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WordPress is the most versatile and widely used content management system, offering unparalleled flexibility and scalability.
However, managing a WordPress site isn’t without its challenges especially for marketing managers focused on improving performance, driving engagement, and achieving growth.
From handling plugin overload to tackling SEO issues, marketing managers face a demanding digital landscape that requires constant attention to keep their WordPress sites running smoothly and staying competitive.
To gain firsthand perspectives, we sat down with 28 Australian marketing professionals to find out their daily WordPress struggles and the practical solutions they’ve found to overcome them.
Here is what these 28 thought leaders had to say.
Avoid Plugin Overload
We work with a lot of WordPress clients, and I can tell you that managing those websites comes with its fair share of daily challenges. One of the biggest headaches would be plugin overload.
WordPress is amazing for its flexibility, but that flexibility can quickly spiral into chaos when you start piling on plugins. We often juggle anywhere from 30 to 50 plugins at any given time. Each one serves a purpose like SEO optimisation, social media sharing, or analytics-but they can also create a perfect storm of issues.
For example, we once decided to be proactive and updated all plugins at once. Big mistake! The site crashed, and we had to deactivate everything and troubleshoot one by one to figure out which plugin was causing the chaos. It felt like playing whack-a-mole, and trust me, it was not fun!
To tackle this plugin predicament, we’ve adopted a more disciplined approach to management. Here’s what’s worked for us:
1) For our clients, we do monthly audits to see which plugins are actually being used and which ones can go. This helps streamline the sites and improve performance.
2) We’ve set a rule: before adding any new plugin, we thoroughly research it. We check reviews, compatibility with the current setup, and whether it’s actively maintained. This has saved us from many potential headaches.
3) We always test updates or new plugins in a staging environment first. This way, we can catch any issues before they affect the live site.
4) Having a reliable backup system in place is crucial. If something goes wrong, we can quickly restore the site without losing data.
In short, while managing a WordPress site can be challenging-especially with the temptation to overload on plugins-taking a structured approach has made a world of difference for us. By regularly auditing the plugins and maintaining strict guidelines for new additions, we keep client sites running smoothly and avoid those hair-pulling moments! It’s all about finding that balance so we can focus on what really matters: delivering great content and results for our clients!
Kate Dzhevaga, CMO, Head of Growth, SYMVOLT
Invest in High-Quality Paid Plugins
WordPress is popular for its flexibility and the variety of plugins available to users. These plugins can add almost any feature you need whether it’s SEO tools, social media integrations, or others. But I’ve seen how having too many plugins can slow down a website.
Each plugin adds its own code that runs every time a page loads, even if you’re not using that feature on the specific page. So, the more plugins you add, the more code your site has to process, and this can lead to slower load times. And if a website takes too long to load, visitors often leave before the page even shows up. This increases bounce rates, which tells search engines that users aren’t finding the experience valuable, and that can push the site down in search results.
Another issue with plugins is that the best ones usually require a paid subscription. There are free options out there, but they’re often poorly optimised, which puts extra load on the server and slows the site down even more. To keep things fast and reliable, I’ve found it’s worth investing in a few high-quality, paid plugins and limiting the number you use. This way, the website runs smoothly and offers a better experience for visitors.
Nikola Baldikov, Founder, InBound Blogging
Balance Design and Site Speed
One of the biggest daily challenges I see on WordPress is maintaining site speed while balancing design and content. It’s very tempting to load a site with visually impressive features and plugins that seem to enhance user experience. However, these additions can quickly bog down the site’s performance.
Sometimes, the best improvement isn’t adding more but scaling back.
From my experience, each plugin or widget might feel indispensable for functionality or aesthetics, but every add-on can increase load time and cause unpredictable conflicts. The trick is learning to refine and prioritise – ask yourself which elements directly support conversion goals and which are just “nice to have.”
Try stripping back to essentials and optimising the backend for speed; you can actually enhance user engagement and SEO performance more effectively than by adding more “wow” factors.
This insight, which is that less is often more when it comes to impactful website design, reduces clutter and not only keeps the site running smoothly but also makes your core message stand out, ultimately boosting marketing results.
Nicholas Robb, Design agency for startups, Design Hero
Proactively Maintain Your Website
As a marketing manager who has been using WordPress for over a decade, my biggest daily challenge is keeping the site running smoothly and preventing it from going down. Nothing is more frustrating than when your website crashes or goes offline unexpectedly. It completely disrupts your ability to reach customers, drive traffic, and achieve your marketing goals.
I’ve learned the hard way that you can never be too proactive when it comes to website maintenance and monitoring. Even small issues like broken links or minor bugs can quickly snowball into much larger problems if left unaddressed. I try to stay on top of updates, backups, security patches, and server health, but things still slip through the cracks sometimes. And when the site does go down, it’s like a mad scramble to get it back up ASAP while angry customers are emailing and calling wondering why they can’t access your pages.
As much as I try to stay zen, website crashes definitely make me want to pull my hair out at the moment. But over the years I’ve gotten better about having contingency plans in place and communicating with customers when there are problems. Proper planning and maintenance help minimise headaches, but website issues are an inevitable part of the job. You just have to take a deep breath, tackle the problems head-on, and learn from each experience. Because at the end of the day, delivering a smooth, seamless digital experience is what marketing is all about.
Rengie Wisper, Marketing Manager, Palmako
Centralise Management with MainWP
Managing multiple WordPress sites can be overwhelming for marketing managers, especially when balancing content updates, maintenance, and security. Each site’s unique plugins, themes, and content require regular updates, and missing even one can create vulnerabilities, break functionality, or impact performance.
Content management adds another layer. From blogs and product pages to SEO adjustments, coordinating updates across multiple sites can feel like a full-time job. Ensuring consistent brand messaging while manually updating each site can lead to errors or inconsistencies that disrupt marketing results.
Security and backup management also complicate the workflow. Without a centralised system, monitoring backups and performing security checks on each site individually can be inefficient, making it hard to respond quickly to issues that might harm user experience.
MainWP has significantly simplified these tasks. Its centralised dashboard allows me to manage updates, backups, security scans, and even content drafts across all sites from one place. With MainWP, I can schedule updates for plugins or themes across every site at once, ensuring consistency without the hassle of logging into each site individually.
MainWP also offers valuable automation features. Automatic updates, scheduled backups, and security scans keep sites secure without manual effort, freeing me to focus on high-value tasks. Performance monitoring tools help identify issues early, allowing me to maintain fast, reliable websites that enhance user experience.
With MainWP, managing multiple WordPress sites has transformed from a constant grind into an organised, streamlined process. Now, instead of daily maintenance worries, I can concentrate on driving marketing results, confident that my sites are secure, updated, and optimised.
Ben Schutte, Web Developer, Growthlabs
Test Changes in the Staging Environment
A slow site directly impacts user experience and SEO rankings, making it critical to identify and resolve issues quickly. I’ve spent hours troubleshooting plugin conflicts or optimising images only to find the root cause was outdated server settings.
To combat this, I implemented a system to test changes in a staging environment before applying them to the live site. I also invested in a lightweight theme, reliable hosting, and tools like WP Rocket and Imagify to optimise load times. The key lesson is to regularly audit your site’s performance and minimise unnecessary features to keep everything running smoothly.
Connor Gillivan, Entrepreneur, Owner & CMO, AccountsBalance
Use Centralised Content Management
One challenge I see with managing a WordPress site is maintaining content consistency across multiple pages and posts. When you have a lot of campaigns or manage product launches, it can be hard to ensure that every page stays updated with the right messaging, offers, and branding. One small oversight-like an outdated call-to-action or an inconsistent headline-can confuse visitors and undermine your efforts.
I’ve found that it is helpful to use a centralised content management strategy. Implementing reusable blocks or templates for common elements, like CTAs or product descriptions, can save a lot of time and reduce errors. This way, you’re able to update content in one place, ensuring consistency across your site. Automating as much of this process as possible with WordPress tools makes it easier to keep everything aligned without getting bogged down in manual edits across dozens of pages.
James Hacking, Founder & Chief Playmaker, Socially Powerful
Ensure Accurate Tracking and Analytics
Ah, the daily challenges of managing a WordPress website! For me, one of the most hair-pulling obstacles is ensuring accurate tracking and analytics. Without precise data, you can’t measure true marketing success. I make it a point to set up Google Analytics and Tag Manager carefully, as failing to do so can lead to incorrect reports that guide decisions in the wrong direction.
Another daily hurdle is optimising website speed. When you’ve added numerous tracking codes, there’s a risk of slowing the website down, which can spike your bounce rates and affect conversions. That’s where managing code through Google Tag Manager becomes crucial keeping the site lean and quick.
Lastly, when I’m handling landing pages on WordPress, aligning them with our conversion goals is key. The design and functionality must guide visitors smoothly towards the desired action. I often use A/B testing methods to continually refine these pages for higher conversion rates, thus driving better results for clients globally.
Luke Heinecke, CEO, Linear
Create User-Friendly Navigation Structure
Honestly, one of the biggest challenges I deal with every day when managing a WordPress site is trying to create a navigation structure that works for both the users and SEO goals. Visitors want a layout that’s super easy to use, something that helps them quickly find what they’re looking for without any hassle. At the same time, SEO needs often push for different priorities, like specific internal links and hierarchies to improve rankings. Balancing these two things can be such a headache because you want to meet both needs without making the site too complicated or sacrificing your SEO efforts.
It gets even trickier when the audience expects quick and easy access to important tools and resources. If the menu is messy or key content is hard to find, it can frustrate users and hurt engagement. To stay on top of this, I spend a lot of time analysing user behaviour with heatmaps and tracking tools. This helps me figure out what’s working and what’s not so I can tweak the layout. I focus on making sure high-priority pages are front and centre while sticking to SEO best practices.
Even small changes, like reordering menu items or adding breadcrumbs, need testing to make sure they’re helpful instead of confusing. This whole process of balancing user expectations with technical optimisation is definitely a challenge, but it also pushes me to think carefully about every decision.
Lydia Valentine, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Cohort XIII LLC
Prioritise Routine Site Maintenance
The biggest challenge is ensuring my clients understand the importance of maintenance for their respective sites.
Some clients do not want to pay for their site to receive routine/monthly maintenance; They say they’ll take care of it internally. However, every month I still have to remind them that 10+ plugins are out-of-date, many aren’t even being used, etc. This creates numerous issues but the two I am most concerned with are site speed and security.
When multiple plugins are outdated, the site is likely to have delayed site speed which brings down conversions and overall performance of the site. Decreased conversion rate makes it look as though I’m not doing a great job, so I am inclined to work on maintenance of the site even though I am not paid to do so.
The security issue is also greater than most realise. Many plugin updates are specifically due to security issues and vulnerabilities. At a certain point, a site with outdated plugins is just a walking bullseye for hackers especially those in the eCommerce space.
I completely understand wanting to save money or wanting all of your digital marketing budgets to go towards actual marketing initiatives, but web maintenance should never go overlooked. Running a slow site has direct implications on your conversions. Having your site get taken down and losing the trust of your customers plus days of possible conversions is a nightmare. Keep your website healthy or pay someone to do it for you.
Vince Laliberte, Head of Accounts, Taction
Manage Plugin Updates Carefully
My biggest daily struggle with our WordPress website is the plugins. We have 40-50 of them and keeping them updated without breaking the site is a never-ending battle. It’s frustrating when updates cause instability and I have to fix them right away and disrupt our marketing efforts. Performance issues drive me nuts optimising site speed, especially with page builders like Elementor feels like climbing a mountain. Scoring well on performance metrics is hard and the new Gutenberg editor and Full Site Editing adds more complexity. Clients sometimes add plugins without understanding the impact, creating technical debt. All these hurdles not only eat up time but also affect the user experience which can hurt our marketing results.
Jorge Argota, Digital Marketing, Jorge Argota
Optimise Site Speed and Functionality
One of my biggest daily challenges with managing our WordPress site is keeping everything running smoothly while juggling updates, plugins, and content changes. You’ve got plugin updates popping up left, right, and centre, and there’s always that one time an update breaks something critical, cue the panic!
Another headache is balancing site speed with functionality. Adding new features for a better user experience is great, but every extra plugin feels like it’s trying to slow the site down. It’s like a constant battle between wanting all the bells and whistles and keeping the site lightning-fast for SEO and user retention.
My advice? Invest in solid hosting and tools like NitroPack for speed optimisation, and make sure you’re auditing your plugins regularly. It saves you from those “Why is my site down?!” moments that no marketing manager has time for.
Tom Jauncey, Head Nerd, Nautilus Marketing
Streamline Content Updates with Templates
Streamline your WordPress workflow by creating templates and processes for common content updates.
At Deep Sentinel, my biggest daily challenge with WordPress has been managing our security product updates across multiple pages while maintaining consistent formatting and SEO elements. The platform’s block editor, while powerful, can become frustrating when trying to quickly update multiple product specifications and pricing changes simultaneously.
One particularly maddening situation occurred during our last major security camera launch. We needed to update 30+ pages with new features and integration capabilities. The process of ensuring consistent formatting, checking mobile responsiveness, and maintaining our schema markup across all pages became a time-consuming nightmare that delayed our launch communication by two days.
To address this, we developed a standardised template system using reusable blocks for product information. However, we still struggle with the platform’s media library organisation when managing hundreds of product images and demonstration videos. Finding and updating specific security footage examples can turn into a tedious treasure hunt.
Effective website management requires systems that scale with your content needs. The key takeaway is that by implementing structured templates and clear naming conventions, you can reduce daily management headaches and maintain consistent quality. While WordPress challenges persist, these processes have helped us reduce update times by 40% and minimise formatting errors.
Tomasz Borys, Senior VP of Marketing & Sales, Deep Sentinel
As a marketing consultant who’s spent years grappling with WordPress, I completely get it, the daily challenges can sometimes feel overwhelming. One of the biggest hurdles I’ve faced is keeping the site updated without disrupting the flow of marketing activities. It’s not just about posting fresh content; it’s ensuring that each piece is optimised for SEO, laid out properly, and functions seamlessly across all devices.
One piece of advice from my experience is to simplify your workflow using automation tools. Plugins like Yoast can boost your SEO, and scheduling tools help manage content postings smoothly. Stay organised with a content calendar aligned with your marketing goals. Although it can be frustrating, the time spent getting it right pays off.
A well-managed WordPress site can give your marketing results new momentum. Pairing these strategies with an expert consultant’s help can make all the difference in overcoming WordPress challenges.
Iryna Melnyk, Marketing Consultant, Jose Angelo Studios
Balance Performance and Frequent Updates
As a Marketing Manager using WordPress, one of my biggest daily challenges is managing website performance while juggling frequent updates. For instance, plugin conflicts can sometimes break key functionalities, disrupting campaigns or tracking. Recently, a form plugin update caused an issue with lead submissions, and troubleshooting it felt like a fire drill in the middle of a launch.
Another obstacle is optimising page speed. Balancing a visually appealing design with fast load times is a constant struggle, especially when using high-quality images or embedding interactive elements for engagement. Slow load times not only hurt user experience but also affect SEO rankings.
Lastly, ensuring the website stays secure is a top concern. Regular updates and backups help, but it’s time-consuming, and I often wish there were a more seamless process for managing all aspects without constant monitoring. These issues occasionally disrupt marketing results, making proactive management essential.
Sebastian Petrosi, Head of Content Marketing, Howtostream.ca
Implement Content Calendars for Version Control
When you’re working with a bigger team of content contributors, version control in WordPress becomes exceedingly difficult.
Sometimes, others can publish content changes or new pages accidentally, or cause conflicts between new and old content while it’s being edited. As a fix, I’ve implemented content calendars and schedules where we strictly outline who gets to work on what, and the team stays in sync through Slack.
However, it’s not a permanent solution, and we often just default to working in Google Docs whenever we can, and then porting over the final version to WordPress.
Lana Rafaela Cindric, SEO & Content Manager, SiteGuru
Troubleshoot Plugin Conflicts
The biggest daily headache with managing our WordPress site? Hands down, it’s the plugins. They’re truly a love-hate relationship. Plugins seem like the perfect fix to add features without coding, but then they start fighting each other. Just last month, I activated a simple plugin to boost our SEO, and out of nowhere, it scrambled our homepage layout. I spent an entire afternoon troubleshooting, toggling plugins on and off like a mad scientist, all while watching the clock and hoping our users didn’t notice the chaos.
Honestly, it’s maddening. Instead of focusing on our next campaign or refining content, I’m stuck playing tech support. It’s a constant balancing act. WordPress gives you all these options, which is great, but it feels like you’re always one click away from the whole setup going sideways. And there’s something exhausting about knowing that tomorrow could bring the exact same plugin drama.
Tasha Tadi, Marketing Manager, eBallot
Monitor Plugin Vulnerabilities
WordPress is blessed with the largest plugin library of all CMSs. However, this can also be a drawback: As you implement more plugins on your site, you become more vulnerable to cyber security attacks and site-breaking issues.
Vulnerabilities in plugins are found all the time, and developers don’t always act quickly enough to protect against them by updating them.
This leads to the second issue. Updates can lead to site-breaking issues. An update to one plugin could mean that it no longer works cooperatively with another plugin. This can cause your site to break, but it also might not be as obvious as that. The break could occur on your contact page, stopping people from booking a call, etc. This could take weeks to realise.
My advice would be to set up something like Wordfence, which keeps you updated about security threats and lets you know about vulnerabilities in your website and plugins. They have a daily email function that can be sent to a developer’s inbox, who can take action on anything serious that arises.
Phil Pearce, Founder, CEO & Analytics Director, MeasureMinds
Test Plugin Updates in Staging
My biggest daily challenge with managing a WordPress site is ensuring that plugin updates don’t disrupt functionality or break the design. While plugins are essential for extending functionality, compatibility issues can arise unexpectedly, leading to downtime or a poor user experience. For instance, a routine update once caused a critical conflict with our contact form, delaying lead submissions.
To mitigate this, I now test updates in a staging environment before deploying them live and keep a regular backup schedule to quickly restore functionality if needed. While these precautions take time, they ensure that our website remains reliable and avoids disruptions that could impact our marketing results.
Rene Ymzon, Marketing Manager, Advanced Motion Controls
Regularly Audit Dynamic Content
Managing dynamic content on WordPress is a daily battle. As an SEO-focused platform, we update blog posts, tools, and resources regularly, but ensuring all pages are properly indexed and optimised can feel like chasing a moving target. WordPress’s default settings often require manual tweaks to meet our SEO standards.
A recurring obstacle is dealing with duplicate content generated by category pages. We tackled this by customising our sitemap and using canonical tags, but it’s still challenging. Treat your WordPress site like a living entity-frequent audits and minor adjustments prevent major disruptions.
Sahil Kakkar, CEO & Founder, RankWatch
Organise Data and Analytics Integration
The issue I have with managing our WordPress site is data management and analytics integration. Keeping our analytics organised and accurately connected to our data sources is a constant battle, and it’s something that takes up time we could use elsewhere. When our visitor numbers increased by 25% after a recent campaign launch, we were excited to see the traffic. But that excitement shifted to frustration pretty quickly when we realised how hard it was to connect this data to specific user actions and behaviours.
While we could see an increase in traffic numbers, we couldn’t fully track which pages were leading to conversions or identify the main exit points on our site. We knew we were getting a lot of new visitors, but we lacked insight into what they were actually doing on the site, if they were just browsing, filling out forms, or getting stuck somewhere and leaving. Without clear analytics, we had to make educated guesses rather than decisions based on hard data, which held back our ability to act quickly on insights from the campaign.
Tracie Crites, Chief Marketing Officer, HEAVY Equipment Appraisal
Manage Costs of Paid Plugins
Managing a WordPress site, one of the biggest challenges I face is the cost of paid plugins. Many good plugins, especially those from the WP Beginner family, can get expensive quickly. Running a business requires many features that often aren’t available for free, so I find myself spending a lot on these tools just to keep things running smoothly. It can be a bit frustrating at times, especially when those costs add up.
Another frustration I had was the constant stream of updates. They seemed to come so frequently that it became a distraction from the work I really care about, like content creation. To solve this, I had a colleague step in and take over the technical side of things, using a centralised management tool like MainWP. This allowed me to focus on what I enjoy and do best without constantly worrying about maintaining the website.
Simon Brisk, Founder & SEO Strategist, Click Intelligence
Address Visual Builder Limitations
WordPress visual builders like Elementor are great for no-code site-building. But if something breaks we have to go to an outside party to fix it. It’s a double-edged sword. We can do a lot without the technical insight to code a website, but the last 5% of things that break, such as during updates, create the need for more time and financial investment. Then, a person who makes the fix may be doing so in a way that makes it harder to do something else down the line, which further limits functionality and creates a cycle of needing outside help.
Robert Brill, CEO, Brill Media
Resolve Unexpected Errors Quickly
Unexpected errors are a major frustration. Facing issues like memory limits, server errors, and timeouts not only disrupts the site but also slows down progress on projects. Many of these problems come from plugin conflicts or server glitches. Tracking down the source takes time, especially without technical support on hand.
Broken links are another ongoing issue since they affect both SEO and the user experience. Relying on a tool like Broken Link Checker makes it easier to scan the site and fix them quickly, helping keep everything up to standard.
Backing up data regularly is important for site security. I use plugins like All-in-One Migrate or Duplicator, which take the stress out of this process by automating regular backups, so I can focus on content without worrying about data loss.
Aqsa Tabassam, Sales & Marketing Manager, SoPicks
Ensure Plugin and Theme Compatibility
Perhaps the hardest challenge, for me, is plugin and theme compatibility. For all WordPress developers (i.e. people who create and maintain websites), this is a significant issue. Here, the compatibility issues can stem from conflicts with different plugins and themes that are used on a WordPress site. These conflicts can cause mistakes, website crashes and unpredictable behavior which can harm the functionality and design of the website.
We decided the best way to protect against compatibility issues is to choose plugins and themes WISELY (only use quality ones that are updated regularly and work with the latest WordPress). Testing plugins or themes before deploying them (e.g. in a staging environment) can also help catch potential problems early on. Additionally, following best practices and keeping up with updates of the plugins can help in minimising the likelihood of compatibility issues while doing WordPress development.
Aaron Whittaker, VP of Demand Generation & Marketing, Thrive Digital Marketing Agency
Maintain Consistent Website Performance
As a marketing manager, I constantly strive to maintain the performance of my WordPress website while managing frequent content updates and marketing campaigns. For instance, during our recent product launch campaign, we faced the significant challenge of optimising images and integrating our email marketing tools with our website. These technical hurdles delayed our campaign launch and impacted our initial results. Striking a balance between these operational tasks and creative content creation is a daily struggle.
Jessica Shee, Tech Editor & Marketing Manager, M3datarecovery.com
Ensure Mobile-Friendly and Responsive Design
As a marketing manager using WordPress, one of my biggest daily challenges is ensuring that the website is mobile-friendly and responsive. With so many users accessing the site from different devices, it can be frustrating when certain elements don’t display properly on mobile or tablet. Even small issues like images not resizing correctly or buttons being too small can hurt user experience and conversion rates.
Another obstacle I often face is plugin conflicts. After installing a new plugin or updating existing ones, sometimes features stop working as they should, and it takes time to troubleshoot and fix these problems. This can throw off campaigns and delay updates, which can be really stressful when I’m working with tight deadlines.
Adnan Jiwani, Assistant Manager Digital Marketing, PureVPN
Optimise Site Speed and Security
As the Marketing Manager at Stallion Express, I work hard to maintain our WordPress site. One of the biggest problems is achieving better success. Since more than 30% of websites use WordPress, it’s important to ensure that they load quickly; even a one-second wait can cause a 7% drop in conversions.
Another problem is that there are holes in the protection. Every day, hackers break into about 30,000 websites, so it’s important to keep our security strong to protect our data and reputation. A lot of the time, I feel overwhelmed by the number of plugins that my site needs to work. This can cause compatibility problems and more site failures.
To eliminate these, I install updates regularly and use caching tools to speed things up. From my own experience, proactive management not only improves the user experience but also increases income by improving SEO and SEM.
Aman Chopra, Marketing Manager – Lead SEO, Stallion Express
Final Words,
Marketing managers face an array of WordPress challenges from juggling security updates and plugin conflicts to site speed and SEO optimisation. As the thought leaders above have highlighted, staying ahead of these issues takes a proactive, strategic approach.
Here at WP Creative, Australia’s leading WordPress development company, we specialise in helping businesses tackle these hurdles with tailored WordPress solutions and expert support.
Book a Free Consultation today to find out how we can transform your WordPress website and help your business thrive online!
