Hey r/WordPress,
I’ve been building WordPress websites for around 8 months and have made 100+ sites so far, mostly for HVAC companies.
TL;DR: I’ve built a lot of similar WordPress sites quickly, mostly through templates, YouTube, trial and error, and fixing things as I break them. Clients are happy, but I want to understand what experienced WordPress people would audit in their own work so I can improve properly.
I had a contractor bringing me clients regularly, sometimes close to 1 site per day. Since most of the businesses were in the same industry, I created around 4 to 5 base templates and customized them depending on the client’s preferences.
I’ve worked mainly with Hostinger, SiteGround, and GoDaddy. Most of what I know came from YouTube, trial and error, breaking plugins, fixing what I broke, replicating reference sites, and recently using Cursor to code/customize parts of sites when WordPress alone was not enough.
The thing is, I know I can build websites that clients accept and pay for, but I also know there is probably a huge gap between “the client liked it” and “this is actually built properly.”
I asked a few professors for feedback and most of them basically dismissed WordPress as outdated and told me to just learn to code. I am learning code too, but WordPress is what currently pays me, so I want to get better at it instead of pretending it does not matter.
For people who have been doing WordPress professionally for a while:
What would you audit in your own WordPress work if you were in my position?
I’m especially curious about:
- Design and UX mistakes beginners commonly miss
- Plugin bloat and when to avoid plugins
- Speed/performance basics
- Security practices I should absolutely know
- SEO setup beyond just installing a plugin
- Hosting setup differences between Hostinger, SiteGround, and GoDaddy
- Backend organization
- Theme/building approach
- Client handoff process
- Pricing/workflow mistakes
- Anything you wish you learned earlier
I’m not asking anyone to review my sites here since I know that is against the rules. I’m more looking for a self-audit checklist or advice from people who have already made the mistakes I’m probably making now.
Brutal advice is welcome. I would rather fix bad habits now than carry them into the next 100 websites.
Thanks.