We help dozens of users on a daily basis providing them with free WordPress support help either via our twitter, or our contact form. As a volunteer providing free support, every now and then it’s hard not to get frustrated with new users who ask questions in accusatory tone without taking the time and consideration to read or search through past information. At the same time we also understand the feeling of being completely overwhelmed by so much information because we were beginners too at one point. In this article, we will show you how to properly ask for WordPress support and get it.
Before You Ask, Understand this:
Before asking for WordPress support or help regarding a specific plugin or theme, you need to understand that WordPress is an open source community project. Everyone is welcome to create a plugin, theme, contribute patches to core, suggest/fix bugs, etc. WordPress is free, and so are most of the themes and plugins that you use with it.
Individual plugin developers or theme authors are NOT always part of the official WordPress core team. Often the plugins they release for FREE are something they created for their own use in their free time, or something they created for a client. So unless they are selling the plugin or theme, you should assume that they are not making any money from it.
Most of these developers make their income from doing freelance client projects. Even though most developers are ok with helping with a few small things, each will have a different point in which they will want to be paid for the extra support. The more respectful and thankful that you are, the more inclined they will be to help you out for little or no charge.
Remember you pay NOTHING to use the plugin, so the least you can pay the developer is some respect 
Video Tutorial
If you prefer written instructions, then continue reading.
How to Properly Ask the Right Question?
The best place to ask for support for free plugins is in the support forums. You can find the support forum by going to the specific plugin’s page on the repository and clicking the support tab (this ensures that your support question is tagged for the plugin author)
Before you create the support thread, make sure that you have gone through the FAQ page. It’s also best to google the problem to see if someone else have answered it already.
In your support thread, you want to be respectful, clear and concise. A wrong example would be:
Hey dude, there’s a problem with your @#$1 plugin. Don’t create *&%^ if it doesn’t work. I wasted X hours on this stupid thing. Care to help?
If you write in an accusatory tone like that, you will come off as an A$$. Chances are that you will never receive any help either.
You should be mindful that you are asking an expert to take their valuable time and answer your question for free. One of the best way to show respect is list everything you have done up to that point to solve the problem. This shows that you are not some troll who just want others to do their work for free of charge. The right way of asking the question would be:
Thank you for creating your awesome XYZ plugin. For some reason, I’m can’t get it to work right, and I would really appreciate if you can help me with it.
I’m using WordPress version:
Plugin Name version:I did this:
I expected the plugin to do this:
Instead it did this: (Include any error messages here)
My site is hosted with:
I have tried the following solutions:
I tried the issue in the following browsers:
Thank you for taking your time out to help. I really appreciate it
In a support message like above, you are addressing all the possible things a developer would need to answer your question. Occasionally, they might ask to see your site’s URL and/or the list of plugins you have activated.
After you have created the support thread, you can always nicely reach out to the developer on twitter which can help your chances of getting a faster response. An example tweet would be:
Hey @twitterhandle, I am having an issue with Plugin name. Would appreciate if you can help: Link to support thread.
Note: Allow for at least 24 hours to get a response. You don’t know what timezone the author is in, and what their current work schedule looks like.
Whatever you do, please DO NOT call them even if you see their number listed on their website. You also don’t want to SPAM all of their communication channels. For example, a support thread + tweet is good enough.
Support thread + Tweet + Facebook Message + Email + Phone call = ANNOYING
Commercial Plugin + Themes
When using a commercial plugin or theme, it is always recommended to use the appropriate channels of support.
Most commercial products like WPForms, Elegant Themes, MonsterInsights, All in One SEO, etc have designated support areas. Asking questions anywhere aside from their designated support areas would not get you much help.
For example: when a user comes to us asking for commercial theme support, we simply ask them to ask on the appropriate channels.
We do this not to be rude, but to do the right thing. When you purchase a commercial plugin or theme, it comes with support.
If you downloaded a commercial plugin/theme without paying for it through a torrent site, then you don’t deserve our support.
Lastly, just because you paid for the product doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be nice. You should always be nice to the support personal.
Most of those people really enjoy helping others, but you can really ruin their day by using negative words. So please be nice.
Troubleshooting
Nobody likes to help those who don’t want to help themselves. You should always try to troubleshoot the common WordPress problems. The best way to test plugin conflicts is by deactivating all WordPress plugins and activate them one by one. You can also fix other errors that might occur such as:
- 50+ most common WordPress errors and how to fix them
- WordPress white screen of death
- Internal server error
- Error establishing database connection
- Memory exhausted error
- Clear your WordPress cache if you are using a caching plugin
- Do a Hard Refresh (Ctrl + F5) to clear your browser cache
Bonus tip: You can use our guide on how to take screenshots and the Support Ally website to send the plugin author / support team the most helpful information, so they can provide you with the best support.
Conclusion
You always want to be nice when asking for WordPress support. Once you receive satisfactory resolution, we highly recommend that you spread the kind words about that developer. You can also buy them a beer or coffee by donating a few bucks. Lastly, if you have any WordPress questions feel free to ask us using our our twitter, or our contact form.
I am wondering if the wp site is meant to be running so slow we are trying to amend our site but its incredibly slow. My friend also tried it on his computer and had the same issues.
If your site is running slow, you would want to take a look at our article below:
/wordpress-performance-speed/
When clicked on a post as visitor, post title and related category shown into menu on header, this is spoiling apperance, why this is is happening and how to stop it?
It may be how your theme styles the page. If you reach out to your theme’s support they should be able to assist you
Hello,
I am having troubling regarding my excerpts. I have made excerpts for all of my posts but when I change my homepage not to hide my excerpts … It shows all 1K+ words of a specific post as the excerpt
and it continuos until the oldest post of my page.
I hope you can help me with this. Thank you!
For a starting point, you would want to reach out to your theme’s support to ensure there isn’t a specific setting in the theme that needs to be active for it to display excerpts or if it does not include the option by default to show the excerpt
Hi , I am a new user. Please help me to add buttons (Like , Share , Follow) in my website.
For a few options, you would want to take a look at our article here: /plugins/best-social-media-plugins-for-wordpress/
Hi on my home page I have around 10 products showing with price, title of what item is and star reviews, however when I click on a category down the side the same product shows just the star review no title or price, any ideas I am very new to this
It sounds like your specific theme may not have the proper styling for the display of that information. If you let your theme’s support know about this problem they should be able to assist.
Hello,
I have a question. I don’t have my WordPress account anymore but every time if I would like to comment in some WordPress blogs, then it still recognizes me and wants me to log in. How I can stop doing this?
You likely have a gravatar on the Gravatar site: /beginners-guide/what-is-gravatar-and-why-you-should-start-using-it-right-away/
If your site was on WordPress.com they likely set up the Gravatar for you when you added an image for your profile.
Okay, I get it, but how I can delete it or just remove the possibility of recognizing me again, while I don’t want to have a wordpress account?
If you remove your WordPress.com account entirely it should remove your Gravatar account
Hi, can you help with what I believe is a theme problem? It is Searchlight. Latest version makes the gallery images not set the size set for thumbnails. It uses the right image, but gets bigger with fewer rows of picks. I would appreciate the help.
Site is and the Hunting and Fishing pictures areas show the issue.
Hi Brian,
A quicker fix would need some Custom CSS. Please contact your theme author and they would be able to help you with that.
The following shows up on my Yost SEO for a couple of pages on my site. How do I fix the problem:
You’re linking to another page with the focus keyword you want this page to rank for. Consider changing that if you truly want this page to rank.
Thanks!
Hi Jeff,
You need to change the text of one of the links in your article which is pointing to an external website using the same words that you have set as your focus keyword.
Hi
I was doing some editing on an existing post on free WordPress blog. Unfortunately, I did a cut and paste and accidentally deleted a portion of it. There is no undo button and I don’t have the information anywhere else
I wrote to the WordPress Help Center but there is no response. Perhaps, they are busy with other queries. I wonder is there any backup of my post and if there is, can I request the affected blog post to be restored?
Yours Faithful WordPress User,
Swee
If you have post revisions you may want to check them for before your edit: /beginners-guide/how-to-undo-changes-in-wordpress-with-post-revisions/
I run online assessment portal, I want to know if there is any code or Plugin to avoid opening any other windows or tab can open while writing the exam (browsing tolerance)
Thank you so much for this article. I don’t often need help, but it’s great to know you are here — and how to properly ask for your assistance.
Hello! Thanks for writing this informative article, being a beginner is indeed scary! I know what I need done but I’m not sure what I would be searching for as far as plugin name. I’m envisioning a local tab that once is clicked takes you to a screen with one drop down menu where you select a city name and once that is selected you hit go and it takes you to a page that has information for that local city. Can you please give me some direction on what I should be searching for? or if you know of something that does this off the top of your head that would be great!
thanks so much!
I took the time to write a question on the page for Suggestions and Questions. However, when I checked “I am not a Robot,” the verify image appeared but the question was not visible! I am hard of hearing, and could not distinguish the words.
This is very frustrating as I watch so many of your valuable videos and instructions and now when I need clarification, your Capture is not working for me to submit my question.
Hi Richard,
We are sorry about that and will take a look at it. Meanwhile, you can also Tweet to us or leave a comment on any article and we will try to get back to you.
Hey,
I was just wondering if there is any way to call someone at wordpress? I set up an account years ago, and cannot remember which email I sent it to. I know my username. I probably have my activation code in my email… whichever one that is…
Is there anyone who can help me recover my account?
Hi Kimberly,
We believe you are talking about WordPress.com. Please see our guide on the difference between self hosted WordPress.org vs free WordPress.com blog.
You can contact WordPress.com support from their website and they may be able to help you out.
Hi
I need help to display custom message when site has any error or Is it possible to redirect to my custom page if site has any error and report me on my email about those errors.
Thanks
I have a wordpress server that I did not set up, nor have documentation for. One of the wordpress sites, another person was added as a admin. He deleted my admin user and he can’t seem to create a new user for me. Is there a way to go in through terminal (rhel 6.9), and create a new admin user, so I can update the site? If it matters, the php database ss on a different server. I do have server root access. Keep in mind, I have zero php background, I can generally fudge my way through most anything if instructions are clear. Thank you!
Hi Jon,
If you have server access, then you can use SSH to connect to your WordPress site. Your hosting provider will have a tutorial on how to connect SSH with detailed instructions.
Once connected, you can edit the functions.php file to add a new admin user.
Hi, I have a WordPress webpage for my author site BUT it was designed by someone else. Now I am trying to get one for my travel blog. I pretty much learn by trial and error but I can’t figure if my site is live or not and how it looks to others. Also, I can not for the life of me figure how to add facebook or anything.
This is my site. I am just playing with it until I know exactly what I have.
This is my Author site which I gave all the Cambodian font/Sanskrit(a back page) from a photo in Cambodia and my covers.
Thank you for your time
Mary m.
Hi Mary,
Your website is not live yet and others cannot see it. Please login to your admin area and go you will see an option to make your website live on the dashboard. If you don’t see that option, then go to Plugins page and disable MojoMarketplace plugin. After that your website will become visible to others.
Hi,
I am new to WordPress and was hoping someone with more experience could give me some quick advice before I waste a stack of time and money.
I am trying to create an ecommerce website with a customised product for each customer. I want to be able to have the user create an account on my website, save their customisation details and proceed to a checkout to pay for the item, following this an email should be sent to myself (for confirmation) and the manufacturer to make the product.
I am not quite sure what plugins to use and if the ones I am thinking of will work or have the capability. I was thinking it may be possible to do something like this using gravity forms or ninja forms with a WooCommerce add-on?
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks Soo much in advance!!!
M
Hi Mick,
You can do that using WooCommerce. You can set up order confirmation emails and add the manufacturer or supplier to receive order confirmations via email. You can enable user account registration in WooCommerce which will allow them to register.
I am needing to clone a web page from an existing Word Press site. I have the plug-in installed to do this. How do I clone it, edit it and view edits BEFORE it is actually published to the site? Any help would be appreciated?
i have a problem with my website .. i just change the theme and then my website was gone and it keeps displaying like this (Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘<' in /tmp/theme_temp_setupO1dWtN on line 2)
how to fix this problem ? i already did the clear browsing data cache but it still displaying this problem please help me to solve this error thank you WordPress
Hey Jay,
This could be a theme issue. Connect to your website using an FTP client or File Manager in cPanel. Go to /wp-content/themes/ folder and download your current active theme as a back up to your computer. After that delete the theme folder from your website. Once you regain access to your website, you can try reinstalling the theme. For more details see our WordPress troubleshooting guide.
So i’m a student in high-school and we’re creating a website for our school district in wordpress but the problem is that we can’t seem to figure out how to insert a link on a button so that the link would go to another page in the bootstraps slider section of customize, can you please help us!
please i have a problem with my wordpress login. after i have logged in and posted stories, the site goes down and can log in again unless after several hours. please i really need help cuz am fustrated
Hi,
I am searching for integrating wordpress site with “Progressive Web App”. But i am unable to find any answer anywhere.
Even a start will help, i’ll take it forward.
Thank you
Hi. TY for the awesome Beginners Guide. I have recently taken over our organizations WordPress website. One of the tasks I was given was to utilize iMapbuilder and make a responsive map for our properties page. However, the script code for the map works wonderfully in draft mode but when I try to publish the page, it will not show. I am not very “code savvy” but is there some simple way to fix this? Multiple Google searches and YouTube videos seem to be way beyond my abilities. Thanks.
I took over a new position, which included managing our website. I had no prior experience with WordPress, so it has been fun and frustrating at the same time. I’ve pretty much been able to navigate through things until recently. A client brought to my attention that when she looks at our website from her mobile phone she is having an issue with the drop-down menus. There are 6 of them and for some reason the first 2 won’t open/drop down? Any suggestions/help you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Hi Everyone, I’m a volunteer trying to do a web page for a youth basketball team. For some reason I’m getting a very wide margin down the left side of the page – like 2 1/2 inches. It’s preventing me from centering things properly. Can anyone give me some suggestions about how to get rid of it? I typed one word ‘just’. The whole code on the page looks like this:
Just
Any suggestions?
I hope this is the correct place to ask a question? I’m back in school after a long period of time for communications. Utilizing WordPress via BlueHost.
When entering a “Post” – we are to create a “Blog” – in the text entry “box” I note that the margins, for lack of a better word, are narrow. I’ve clicked on and hovered over everything I can think of to widen the margins to no avail. My Googling has also been unsuccessful in that I’m unsure of which keywords to use. Your helpfulness would be great appreciated.
Thank you,
Mort
Hi Mort,
Your WordPress theme may have a file called editor-style.css this file controls how the text looks inside the Visual Text Editor box when writing a post. You can increase page margin in this file using CSS.
Hey there! I’m having trouble saving my content to the actual website.
When i create a new page, publish it, and then look on the website, the new added content is there. However, when I sign out of WordPress and go to the website, the newly added content is no longer there. I’ve tried everything to fix this, and this is the first time this has ever happened. Any suggestions?
Thanks for your help
Hey Michael,
If you are using a WordPress caching plugin, then sometimes those plugins may not clear cache when you post new content. Check out our article on how to clear your cache in WordPress
Hello!
I have tried various social sharing plugins for my WordPress site. All the buttons seem to working, except the Facebook button. When I attempt to share the blog posts on Facebook, it still shows the “Coming Soon” under construction page. However, it works for other pages like my about us section, and also my other blog. Any suggestions on what the problem might be?
Your help will be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Luke
Hey Luke,
A number of things can cause this. May be the plugins are sharing the wrong URL or may be Facebook is getting incorrect thumbnail while sharing. Try reaching out to plugin support they may be able to help you figure this out.
In the All in One SEO Pack all of my TITLES in the back end are adding the company name as the last Word in the TITLE. I need to disable that but cannot find a way to do it. There is a real reason I need to do that as I have done it on some of the biggest companies in the world for their website. I am unable to find what setting I need to change in order for that to happen. Example
Services | Architects | Home Design…and then Rueppell is added to the string
Hi Dennis,
You’ll need to review All in One SEO » General Settings page. There you will see the option to change the default template used for title. For details, please see our All in One SEO Pack guide.
Hi there,
I just spent the last 3 hours creating a page but am unable to see any change on my site. I also modified some pictures but my site is not letting me modify anything. Help! What do I need to do to see my new work?
Best regards,
Lori
Hi,
I’m looking for specific help on plugins that might work with WP that would allow me to live stream straight to my site. Any help on where else I could post this would be helpful.
Hi was using a web guy and after all we had sorted on my wordpress.org site yesterday he decided to try and rip me off. He was setting up a payment gateway for me and i had given him my paypal details. He then sent himself an email from my website to access 500 pounds which was never discussed or authorised.
I have now found that he has embedded his email address everywhere. I cannot go into wordpress .org login as it does not recognise my email address. I have tried a range of things from changing password etc but all email addresses are not working. Can anyone suggest anything to help me?
Sue
Hi Susan,
Sorry to hear about that. Please see our guide on what to do when locked out of WordPress admin area.
I am working with the chemistry theme in wordpress and i am having some trouble. I am trying to get the social links to show up.
This is the website i’m working on
My other problem is on the request service page i am trying to get this html code to that page but it doesn’t work.
I would really appreciate your help.
Thanks,
Hi! I’m having trouble controlling the custom css in WP. I used inspect element and fount out that the element I’m trying to edit is from the foundation.css not in the style.css. My question is that, can I edit the foundation.css which i downloaded from the FTP and re-upload it again?
Hey Tin,
You can do that but it is not recommended. The file is probably part of your WordPress theme or a plugin and will get over written when you update that theme or plugin. See our guide on how to easily add custom CSS in WordPress.
I am working with the chemistry theme in wordpress and i am having some trouble. I am trying to get the social links to show up.
This is the website i’m working on
My other problem is on the request service page i am trying to get this html code to that page but it doesn’t work.
I would really appreciate your help.
Thanks,
Hi there, thanks for answering questions. There appears to be a glitch with the images in my website. When I’m in the back end editor, my images are unresponsive. Normally, when you click on an image in the content box, it’s supposed to give you editing controls like selecting the alignment, and sizing adjustments on each corner to be able to resize the picture. My images won’t “select” when clicked. Sometimes if I double click a bunch, the area over the image will be highlighted, but I still can’t select the image to get editing controls. This is happening on all blog posts. I have tried deleting images from the posts and reloading them, but that doesn’t seem to change anything. I’m at a loss, please help!
Thank you so much for any help you might have.
Hey Sarah,
You can try switching to a default theme like Twenty Seventeen. Then edit a post and see if you can reproduce the issue. If the issue is still there then you can rule out your current theme as the culprit and safely activate it again.
However, if the problem disappears, then this means your current theme is the culprit. Reach out to the plugin developers for support.
I am using the Sydney theme and my main call to action button disappeared. Is there anything I can do to allow it to show again? Under appearance and header area it is still filled out so I am not sure why it went away… Thanks in advance
Good morning,
I am very new to the WordPress community. Three weeks to be exact. Able to install WordPress locally using wamp and choose a free theme and put in my own child theme as well. My challenge and frustration are with fundamental questions as to what and how to develop the site.
When I search for an answer on how to decide on a theme I get installing themes and choosing whether it is business or food or blog. Or how to change a theme. Not what I am looking for. Or simply how much can I hope to change on my own after deciding on a theme. And the ramifications associated with those changes. And many more of what I call ‘fundamental’ basic questions. Is there a resource or forum to get these kinds of answers? Is here a good place? I hate to take up someone’s time with these primitive questions but they are a huge obstacle in moving forward with the evolution of the site. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Hi,
I have the domain name, bought the hosting space from wordpress.
I started working on creating the theme page etc. But I m stuck in creating my Products section , sub products and uploading picture of each product and their variation.
Totally confused. Read multiple support forums, nothing guides me towards uploading my stuff. kindly help .
thaanks
Seema
Could someone tell me where WordPress support lives? Due to some kind of error, I’ve been locked out of my account since I purchased it. I have all my proper receipts (Paypal, WordPress confirmation email etc) but am recieving error messages on every account recovery form. I’ve tried every method of contact I was able to find online, spaced out over the course of a month. It’s super frustrating, and I would be grateful for a nudge in any direction. Thanks
Hi Cheyenne,
You are probably using WordPress.com. Please see our guide on the difference between self hosted WordPress.org vs free WordPress.com blog.
I dont know if i should have asked it here or not.. but i’ve found everywhere, but did not recieve didn’t got a right answer. If someone could please address my query.
How can i make a “news feed” like homepage in wordpress. What i want is a page full of grids/images.
I do not want to create a static homepage. I want to update the images regularly. I do not want to change the layout/size of the grid/images. Only the content. Please help. Appreciate your time.
Hello,
My company at the moment is at a loss as to what to do as page keeps coming back with an error whenever we try to log in, so we can’t log in and we’ve tried calling the number in the USA and nobody is answering and we can’t ask for support unless we are logged in.
Please please please help
Best regards
Ona
Hi Ona,
What does error message say?
I’ve got a weird problem. I am no longer able to acces my wp-admin site. It just opens up in a strange version of my site which is how my site looks now when I go to the regular site. Any ideas would be helpful.
Cheers
Jack
Hi Jack,
Please follow instructions in our WordPress troubleshooting guide to figure out what’s causing the issue.
Hi
1. How Do I Make The Text Smaller in the Mail Chimp Form? Located here:
2.
3. That is:
a. What code do I insert into the correct file?
b. & where in the file do I put it?
4. As I’m not sure if the relevant file is css or php?
5. Are you able to look at the source code & tell me exactly which file it is?
6. My ideal text size is –> font-size: small
Thanks in advance.
I had a young man build a WordPress site for our church, and he did give me some training on how to maintain it. I however cannot seem to get anything done on it. Just changing text or pictures in some of the slideshows seems to be beyond my ability to do. Are there people who are basically on retainer for people like me, to make changes when needed for a reasonable monthly cost? We don’t make a lot of changes, but need them done when we want them to be. My site got created around Easter and so that message is still on my page. It is now approaching Christmas and I would like to update it but can’t seem to recall how to do it, and the person who built it is not available to help me.
Thanks,
Ron
Hi Ron,
There are many freelancing websites like Upwork, Freelancer, and Fiverr. You can find WordPress developers there that can help you make changes to your website at reasonable rates.
Meanwhile, we will recommend you to keep trying. There is a slight learning curve but once you get past this, you will be able to manage your website without paying anyone. WordPress is used by millions of users and most of its userbase consists of non-techy people who are managing their own websites without much difficulty.
I need a little help. I need to know where to access the code on my home page, to fix the bottom of the middle row. Here is my site: you can easily see what I need to clean up. I have fixed it in the customize Crockett Coon Cap page, but that’s not the real page. I can’t save it from there. Where do I find the code to fix it? I can edit all the other pages, and the side bars on my home page, but not the center column. It’s not in appearance, edit.
Thank you!
Sylvia
Hello, I need help. I know just enough to be dangerous. I have had a blog on WordPress since 2008, when trying to go to my site i couldn’t get in , started another one I need to get rid of the latest one and I can’t get in to the original…I have no idea how I got myself into this mess lol…. Help….
Not a plug-in question, but a sidebar/menu question. Already asked the WP user forum here at UW, and they weren’t able to help. If this isn’t in your bailiwick, that’s fine, but i thought I’d ask.
I created a custom menu and sidebar and for some reason it appears twice in the RH sidebar. I’ve double-checked and, no, I didn’t create two of the same sidebars, so how did the duplicate happen, and how do I get rid of it?
Thanks!
hi there
i want to build a site with wordpress using plugins etc just like the following examples
i understand the in depth features / database structure of the above examples
is it possible to do this via wordpress if so what plugins would you recommend or what is the best way for me to approach this
i am familiar with wordpress and in the past i have done a few e-commerce sites, but doing something as complex as the above examples is out of my league or might not be
please advise thank you
It depends on what features you will need and how you will be implementing them. You can make a list of features that you will need and then use Google search to find plugins that can add those features.