliders Cost You More Than You Think The average slider plugin loads 200-400KB of JavaScript … Read more
Most business owners I talk to know their website costs money. Hosting, plugins, maintenance, design updates. What they can’t tell me is whether the site makes money back. That’s a problem, because if you can’t measure WordPress ROI, you can’t improve it. I track ROI for every client site I manage, and the formula is … Read more
Most business owners assume a website lasts forever. It doesn’t. Research from Orbit Media puts the average website lifespan at 2 years and 7 months before a redesign. I’ve managed WordPress sites for over a decade, and that number tracks with what I see in the field. Some sites hold up for five years. Others … Read more
Most business websites stall at the same point: someone opens a blank page in WordPress and freezes. I see it constantly. The site launched three months ago, and the About page still says “coming soon” because nobody planned the content before opening the editor. A website content template fixes that problem before it starts. What … Read more