Think once – You’ve just launched a new WordPress e-commerce website, and everything looks perfect.
Then, you try to access the website from your mobile device, and suddenly, it all falls apart – the images are misaligned, content overlaps, and the navigation menu is barely noticeable.
This scenario isn’t uncommon. A lot of developers fail to run WordPress tests and end up rolling out dysfunctional websites. Without thorough testing, even minor issues can escalate into major problems (e.g., slow loading times) that affect user experience (UX) and search performance.
In this guide, we covered the basics of WordPress testing, common challenges you’re likely to face, and major types of testing. You’ll also learn the best WordPress testing tools to fast-track the process. Let’s jump right at it!
Table of Contents
What is WordPress Testing?
WordPress testing is simply the process of evaluating a WordPress website to ensure it functions as expected. It requires simulating user interactions on the website to identify UX, performance, and security issues before deployment. At the end of each test, you should have a website free from bugs, intuitive, functional, and optimized for search engines & users.
Why is WordPress testing important?
Think about WordPress tests like regular car check-ups. Although the car might not be faulty, daily check-ups keep its performance up-to-par so that it doesn’t break down while you’re driving.
Without proper testing, your website can crash under heavy traffic, be vulnerable to security threats, or frustrate users trying to access it. This can lead to high bounce rates, low conversions, or search engine penalties.
In addition, WordPress testing allows you to simulate your website in a staging environment before it goes live. Here, you can test new code, manage multiple versions, or experiment with new features before it’s available to the public.
Challenges in WordPress Testing
Testing a WordPress website has its advantages as well as challenges. This is because there are multiple aspects to be tested – themes, plugins, design, user interactivity, etc. Here are some of the main ones:
Plugin and Theme Conflicts:
Plugin and theme conflicts arise when you install a plugin that is incompatible with the current theme. This can be a result of several factors:
- The code behind the plugin(s) is poorly written and is affecting the theme
- The updated version of the plugin isn’t compatible with the version of the theme and vice versa
- The plugin executes a code that restricts or contradicts the theme (and vice versa)
- Multiple plugins or themes use different Javascript libraries or CSS
These conflicts lead to malfunctions, such as missing gestures, broken layouts, error messages, or site crashes.
Handling Custom Code and Customizations:
Sometimes, clients have unique specifications that require creating custom code. However, these customizations can cause complications, especially if they are not well-written or compatible with existing website plugins/themes.
Testing Database-Dependent Features
Testing database-dependent features often requires working with live or staging data. Most developers struggle to maintain data accuracy during tests (especially for complex operations), which affects the accuracy of the results or misconfigures the database.
eCommerce Testing and Troubleshooting
Woocommerce websites and other eCommerce-related websites are often resource-intensive because of the large volume of transactions and user interactions. In this case, every functionality matters. You need to test each interaction – from the product landing pages to final checkout – to ensure there are no gaps that can affect user experience or revenue.
Ensuring Cross-Compatibility With Third-party Tools
One of WordPress’s greatest strengths is its extensive ecosystem of third-party integrations. However, this can also be a problem. Since third-party tools have separate code, they can cause compatibility issues between WordPress core, themes, and plugins.
Time and Resource Constraints
Running comprehensive WordPress testing takes time and money. It requires manual & automated processes, collaboration across teams, and proper planning—all of which demands time, money, and expertise. Developers operating under tight deadlines/budgets might be tempted to rush the testing process, leading to performance errors or overlooked bugs that affect user experience.
Types of WordPress Testing
In this section, we’ll look into the major types of WordPress testing:
Functional Testing
As the name implies, functional testing accesses your website’s functional aspects to ensure they work as intended. This includes links, forms, checkout pages, buttons, etc.
Performance Testing:
After the website goes live, you want to ensure users can access it without glitches or delays. This is why you need to run performance tests. It involves testing your site’s load time (during peak and off-peak hours) to determine how well it can handle traffic.
Security Testing:
With cyber threats getting more sophisticated by the day, it’s important that your website is safe and secure. This is why you need to run security tests. It helps you find vulnerabilities, breaches, or threats that can compromise user data.
Usability Testing
User experience is the backbone of your web development process. It checks whether your WordPress website is intuitive, functional, and meets user expectations. Testing your website’s usability means checking out your website’s design, layout, and overall functionalities to ensure visitors can find what they want — fast.
Cross-Browser and Cross-Device Testing
Website visitors will use different types of devices (desktops, phones, and tablets), and browsers (Safari, Google Chrome) with different operating systems (Android and iOS). It’s important that you check if your website is compatible with every type of internet-enabled device and screen size for a consistent UX across all browsing platforms/devices.
Accessibility Testing
One of the hallmarks of web development is accessibility. Before going live, conduct accessibility tests to ensure your website is accessible to all users, including people with disabilities. This is in accordance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
Lastly…
Regression Testing
Regression testing is like the final check-up you perform for your website. Here, you rerun a test to verify that the changes didn’t alter any part of the website. This is where you confirm that all the tests were successful and that the website is ready to go public.
Now that we’ve covered the major testing types let’s find out how to conduct these tests…
Essential WordPress Testing Tools
Choosing the right tool for your WordPress testing can help you save time on repetitive tasks, improve outcomes, and most importantly, improve user experience. In this section, we highlighted seven (7) tools to help you get started:
InstaWP for Staging and Testing Environment
As we highlighted earlier, a staging website simulates a real-life environment where you can test changes, updates, and new features without affecting your live website. For context, a staging website is a clone of your live website.
This allows you to find issues, bugs, or bottlenecks that affect user navigation or overall performance after the website goes live.
Use InstaWP to create a WordPress test site. InstaWP is an all-in-one WordPress management tool that allows you to build, test, host, manage, and sell websites on one platform. With our proprietary plugin, InstaWP Connect Plugin, you can create a secure staging environment in just one click!
One of the top-tier features is it allows you to streamline workflow between teams. Instead of using the traditional collaboration method, testers can add teams, assign tasks, and sync changes all on the same server.
This is exactly how NectarBlocks, a block-based, design-first WordPress tool, uses InstaWP to streamline beta testing and demos.
They integrated InstaWP into their beta testing pipeline to automate repetitive tasks, manage multiple versions, and ensure quality control on all their products.
The results? InstaWP helped them save time and money by giving them the tools to build demo instances from scratch, hastening testing processes, and improving overall customer satisfaction.
You can read the full Nectarblocks case study here.
You can also use the InstaWP staging feature to:
- Create and manage multiple versions of the staging site
- Migrate all the edits to the live website to minimize downtime and errors
- Manage all staging websites on a centralized platform
- Schedule automatic backup of your website before and after testing
- Access several pre-configured templates for your testing environments
WP Debugging Tools
There are two major programming languages used for WordPress websites – PHP and Javascript.
Javascript code is executed in the browser, so you can easily use console log() to write messages to the browser console to debug the code. PHP however, executes on the web server, so you need third-party plugins to find and remove bugs in code.
WP debugging tool helps you find (and fix) errors or bugs in your WordPress plugin, theme, or Software that threaten user security or data.
Some of the WordPress Debug plugins are:
WP Debugging
This WordPress Debugging plugin helps debug your WordPress website(s) by adding and removing debug constants. When activated, it sets debug constants in the wp-config.php file. You can easily remove the debug constant by deactivating the plugin. This plugin also has a Debug Quick Look for reading the debug.log file.
Debug This
Debug is another WordPress plugin that provides rich insights into your WordPress installation. It includes the current WP_Query object, rendered HTML files, embed providers, object cache stats, PHP and server information, and more.
With this data, you can quickly identify issues with your WordPress website, such as misconfigured plugins or theme conflicts.
Debug Log Monitor
The Debug Log Monitor helps you to debug your WordPress website by logging database, JavaScript, and PHP errors. This way, you can quickly identify the source of the error – whether it’s from the code, plugin, or theme.
Automated Testing Tools
Automated testing tools help to speed up your WordPress testing process. Compared to manual testing, these tools spot issues faster, save time on repetitive tasks, improve accuracy, and ensure your website meets quality standards.
Some common automated tools are:
Selenium
Selenium is an open-source tool for automating WordPress testing across browsers and platforms. It allows you to create test scripts for your WordPress site using various programming languages, including PHP, Python, JavaScript, C#, and others. Selenium also supports a wide range of browsers, such as Firefox, Google Chrome, and Opera.
Ghost Inspector
Ghost Inspector is another user-friendly automated testing tool that helps developers build, edit, and run no-code or low-code website tests. Like Selenium, you can:
- Identify and troubleshoot your website functionality issues,
- Find inconsistencies in the visual layout,
- Run cross-browser tests,
… and schedule other proactive monitoring activities.
TestComplete
TestComplete is a versatile automated testing tool that allows you to create, run, and automate functional user interfaces (UI) for websites using Javascript, Python, or VBScript. You can also use it to run website audits and cross-browser tests.
Load and Performance Testing
Performance and load testing give you real-time insights into your website performance, I.e., how well it can handle traffic spikes and load fast. Here are some tools for load and performance testing:
GTmetrix
GTMetrix is a performance analytics tool that provides a detailed breakdown of your website’s performance, core web vitals, and time to first byte (TTFB).
WebPageTest
WebPageTest is an advanced performance testing tool that provides detailed insights into your website’s performance, including load times, rendering speed, TTFB, core web vitals, and network usage.
You can also simulate different network conditions, such as 3G, 4G, or a high-speed broadband connection, to know how fast your website loads for users with different internet speeds.
Google Pagespeed Insights:
Google Pagespeed Insights (PSI) measures your website’s search performance and health. The analysis is based on Google’s Core Web Vitals, one of Google’s core ranking factors. The tool also recommends improving website health and performance on mobile and desktop devices.
Security Testing Tools
A website security tool helps to flag known and discovered vulnerabilities in the WordPress software, theme(s),and plugin(s). Here are some common ones:
WPScan
WPScan is an open-source WordPress plugin that scans your website bugs in your plugins and themes. This tool allows you to run 25 free checks per day.
MalCare
Malcare is another powerful WordPress security testing plugin that detects vulnerabilities in your WordPress core, themes and plugins. It also doubles as a MalWare scanner that finds and eliminates malware on your website in one click.
Patchstack
Patchstack is an automated vulnerability scanner and patch tool. It instantly scans and fixes vulnerable plugins on a WordPress website. This tool also has a virtual patching feature that automatically applies patches to the vulnerabilities detected to prevent further attacks.
Cross-browser testing tools
Cross-browser testing tools are used to test your WordPress site across various devices and browsers to ensure a smooth, consistent user experience. They also help you catch inconsistencies in your design across browsers/devices and provide actionable steps for improvement.
BrowserStack
BrowserStack is very helpful for testing your websites across devices, operating systems, and more than 3,000 different web browsers. It allows you to run accessibility tests, capture and resolve bugs, and detect visual inconsistencies within your user interface.
Lambda Test
LambdaTest is an AI-powered cross-browser testing tool. This platform allows you to perform cross-browser tests across multiple real devices, browsers, and operating systems to ensure its functionality and compatibility.
The tool also comes with a multi-location testing feature to ensure your visitors can get the best browsing experience wherever they are.
The WordPress Testing Workflow
Follow these steps to test your WordPress website:
Step 1: Set up a staging environment with InstaWP
InstaWP built-in plugin (InstaWP Connect) has loads of pre-set templates and configurations, so you don’t need to start up from scratch. To set-up your staging website:
- Create an account on InstaWP
Visit the InstaWP website and click ‘Register’ to create a free account. This gives you access to all the free benefits and allows you to use the staging site for up to 48 hours.
Tip: If you’d rather use the WP sandbox service without registration, no worries! Simply go to InstaWP website and click “Launch Site.” Your staging website will be created immediately! Keep in mind that this website is only valid for 8 hours.
- Create a new website
Once you’ve created an account, click ‘New Site’ on the top right corner of the dashboard. You’ll see a pop-up on your screen to configure your website:
If you don’t want to create a website from scratch, choose from any of our pre-set templates. It will build a website that matches the configuration of your selected template:
Next, click ‘Create Site’, and you’re all set!
- Customize The Website
You can now access your new website on the dashboard. To access the WP admin area, click “Auto-login” and you’ll be redirected to the WordPress dashboard:
Next, proceed to manage your new website. You have access to the database and code editor in case you need to try out new themes, add plugins, change the CSS, add content, and many more.
Extra Tip: InstaWP makes it easy to move the changes you’ve made to your live website. Incredible, isn’t it? Simply use our WordPress Migration Tool to transfer the site to the destination domain:
2. Define your goals
Now that you have your staging website up, the next important thing is to outline your goals. Having clear goals serves like a compass – it shows you where you need to focus on to save time, allocate resources more effectively, and achieve more accurate results.
Tip: Clearly specify what needs to be done before and after the testing period. Document each of these steps and ensure key stakeholders are involved every step of the way.
3. Run Automated Tests:
We recommend automated tests because they help you save time on manual repetitive tasks. They’re more accurate, have better outcomes, and allow you to quickly identify issues that could impact your website performance/security.
For example, instead of manually trying to find vulnerabilities in the theme and plugins on your site, use WPScan to run a site-wide security audit.
4. Run Manual Tests for User Experience
While automated tests are invaluable, you still need to run manual checks. This is most important when the tasks involved require human attention, such as user experience tests.
In this case, you’ll need to evaluate your website from a user’s POV. Does the site load fast on your browser? Can you access all the vitals pages without issues? Simulate the user journey to find undetected roadblocks with automated testing tools.
5. Fix Issues and Retesting
Once you’ve identified all the issues, rank them based on importance and fix them immediately. For example, if the checkout page isn’t loading fast, speed optimization should precede other low-hanging fruits, such as design inconsistencies.
At the same time, it’s imperative that you run a regression test to be sure all the issues have been fixed and there are no new ones. Iterate the process until the website is fully functional.
Best Practices for WordPress Testing
Viola! Now that you know how to streamline your WordPress testing workflow and the best tools to use, let’s cover some best practices for a successful outcome:
Frequent Testing During Development:
Instead of waiting until the final stages of your website development, incorporate frequent testing into your workflow to find and resolve potential issues before they escalate.
For example, when installing or creating a theme, you can run compatibility tests to ensure it renders properly on different screen sizes and browsers before proceeding to the next stage. This helps you save time on the iteration process, and avoid compounding errors and risks of conflicting code.
Using Version Control for Collaboration
Version control allows you to track every modification you make to the codebase, manage changes, and revert to previous edits if necessary.
For example, if a team member fixes a bug that unexpectedly affects the site’s functionality, version control tools like InstaWP allow you to identify the exact cause of the glitch and revert to a more stable version.
Documenting Test Cases and Results
Documentation is a (very) important part of your testing product. You need to create a comprehensive record of test scenarios, expected outcomes, and issues you encountered during the tests. This makes it easy for key stakeholders and teams to track progress and suggest edits before final deployment. It can also be a valuable reference for future updates.
Leveraging InstaWP for Quick Iterations
InstaWP Connect Plugin makes it easy to create and manage your WordPress staging environment without errors.
Unlike traditional hosting companies that leave out media folders or other critical data during staging, the InstaWP plugin syncs your staging and live website in one click. This reduces the amount of data being transferred and the risks of data loss.
Conclusion
Making changes to a live website can seem like a burdensome task, but with the right tools, you can streamline the entire workflow, make iterations faster, and create an error-free, fully functional website for users.
Keep in mind that the goal of your WordPress testing is to provide a smooth user experience. Create a staging environment with InstaWP to run tests and sync changes to the live website.
FAQs
How can I test a WordPress site before going live?
To test your WordPress site:
- Create a staging website
- Set clear goals
- Run automated tests
- Run manual tests to identify usability issues
- Conduct regression testing
Why is testing important for a WordPress website?
WordPress testing ensures your website is well-optimized for users and search engines. This means it needs to load fast, be secure from vulnerabilities, and provide a seamless user experience.
What tools can I use for WordPress testing?
There are several tools to use for WordPress testing. InstaWP is an all-in-one WordPress management tool that allows you to create a clone of your live website for testing. Other helpful tools are WPScan for running security checks, BrowserStack for cross-browser tests, Selenium for automated tests, etc.
When is the best time to test my WordPress website?
The best time to test your WordPress site is during web development and after deployment. You should also conduct tests anytime you update themes, plugins, or WordPress core.
How can I create a staging environment for testing?
You can create a staging environment for testing on InstaWP. To do this:
- Visit the InstaWP website
- Click ‘Try on WordPress Sandbox’
- Set up your site and launch it
And you’re all set!