Common WordPress problems

Even though WordPress is flexible and user-friendly, there may be times when a WordPress site doesn’t run the way it should. All sorts of WordPress problems can arise. This can result in a missing item in the menu, a blank page with an error message or even a hack.

As WordPress specialists, we encounter various problems that clients seek solutions to. In this article, we do a sampling of those problems. Furthermore, we offer you a handy checklist for the perfect WordPress website (highly recommended).

Management

You can manage a WordPress website with multiple colleagues. For example, you can give an employee only the rights to prepare blog posts, while editors can also edit and publish them. And administrators can change things like navigation structure and settings. Yet that division of roles is not always easy.

• Employees can (not) adjust everything
  What about management? In theory, you can set a certain role for each contributor, so that not everyone can post or edit content at random. But how do you do that in practice? It is even more annoying when you know exactly how to adjust permissions, but the website does not have the right set of permissions.
• The dashboard looks weird
  Many organizations choose a standard WordPress theme. Once that’s in place, it’s nice, but on the “back end,” management can cause headaches. There are many new options on your WordPress dashboard and certain features are hidden in illogical places, don’t work or overlap. That takes time and creates frustration.
• In the media library, everything gets mixed up
  Just quickly put an image in a blog post: WordPress makes this very easy. But such a fast upload can make your media library look very cluttered after a while, similar to a crammed desktop on your computer.
• The site is starting to show errors
  Many default themes sooner or later stop being updated and are then no longer secure or compatible with new WordPress versions. The result? Your site is getting errors. It is smarter to choose a WordPress theme that is popular and constantly evolving. If you want to be on the safe side or simply want a site that meets your exact needs, we recommend a custom WordPress theme.

Multilingual websites

Welcoming foreign visitors is what you do with a multilingual website. In this regard, organizations that have a WordPress website often choose a solution in the form of a plugin. Specifically, WordPress Multilingual Language (WPML) is popular for this purpose, but this plugin regularly causes problems over time.

• Backend becomes cluttered
  WPML works from one environment for all languages. This means that all functionalities, media files and plugins are in the same environment. If your website includes six languages, it quickly becomes a big cluttered mess in the backend.
• Things jump and disappear
  Because WPML is in one installation, it also draws all the information from one database. Plugin updates and page changes are common examples of situations where errors can occur in the large database. At such times, your WordPress installation may become un-updatable or pages or elements may “just jump”.
• The website becomes slow
  Suppose your original, Dutch-language Web site has hundreds of pages and you want to start offering this site in German, English, French and Spanish. This means a five-fold increase in site size and inevitably leads to a site that loads pieces slower. Also on the administrator’s side, WordPress admin gets a lot slower. This is irritating for the visitor, bad for your conversions and frustrating for the site administrators.

In fact, we recommend the WPML plugin only when an organization has good weighty reasons to do so. For example, when working with automated translation software. For all other situations, we work with a more stable solution: WordPress Multisite.

Large networks

WordPress has grown from blogging platform to the most widely used CMS in the world over the past 15 years. More than 34% of all websites on the Internet run on WordPress, including those of major organizations such as Capgemini, New York Times, Microsoft News, Unicef, Sony Music and Walt Disney.

So WordPress is well suited for large companies and institutions, but for such parties there is also a danger lurking around the corner: that such a large collection of (sub)sites grows out of control and the network becomes cluttered, costly and cumbersome.

• A jumble of domains and hosts
  It is common for an organization to have multiple WordPress websites spread across different hosts. This creates a jumble of hosting packages with their associated limits, validity periods, usernames and passwords. Add domains registered separately with other hosts, and it’s easy to lose track.
• How do you distribute admins’ rights?
  Who can access which site and exactly what permissions does someone have? Ideally, lower-level employees can only access their own site, while marketing staff at headquarters, for example, can also edit things at a regional or local level. Who gets to do what is all configurable, but can become an administrative nightmare when dealing with dozens or hundreds of separate WordPress installations.
• Higher costs
  Hosting websites with different hosts creates not only administrative hassles, but also differences in costs. This also eliminates the economy of scale you benefit from by staying with one web host.
• How do you quickly roll out a new site?
  A new brand, a new site, a temporary promotion: each one calls for a new site. But who is responsible for it, where is it hosted and who gets the rights to manage it? And how do you get it into the design of one of your existing sites?

2manydots breathes WordPress. We answer your questions, give you advice and perform the necessary actions that will keep your sites running securely and easily managed quickly. This not only gives peace of mind, but also helps you save time and money.

Security and privacy

You realize that your website is an essential part of your organization. Downtime you can’t afford. At the same time, you want visitors to feel safe. But how do you prevent brute force or DDoS attacks from taking down your site? And how do you guarantee visitors that their data will not end up in someone else’s hands?

• Hackers love WordPress
  Don’t be shocked by the above sentence; the fact of the matter is that hackers track large streams of visitors. Because at websites and on platforms where there are many visitors, there is more to be gained. Because WordPress is open-source, malicious parties can see the source code and look for leaks. These are often closed after a short time with WordPress updates, but those who stick with an old WordPress version for too long run the risk of a hack.
• Hackers love plugins
  Plugins can provide useful additional functionality, but are not always stable. Especially when they are not updated or updated infrequently, it creates a security risk. It only takes programming knowledge to see if a new or existing plugin is secure enough.
• Security plugins not doing their job
  You have installed plugins to protect your site from a brute force attack or DDoS attack, but still your site is down? Unfortunately, this is possible because these plugins secure at the site level. Better to seek a solution one level higher: at the server level. By choosing a host that unburdens, you’ll need fewer plugins, with the added benefit of your site running faster.

2manydots provides security and privacy for dozens of SMBs and institutions. With an in-house Data Protection Officer in the office, we have a turnkey solution to your challenges. For example, we know exactly which plugins are safe. If there is a feature that can’t be created with that, we’ll even build that plugin for you.

Accessibility

Local and national government agencies are becoming more attentive to visitors with disabilities. Indeed, Web guidelines regarding accessibility are constantly being tightened. The only question is how do you meet these WCAG requirements when your site has been standing like a house for years?

• Inaccessible to visitors with disabilities
  If your site is only understandable to “sane” Internet users, then you are missing out on a lot of visitors and possibly revenue. For as much as 15% of the population has physical, cognitive or sensory disabilities. The international WCAG guidelines help organizations make their sites more accessible.
• Updating is difficult
  Even if the inaccessibility is recognized and there is the will to take action, many sites are not suitable for such a job. In fact, standard WordPress themes do not allow customization very much, if at all. But if accessibility becomes the main goal, a custom WordPress site is good to build.

2manydots is familiar with the latest accessibility guidelines. Not only do we know how to make your site barrier-free, but we also take the necessary steps to achieve compliance – with the corresponding hallmarks.

Download our checklist for the perfect WordPress site

As you can see, there is a lot involved in a successful WordPress website. We make it a little easier by providing you with a ready-made WordPress checklist. This allows you to see where your site’s weaknesses are within minutes, so you can work on them.

Prefer to read a more comprehensive document? Then the WordPress white paper is for you.