The Ultimate Guide To Finding Answers To WordPress Questions

WordPress is no doubt an amazing website and blogging platform.  Not only is it well coded, well supported, very user-friendly, (SEO) Search Engine Optimized and super flexible, it’s totally free!  With an ever growing community of users, WordPress is quickly becoming one of the fastest growing Do-It-Yourself website programs out there.  Yet, just like any piece of software, there is always going to be a need for good documentation and tutorials to help us, as users, figure out how to make WordPress do what we want and need it to do to achieve our online goals.

WordPress.org

WordPress.org is not only the place to download the latest version of WordPress, but it’s also packed with super in-depth documentation on just about anything you may be interested in regarding the software.  You can find what you need to know about WordPress by checking out their Documentation, searching and posting to the Forum as well as stay up-to-date with the latest WordPress news by reading their Blog.

The Many Great Blog And Forum Resources…

Even with all the great information packed into the pages of WordPress.org, sometimes you have questions that are more custom in nature.  Maybe you want to do something that WordPress doesn’t do by default or maybe you’re working with a theme or plugin that requires a more broad focus in terms of support.  This is when Google becomes your best friend.

There is a growing list of super useful blogs and web forums out there with free content just waiting to be ingested.  Tons of knowledgeable bloggers and designers/developers who spend their days cranking out useful information on WordPress, plugins, themes, etc…  The problem is that our needs are often too specific and ever changing to find all we need in one place.  I really can’t think of a single resource that has provided me with every WordPress insight I’ve required.  Often times I need to know how to do something very specific and may happen upon a completely random website that just so happens to have the answer I require.  Chances are I’ll never even return, yet that one visit was all I needed.  So learning effective search techniques is absolutely essential!

Effectively Searching Via Google

When you want to know the answer to something specific and you want to know fast, Google is the way to go.  Yet just typing a few keywords into Google and pressing ‘Search’ is rarely going to get you the results you’re hoping for.  More often than not you’ll find yourself scrolling through page after page of ‘almost the right answer’ websites.  So you need to learn a few Google Searching Techniques so you can pull your answer up on page one every time.

The simplest way to refine your search is to add quotes around your search text.  When doing so you are telling Google to not only find websites with the text you type, but in the order you type it.  This can quickly take that ‘needle in a haystack’ search and land your answer at the top of page one.  Just don’t use it every time as you will often find the need to let Google broaden its reach for certain inquiries.

There are many different ways to refine your Google searches to help you quickly get the answers you need.  You can search for items that show up in a title of a page or in the URL itself.  Or you can have Google search for your keywords only in a specific website (domain).  There are many more ways to refine your searches, all enabling you to pinpoint  what you want/need to know to accomplish your online goals.  For more information be sure to check out this great resource for Google Search Operators.  Also read about how you can take advantage of Google’s Advanced Search.

Twitter

Another great way to quickly get WordPress answers (or at least get pointed in the right direction) is to ask on Twitter.  Just be sure to use the word WordPress and add a hashmark (ie. #Wordpress).  This way you’ll not only have those following you see the question, but those who follow #Wordpress tweets may chime in as well.  Either way this can be a great way to pinpoint answers as you’ll often find others who had the same question at some point and already came across the answer.  A quick link from a Twitter friend can go a long way in reducing your search time.

Bookmark Along The Way

Finally, be sure to bookmark websites and specific web pages as you come across them.  I find that while searching for one answer I’ll come across other useful content regarding WordPress that I know I’ll want access to down the road.  So bookmark it now so you don’t waste time later, trying to remember where/how you found the page in the first place.  Also, do yourself a favor and create a few folders to organize your growing list of WordPress bookmarks.  There’s nothing more frustrating that knowing you’ve got the link somewhere, but not being able to locate it.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of useful WordPress resources, but with this content you should be able to effectively locate those answers you need to WordPress questions.  The more success you find, the easier it gets.  It’s like fishing…you first need the right gear and then the right location, but after that it’s experience that lands you the big one.  OK, that was a really BAD analogy!!  You get the point.

Eric Hamm