Essential WordPress Help: A Beginner’s guide to getting support with your WordPress site

WordPress is a powerful and versatile content management system (CMS) that can be used to create a wide variety of websites. However, even the most experienced WordPress users can sometimes run into problems. If you’re experiencing a problem with your WordPress site, there are a number of places you can go for help.

In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the best places to get WordPress support. We’ll also provide some tips on how to get the most out of your support experience.

Self help / training

If you are looking to upskill yourself whether it be for training or to solve a specific issue there are lots of options. Here are a few of the best:

  • WordPress.org forums: The WordPress.org forums are a great place to get help with WordPress problems. The forums are divided into a number of different categories, so you can easily find the help you need.
  • WordPress.org documentation: The WordPress.org documentation is a comprehensive resource for learning about WordPress. The documentation includes tutorials, articles, and reference guides.
  • Theme and plugin documentation: Many WordPress themes and plugins come with their own documentation. This documentation can be a great resource for troubleshooting problems with your theme or plugin.
  • WordPress support forums: There are a number of WordPress support forums available. These forums can be a great place to get help with specific problems. Stack Exchange is a popular forum / Q&A site with lots of WordPress content.
  • Plugin or Theme forums: I find these can be super useful, for example I use X Theme by Theme Co a bit and their forum is excellent, often containing specific CSS code to include in sites when something custom is needed.
  • Slack or Discord: If Slack or Discord are your thing there are various groups on both platforms.
  • Facebook groups: I’m a fan of Facebook groups for this sort of thing. The WordPress Experts and WP Beginner groups both have around 100,000 members and are super active (I’m a member of both).
  • Twitter: there are loads of people and groups on Twitter in the WordPress space. I tweeted recently asking who I should follow and got an awesome response, check out the Tweet here.
  • Meetups: WordPress has its own category on Meetup.com with over 500,000 members, check it out here to see if there’s one in your area.
  • WordCamps: WordPress has its own network of events around the world called WordCamps. WordCamp Sydney was actually the first conference I ever spoke at!
  • AI: This one might surprise you but I find myself more and more using tools like ChatGPT and Google Bard for WordPress issues.
  • YouTube: Of course YouTube includes an abundance of training and help videos on WordPress.

Getting outside help

If you don’t want to solve issues yourself, that’s where getting some outside help comes in. Obviously we’re biased. If you’re an Australian business and you want some help with WordPress we’re here. But for outside Australia or for other options these are some of the ones I’d think about:

  • Your host can often be a huge help, especially if they are a fully managed WordPress host.
  • There are loads of other WordPress support companies or agencies these days. Some are good for one off jobs or projects and some offer ongoing maintenance plans.
  • Freelancers or developers can be great, especially if you can find one who’s responsive and fast. Upwork is a good place to start, although sometimes having someone local is preferred. Be careful who you give the keys to the kingdom to!
  • If you are in the support forums you might come across helpful people who also offer support services, so that can be another way of finding helpful people.
  • WordPress events and WordCamps is another great way to meet people in the WordPress space and potentially find someone decent and local to help you out.
  • You can also chat to web agencies about WordPress issues although my experience is they are generally not the best at offering quick support for smaller jobs. They are more geared around larger projects.

How to Get the Most Out of Your Support Experience

When you’re looking for WordPress support, there are a few things you can do to get the most out of your experience.

  • Be specific: When you’re describing your problem, be as specific as possible. This will help the person helping you to understand the problem and find a solution. Ideally include specific links to the problem and write up the details in a Google doc or similar.
  • Provide screenshots: If possible, provide screenshots of your problem. This can be a great way to help the person helping you to understand the problem. Skitch is a sweet tool for doing screenshots and using arrows and things to mark up the screen.
  • Video: A video is even better. I use Screenflow for screen capture videos and it’s great (although it’s not free). There are lots of others. Loom is another popular one.
  • Be patient: Getting help with WordPress problems can sometimes take time. Be patient and work with the person helping you to find a solution.
  • Communication: Consider how you will communicate with any external service. We use Whatsapp and live chat because having the client available right when changes are happening is critical. If the support uses email or an in app messaging service when people aren’t always available, that can become frustrating.

I hope this article is useful, I’m always open for feedback, hit me up on Twitter or LinkedIn if you have any thoughts.

If you are an Australian business who wants help with WordPress check out our plans here. If you are interested in more content like this, check out the rest of the WP Master blog.

Dan Norris
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