Supporting friends

I have found that recently a few of my friends have been experiencing some challenges, and so I have tried my best to be supportive and help them as best I can. My knowledge issue with this subject is how to be the most helpful. Sometimes it's hard to tell if it is best for the specific situation to be silently supportive in the background, or to try to talk about the problems the person is experiencing. I guess another way to look at this is if there are circumstances when being helpful is not really possible so it's better to be harmless. It can also be difficult to be supportive when you have not personally experienced the issue that your friend is currently going through. I just try to be kind, present, and try not to make it worse by saying something wrong. It's tough, but I think it is very important to put in this effort for the people you care about.