Stuck with WordPress? Here’s What you Need to Know

If you're curious about building a website, chances are that you're familiar with the name WordPress. Regardless of whether you’re a beginner at building websites or a seasoned veteran WordPress has you covered for almost all of your needs.

WordPress is an open-source CMS (Content Management System) that was founded back in 2003 and has since seen rapid growth, becoming a standard choice for many web builders. More than 30% of all websites currently on the internet are powered by WordPress, that’s a lot of websites and explains how big WordPress is. It’s an easy tool for beginners as its open-source nature makes WordPress support readily available.

Its Features include:

• It's all online is convenient and can be used on basically any device that can access the internet.

• No coding is required; its algorithm automatically takes input from the user and updates the source code accordingly, without requiring the user to directly interact with the code.

• A collection of over 11,000 different themes to choose from, which are like templates or layouts for your website.

• Wide range of customizability, including but not limited to user-made fonts, uploaded bulletins.

• More than 55,000 plugins or widgets to create all sorts of websites.

• Several other WordPress Live features.

Getting Started with WordPress

WordPress makes it fairly easy to get started for beginners as the knowledge of HTML or JavaScript is not required to set up your website, however, there are a few things newbies need to know.

There are two different options you will come across while setting up a website using WordPress; wordpress.com and wordpress.org. They both are free-to-use services with varying amounts of online WordPress support, that you can use to set up your website but that’s about where the similarity ends.

WordPress.com: It’s a profit-based service based on WordPress that helps you create simple websites using their platform. It's easy to use but not flexible as you lose most of your control but charges no hosting fees whatsoever, albeit you can't monetize your website or add plugins. You also don't own the domain so your domain name will contain WordPress in it, for example; XYZwordpress.com. Although on the flip side you will have a much smoother sailing as WordPress com support is the better one out of the two due to it being a profit-based service. WordPress technical support for .com is also much easier to contact since you can find the WordPress support chat as well as WordPress support phone number on their website.

WordPress.org: It is the original open-source WordPress software that helps to edit your website. Although you would have to pay for a web hosting service for your domain, it's worthwhile as you can monetize your website in any way you want. You would also have a huge array of plugin options available with WordPress. It takes a little bit of money to host your domain but worth it in our opinion.

We would recommend using a good hosting service that offers SSL certifications. Keep in mind since it’s a nonprofit utility so you won't be getting much in terms of WordPress customer support as WordPress support services will be limited to your hosting service provider. Although you can expect WordPress org support from various WordPress forums across multiple social media websites.

Setting up your Website via Wordpress.org can be a little tricky but here’s a brief overview to help you get an idea:

• Start by choosing a web hosting service, we would recommend choosing one that provides all the basic features like SSL certification over a cheap one, albeit while being within your budget.

• Most hosting services will start by asking you to register your domain name followed by your credentials and billing details. Be sure to set up any additional services you want here.

• Next up is installing WordPress. Although you can do it from the wordpress.org website most hosting services will have a dedicated button for one-tap installation, which is much cleaner and more convenient. There you can put the login details and credentials, be sure to keep a note of your login details like password, username as you’ll need it for login in the future.

• It might take anywhere from 20 mins to 24hrs for your website to propagate, once it's done try a quick search with your domain name.

• Now the final step remains, which is to log in. To log in simply put /wp-admin at the end of your URL and it will take you to the admin dashboard. There you can input the previous password and username for login.

• Now that you are logged in you can use WordPress to all its glory and enjoy its various customization options.

Frequent Problems with WordPress

WordPress may face certain issues at times, while you can find WordPress support number and contact WordPress support for wordpress.com, there simply isn't any official WordPress support services for WordPress.org. As such we have listed some common WordPress issues and their solutions.

1. WordPress Stuck in Maintenance Mode

This is one of the most common WordPress problems and happens due to technical errors during scheduled WordPress or Plugin updates. To prevent it make sure to install your updates on time and avoid stacking up updates, also make sure the update has been properly installed before exiting.

2. WordPress Blank White Screen

This is popularly known as WordPress white screen of death and results in a blank white screen with no error messages whatsoever. To fix this you can check if other websites hosted on the same server are having these issues if they do then you should contact your web service provider as its most probably an issue from their side, if they don’t then just disable and re-enable your WordPress themes and plugins one by one until you find the one that’s causing trouble.

3. Memory Exhausted Error

If you see this it means your WordPress has run out of memory and might be caused by an installed plug-in. To fix this simply increase the PHP memory limit in WordPress.

We hope now you’re all set to start building websites using WordPress, it’s a rabbit hole but we hope this filled you enough to get started. Have already started? Did you mention any of the issues we mentioned? Do let us know