WordPress is one of the most powerful tools for creating websites and blogs, used by an estimated 40% of the internet. It is easy to use and offers a vast array of features and customization possibilities. But, as with everything, there are certain potential problems.

If best practices are not followed, your WordPress-based website or blog can be vulnerable in terms of security, it can be extremely slow, or it may have many internal programming errors.

WordPress offers some solutions to these problems, but often the ideal approach is to contact a specialized partner. In this article, we share best practices to ensure your WordPress site runs smoothly and securely.

Introduction to WordPress

WordPress is a versatile content management system (CMS) that allows you to create websites and blogs. It was created in 2003 and has since become the most popular CMS in the world. With 40% of all websites built with WordPress, it is obvious why it has become so popular.

It is simple enough for beginners and flexible enough for experts. WordPress is easy to install and use, and it can be customized to fit specific needs. It is a powerful tool that can be used for a variety of purposes. It can be used to create anything from a simple website with a few pages to a multi-language e-commerce store with hundreds or thousands of products.

Common WordPress Problems

Unfortunately, WordPress also has some common problems that can affect site owners:

• Slow loading times: If our website takes a long time to load, our visitors can easily abandon it. This usually happens when you have too many plugins installed. It can also happen if you have many images or videos on a page and these resources are not correctly optimized. You can visit our article where we give some tips on how to improve web performance.
• Malicious code injection: If we detect anomalous behavior on our website—emails being sent automatically, extremely slow loading times on simple pages, HTML code written on the screen—it is possible that we have suffered an attack and must quickly sanitize our WordPress. For this, it is essential that you contact a partner who can help you (like us), because it is not an easy task for an inexperienced user. To avoid these problems, you can visit our article where we explain how to improve your security in WordPress.
• Low traffic and low interaction: If your website suffers from low traffic and low engagement, there are several possible causes. It is possible that the content you are including is either insufficient or not correctly adapted for good indexing in search engines like Google. A common problem is the lack of keywords or long-tails. Another common issue is that the code snippets necessary for correct positioning are not being added technically.

Use of plugins and themes

Let’s talk now about two basic WordPress concepts: plugins and themes.

• A plugin is a piece of software that adds extra functionality to your WordPress site. Contact form systems, online payments, media players, multi-language systems… all of this is achieved through plugins. Some are free and others are paid.
• A theme is the visual part of the website (although it can also have its own plugins) and relates to the aesthetic side: it is responsible for defining colors, button styles, typography, etc.

A website made in WordPress usually uses plugins and themes to customize the functionality and design of your site. The WordPress community has created thousands of free plugins and themes that you can use on your site.

Unfortunately, there are also millions of malicious plugins and themes available online. It is important to research and select these tools carefully. Our experience of more than 10 years building websites has allowed us to filter which plugins are the most functional and in which cases it is best to use them.

On the other hand, you must be careful when installing certain plugins as they can generate incompatibilities with others you have installed and literally break your website. At Cactus, we never recommend installing many plugins as the subsequent maintenance required is very high.

WordPress Troubleshooting

If you have problems with your WordPress website, don’t panic. Most problems can be solved with a little patience and the necessary knowledge.

The first thing we recommend is updating the plugins, themes, and the WordPress core to avoid version incompatibilities. Try to update slowly, one by one. Sometimes, if we update dozens of plugins at once, we can overload the server.

If this does not solve the problem, we recommend checking the website’s error logs. You can find them in your hosting and they usually indicate which files are causing problems (it could be a specific plugin or theme).

If your WordPress site does not load or is extremely slow and you find no errors in the error logs, there is a possibility that you have reached your hosting limits (both space and memory). If this happens, you can try contacting your hosting company to see if they can increase your plan’s capacity.

As a last resort, you can always contact your hosting company to try and restore a backup. Usually, hostings perform backups periodically, and recovering them is not typically extremely complex.

If the problem persists, we recommend contacting an expert to try and resolve the issue.

Custom Development for WordPress

One of the best ways to avoid errors, excess plugins, or security problems is to develop custom functionalities for your website.

Let’s say you are looking for a specific, concrete functionality: you will hardly find a plugin that fits your needs perfectly, which is why it is smarter and more optimal to develop that part custom.

Custom development, when done well, ensures you can achieve your specific functionalities and also optimizes your website (as it won’t include extra functionality or programming that you don’t need).

At Cactus, we are expert WordPress developers and have been working with the software for over 10 years, syncing content with management programs, generating advanced user areas, and countless extra functionalities. Don’t hesitate to call us if you need custom development.

Conclusion

WordPress is one of the most powerful tools for creating websites and blogs. However, it can be easy to make mistakes that make your site less secure or functional. If you have problems with your WordPress, or have found a limitation in the CMS that you want to overcome with a custom design, don’t hesitate to contact us. We have been working with the software for over 10 years and know every one of its features.

If you prefer not to worry about any of these problems, our web development service takes care of it for you.