The Most Common WA Mistakes! My Feedback For You!
During the time that I have been a proud member of WA, I have given tons of feedback to many different sites. After a while, I realized that most people tend to make the same mistakes and therefore, my feedback often is very similar. In this lesson, I will share these common mistakes.
I will just dive straight into the feedback I give to 90% of all sites that I give feedback to:
1. No Site Icon
Most sites that I give feedback to don't have a site icon. A site icon is the small image that you see at the top of your browser when visiting websites. For instance, wealthy affiliate's site icon is it's logo (WA).
Usually, you should use your logo as a site icon.
Having a site icon will make a much better impression on your visitors.
Setting up a site icon may be different from theme to theme. However, many themes allow you to customize your site icon by clicking customize and then Site Identity (or something similar).
This is by far the most common mistake that I see.
2. 'Powered by Wordpress' Annotation
This isn't really a mistake. But it's still a way to improve your site. There are very simple ways to remove the 'powered by wordpress' annotation from footers.
In my opinion, a site automatically looks more professional without that annotation.
How to remove the annotation also may depend on your theme. I recommend to do a short google search ('remove powered by wordpress') to find an easy way to remove that annotation.
3. Privacy Policy in the Menu Bar
The menu bar of your site is for the most important and central pages of your website. The pages that you want your visitors to visit are usually in your menu bar.
A privacy policy or affiliate disclaimer aren't one of those pages. Instead of wasting that little valuable space in your menu bar for these pages, put them into the footer.
Ideally, all items should fit in one menu bar row. Most people will automatically look in your footer if they ever want to read these policies because most websites have them there.
I don't recommend having them as drop down menus under about me pages either.
Even though barely any visitors will want to read these policies it is still important to have them!
These were actually the most common mistakes already. However, here are a few other somewhat common mistakes:
4. Incorrect Use of Link Placeholders
Many themes have link placeholders for important or for social links. Normally, they are small round buttons displayed in the footer, sidebar or header of a site.
If these aren't used correctly, they look random. If your theme has link placeholders either use them or remove them!
5. Too Many or Irrelevant Ads
Many people have think the more ads, the more money they will earn. This isn't true.
If you have too many ads, it won't only ruin the user experience but it will also decrease your rankings. So make sure to not have tons of ads in your sidebar, footer, header or content.
As a rule of thumb, you shouldn't have more then 3 ads on a single page. So if you have 2 ads in your sidebar and your sidebar is on every page of your site, you shouldn't have tons of other ads displayed as well.
Besides not having too many ads, it is also important to have relevant ads. If you niche is weight training, you should't display ads for Wealthy affiliate!
Put yourself in your visitors mind. They are looking for specific content about a specific topic (your niche). They aren't interested in some totally non-related ad.
6. Not Enough Content
You can't really have too much content on your site. Always work on adding more relevant and thorough content! Content is at the heart of your online business and that is why you should focus on adding as much content as you possibly can!
But remember quantity isn't everything. Also make sure that your content is of good quality. It should be thorough, relevant and understandable.
Ideally, your content should be more than 1500 words. I know this can sound intimidating, especially in the beginning. But don't worry, you will get used to it.
7. SitePlus+
Last but not least, a lot of people don't know of the SitePlus+ feature. Luckily, there is an easy fix.
Head over to SiteManager, then click on Details for your site. On that page, you have to scroll down until you see SitePlus+. There I recommend turning all features on. Doing this will boost the speed of your site and the protection.
These were some of the most common mistakes that I know of. Obviously, there are many other mistakes that people make. Hopefully, this list of my most common feedback could help you.
Did this feedback help you? Have you made some of the mentioned mistakes?
Let me know in the comment section below!
Recent Comments
6
See more comments
Thank you for this great post. As a fairly new member (6months), I find this very helpful. The mistakes I have made are too many ad sense ads, and the privacy policy and affiliate disclosure in my header menu. I am working on fixing this. It is helpful posts like this one that really opens your eyes to improving. Again, thank you.
Jenny.
No problem. It's great to hear that my content could help you!