Let’s get technical this week, shall we?

A couple months ago, I attended one of Danny Iny’s “Passion, Purpose, and Prosperity” webinars. The webinar was a way for Danny to not only gain awareness for his Audience Building Masterclass, but to legitimately help his knowledge-hungry audience.

And while I didn’t end up joining the class (sorry, Danny!), something he said ended up rattling around in my head, weeks later. Something that I found so important, I wrote to him for a direct quote:

“Every business owner should at least know the basics of the tech they’re working with. Don’t be the person that has to run to their ‘website guy’ for every little thing — the reason you got WordPress in the first place is because it’s so easy anyone can use it.”

~ Danny Iny

I’ve run into this so many times with my own clients — and even my fellow writers! They sign up for a WordPress website because it’s “easy” and it’s the “hot new thing”…and then they do nothing with it. They’ve given themselves all that wonderful control over their businesses; and yet they refuse to use it!

Does that sound familiar? I hope not!

If you’re guilty of this, you’re not only needlessly holding yourself back, you might also be getting hosed financially. That “deep HTML fix” your “web guy” insists you need might be as simple as logging in, clicking the left-hand sidebar, and changing a word in the menu bar. (i.e. changing “Blog” to “Writing Advice”).

You don’t have to run your website completely on your own if that’s not your thing, but you should at least know enough about the technology you’re working with to not get hoodwinked. Of course, real “deep HTML” fixes might be needed from time to time; but, with a WordPress site, it’s not as likely.

Most of the problems and little tweaks you encounter are things you can do on your own — easily! Save those “let me call my tech guy” moments for when you really can’t figure it out on your own.

“I don’t know how to do it” and “I’m not a tech person” are just excuses. And crappy ones at that! Because I’m about to blow your mind and show you the Top 15 common WordPress issues that I’ve been asked about (or have had to fix myself) and how to fix them. Because are you running your business or aren’t you?! Come on! Let’s do this!

15 Common WordPress Problems/Questions and Their Solutions

I am so not a “tech person.” However, I’ve picked up a few things along the way. I do everything on this website myself. So I can help you get your site looking at least as good as mine.

Please don’t make fun of me if I don’t use the right technical terms — I’m going to use layman’s terms and explain what works, not necessarily how or why it works. Cool? Cool.

1. “I can’t find the underline/headers/intent/other buttons.”

First off: Don’t feel silly. I actually had to ask Adam Warner (a legit WordPress expert!) how to do this when I first got started! And, okay, I did feel a little silly…because it’s an absurdly easy fix.

Check it out. Here’s how the little toolbar looks in its natural state:

You’ll see this lil guy on both Page and Post pages.

And here’s what happens when you click on the “kitchen sink” button:

I drew on a red arrow to point it out!

Ta-daaaaa!

2. ”My WordPress post looks weird when I copy/paste the text from Word.”

Add in an extra step: copy/paste your text from Word into Notepad first. Then copy/paste that into WordPress.

Or you can just copy/paste it straight into WordPress, switch to Text mode, and get rid of any “ ” you see. (It literally looks just like that. I didn’t just write out a random collection of letters and symbols). That usually clears things up.

3. ”It still looks weird.”

Well, um, okay. In that case, you might need to learn some very, very basic html.

Go into text mode and have a look around. The “code” that I use most often to fix things is “break” which looks like <br></br> It basically makes a space (like you pressed “enter” after a sentence) between one chunk of text and the next. I’m not sure if that’s what it’s “technically” doing, but that’s how it looks visually (and that’s all that matters to me). I use it when my paragraphs decide to randomly clump together.

The best way to see what’s going on behind the scenes is to make it a habit to switch from Visual to Text as you go along — learn/memorize what means what. Or you can just look it up online.

4. “I want to change the menu/navigation tabs so that the buttons say something else.”

This I definitely know how to do. I do it all the time!

Let’s use the example I used at the very beginning of this article: changing “Blog” to “Writing Tips.”

From your WordPress dashboard, go over to the sidebar and click (or hover over) Appearance. Then click on Menus. Like so:

Again, I’ve used poorly-drawn red arrows to show you the way!

From the Menus page, simply click on the name of the tab you want to change and hit its drop-down box. Then, type in whatever you want the tab to be called in the section called “Navigation Label.”

Make sure you actually HAVE a menu/navigation bar set up or this won’t work…

Hit save and you’re done!

5. “My picture won’t upload!”

Then it’s probably too big. WordPress’ maximum upload size is 6MB.

Try resizing it in another program (not WordPress) and try again. Be sure to look at the DPI, not just the “size.” If the quality is too high, it’s going to be “large” even if its “size” is small. You don’t need print-quality images online. In fact, the higher quality they are, the slower they’ll load (and the more they’ll annoy your visitors). Use 72 DPI (or 96 if you’re feeling insecure) — it’ll be more than enough!

6. “How do I change the header & tagline on my homepage?”

From your dashboard, head to the left-hand sidebar once more. Click on Settings and then General. Like so:

Don’t worry if your sidebar is a little less cluttered than mine — I have a lot of plugins!

From there you head to the section I’ve circled below:

No ugly arrows in this one. Just an ugly circle. You’re welcome.

Next to “Site Title” write in your headline. And just to “Tagline” right in your tagline. That’s it! (No, really; it’s that easy!).

7. “How do I change the time settings?”

Remember the page I just showed you where you could change your header & tagline? Same place. Just choose your location from the “Timezone” drop-down menu.

8. “My blog posts are really long; how do I get the ‘read more’ link to show?”

Put your cursor where you’d like the “Read More” button/link to show up and then click on the “Insert More Tag” button. If you did it right a dotted line will show up (if you’re in visual mode — if you’re in Text mode it will say <!–more–>)

Looks like this!

9. “I tried to embed a video, but it looks like gibberish html writing.”

You have to copy/paste any html codes in Text mode.

10. “How do I switch from Visual to Text mode?/What’s the difference?”

Visual mode is the mode that looks kinda like you’re typing in Microsoft Word. It’s the “pretty” mode. Text mode is basically like typing in Notepad. It doesn’t do any formatting on its own — you have to do it. It’s more-or-less “html mode.”

Here’s how you switch between the two and how they differ visually:

Visual Mode

See the tab the red arrow is pointing to? That’s the Visual tab. The tab next to it is the Text mode tab. Click on it to get this:

Text Mode

Those two pages (images) are exactly the same, except one is in Visual mode and the other is in Text mode. See the difference?

11. “When I switch back to Visual mode from Text mode everything gets ruined!!”

Then don’t do that.

Honestly, I don’t know why some posts/pages do this. If it’s really important to you, you could probably ask an expert or do some sort of advanced search for the answer online.

For me, if I run into that problem, I just go in and fix it back up to where it was and then leave it alone from there on out. Once a page is “done” I usually don’t have much to do with it anyway.

12. “What do I do if I don’t want my blog to be my front page?”

WordPress is primarily a blogging platform, so the “default” is having your blog/posts page as your homepage. However, if you want a different (static) page as your homepage, that’s completely doable! (I’ve done just that on my own websites!).

Simply click on Settings again, but, this time, click on Reading as the next step. From there, click on the little button that says “A Static Page” under the “Front Page Displays” section. Then choose which page you’d like as your front page and which page/area should have your blog.

I just used one image this time. (I hope you don’t mind!)

13. “How do I make links open in a new tab?”

When you use the hyperlink button, there should be a little box that says “Open link in a new window/tab.” Click it.

See? (Don’t worry, I actually had to ask about this too!)

14. “How do I make my pictures non-clickable?”

When you upload a picture, usually it will say “Link to: Media File” in the “Attachment Display Settings” section. Just click on the drop-down box in that section and change it to “None.” See below:

That’s the picture of myself I use on WIP pages…

15. “How do I schedule blog posts in advance?”

This is by far one of my favorite features! I love being able to write a blog post days or weeks (sometimes months) in advance and schedule it to be published right when I need it to be.

Like everything else in this list, it’s insanely easy. You’re going to be slapping your forehead and saying, “Of course!”

When you’re writing up a blog post, check to the right of your screen. You should see this:

“Publish immediately” looks so cool though! (Makes me feel important…)

If you’ve ever successfully published a blog post before, you’re probably already familiar with that panel. However, by clicking “Edit” next to the “Publish immediately” button, you get the “Schedule posts” menu! It looks like this:

It’s like burying a time capsule made of words that you don’t have to dig up!

Fill in the date and time you want your post to be published and then click “OK.” After that, click “Schedule.”

That’s it! Provided your date & time settings are correct, your post should go live the exact moment you scheduled it to.

Still Need More Help?

The best way to learn is to do. Back-up everything ahead of time and get in there and play around!

Also, you don’t have to be a dummy to use “For Dummies” books — you do have to be a dummy to not better yourself and continue updating your skills.

Even if you decide WordPress isn’t your forte and you absolutely hate managing your own website, I’d like to urge you to at least know the basics. Your VA or “web guy” might not always be around when you need them. You don’t want to be the figurehead for your business, you want to be the boss. Don’t render yourself helpless for no reason!

Plus, you’re probably better at this than you think!

Want More Freelance Writing Help?

Thanks to the above, you’re probably (hopefully!) feeling much more confident about your ability to use WordPress to run your own website + blog… But how about the other aspects of your freelance writing career?

If fear or a lack of knowledge has been holding you back from having the freelance writing career you’ve always dreamed of, then I’ve got just the thing for you:

Quistic’s “Launch a Freelance Writing Career” webinar!

This amazingly informative 5-day webinar promises to teach you everything you need to know to feel confident getting started as a freelance writer! From “The Basics” to the intricate details of personal online branding, you’ll learn exactly what you need to know to get off on the right foot and start earning what you deserve — in the career you’ve always dreamed of.

Each day is instructed by a different professional freelance writer. In addition to myself (Day One!!), you’ll be getting killer information from Dana Sitar, Stephanie Auteri, Kelly Gurnett, and Jessica Lawlor!