Choosing The Right WordPress Plugins For Site Needs
Assessing Your Website’s Needs
When selecting WordPress plugins, the first crucial step is thoroughly analyzing your website’s goals, content, functionality, and required capabilities in order to determine the must-have features you need plugins to provide.
Identifying goals and objectives for your site
Clearly define what you want your WordPress site to accomplish. Are you looking to launch an ecommerce store, blog, portfolio, membership site, or something else? Outline the objectives like increasing traffic, generating leads, building an audience, selling products/services etc. This clarity will help narrow down the kinds of plugins you need.
Understanding your site’s content and functionality
Take stock of all existing content on your site as well as any functionality it offers. Make a list of content types like blog posts, articles, case studies, research papers, photos, videos, webinars etc. Note down all functionalities such as ability to accept payments, user login capabilities, forums, calendars etc.
This audit will reveal what’s already available and what additional capabilities you need plugins to provide. For instance, if you have lots of videos, you may want to add plugins that enhance video SEO. Or if taking payments is important, you need ecommerce or subscription plugins.
Determining must-have features and capabilities
Based on your goals and current site analysis, make a specific list of additional features and capabilities you absolutely require for achieving those goals. List these must-haves in priority order, distinguishing needs from nice-to-haves.
Common must-have capabilities include:
- SEO optimization
- Security protections
- Forms and lead capture
- User login/membership capabilities
- Accepting payments/ecommerce functions
- Appointment booking/calendars
Your site needs will inform later plugin selection, so this list is pivotal. Determine precisely which functionality gaps plugins should fill so your WordPress site can accomplish intended goals.
Evaluating Plugin Options
Once your site’s plugin needs are clearly defined, conduct thorough research to identify plugins matching those needs. Evaluating multiple alternatives is critical for finding the best options.
Searching the plugin repository
The official WordPress plugin repository currently offers over 60,000 plugins spanning every common website need. This should be your starting point. Typically, searching for keywords related to needed capabilities returns relevant options.
For example, if you need ecommerce functionality, search terms like “ecommerce”, “online store’, “sell products”. If Social media integration is important search for “social media plugins” and so on. Also browse categories like ecommerce, marketing, SEO etc to discover options.
Reading reviews and ratings
The WordPress plugin repository displays average user rating and reviews on each plugin’s page. Both rating and quality of reviews indicate plugin quality and user experience. Well-reviewed plugins with high ratings tend to be safer, easier to use and better supported. However, also check total number of ratings – a truly popular plugin will have 500+ reviews or more.
Where available read reviews and ratings on third-party sites like Capterra and SourceForge. Experts may highlight pros/cons missed by everyday users. These provide additional insight for comparing plugins and making decisions.
Checking compatibility and support
Before selecting any plugin first confirm compatibility with your:
- WordPress version
- PHP version
- Theme and design
- Other plugins/tools
The “Compatibility” tab lists compatible technologies. If unsure, contact the plugin developer via email or live chat many offer on their site – this tests how responsive support channels are.
Also check if it’s recently updated and commits to offering ongoing updates. Plugins lacking updates pose security risks and may stop working as technologies change.
Comparing alternatives
Seldom does only plugin meet needs perfectly. That’s why comparing 2-3 alternatives for each required capability is suggested.
First create a requirements checklist – must have and nice to have features. Next, fill out the checklist for each shortlisted plugin. This side-by-side comparison reveals which option ticks most boxes. Also compare price, support options, ease of use etc.
For example, if requiring an appointment plugin, you may shortlist Calendly, SimplyBookMe and Booke.io. Compare by how well each handles your appointment booking needs, along with pricing, support etc. The best fit becomes apparent.
Testing plugins thoroughly before deploying
Before installing any shortlisted plugin on your live site, first test on a staging copy. MOst plugins offer a free version with limited features – install this first. Test all available functionality to verify it works as expected and doesn’t cause problems.
Common aspects to check during such ‘test drives’:
- Ease of installation and setup
- User experience while configuring plugin
- Quality of documentation/instructions
- Responsiveness of plugin backend & frontside
- Site speed decreases or crashes
Testing thoroughly weeds out substandard plugins before they damage your live site. Only deploy widely used plugins passing these checks onto your production site.
Key Criteria for Plugin Selection
Consider the following criteria while evaluating plugins to determine best options for your WordPress site:
Reliability and security
This is the non-negotiable must-have for any plugin you use because a vulnerable plugin can easily compromise entire site.
Indicators of reliability and security include:
- Developed by reputed company and authors
- 500+ positive user reviews
- Follows WordPress coding standards
- Actively maintained and updated
- No known security issues
Checking these signals lowers risk of introducing vulnerabilities through plugins. Premium plugins also undergo more extensive testing and audits – balancing enhanced capabilities with appropriate security.
Performance impact
Too many resource-intensive plugins can really slow down site speed. With every additional plugin, evaluate potential performance impact by checking:
- Server resource usage
- Site loading time
- Page size bloat
Optimize images, enable caching, defer non-critical JS using other plugins to counteract heavy plugins if needed. Also consider upgrading hosting plan to handle extra load if adding multiple premium plugins.
Ease of use
Plugins severely lacking in usability hamper workflow and adoption. Review ease of:
- Getting started guide
- Admin interface and options
- Workflows to add functionality
- Configuration steps
Ideally, follow quick setup instructions to enable key capabilities with minimal settings. Complex plugins with steep learning curves usually remain underutilized even if powerful. Choose user experience over features unless they are absolutely essential.
Customizability
Assess how much control plugin allows for tailoring functionality and output to your brand. Consider available customization such as:
- White labeling / Rebranding ability
- Custom CSS editing option
- Customizable widgets and shortcodes
- Adding your own content/media
Higher adaptability enables aligning plugin capabilities to website look and feel. It also facilitates integrating plugin generated content within existing site templates.
Responsiveness of support
Even easy-to-use plugins need assistance sometimes. Hence test quality and accessibility of plugin developer’s technical support beforehand via:
- Tickets/email
- Docs/knowledge base
- Forums/community
- Chats/calls
Evaluate response times, relevance of troubleshooting guidance, availability of team etc. The level of support responsiveness typically aligns with pricing tiers. Factor dedicated technical assistance into choice for business critical plugins.
Using Plugins Efficiently
Once appropriate plugins fulfilling your website needs are selected and integrated, use strategies for maintaining smooth operations long term:
Limiting the number of active plugins
Resist temptation to continually add more plugins even if site needs expand over time. Too many active plugins slow down site, create conflicts, amplify security risks and complicate maintenance.
Stick to these best practices:
- Only use essential plugins directly tied to business objectives.
- Deactivate or remove redundant and unused plugins promptly.
- Limit to using 15-20 active plugins maximum. Reduce further if running an ecommerce store.
Configuring plugins properly
Don’t just install plugins and leave default settings as is – plugins may not work or integrate seamlessly out of the box. Appropriately configuring them is key.
- Adjust plugin permissions for different user roles.
- Enable/disable specific features based on needs.
- Enter correct API connections/access keys.
- Customize design elements to fit branding.
Thorough configuration reduces potential issues down the road. Revisit settings whenever site structure changes to avoid conflicts.
Maintaining and updating plugins
Make sure all plugins always run latest versions for best performance and to protect against threats targeting outdated technologies.
- Enable automatic plugin updates if feasible.
- Manually update vulnerable ones immediately.
- Monitor update logs of all plugins.
- Test plugins after updating on staging environments first.
Consistently maintaining plugins at current versions eliminates technical debts and security risks increasing over time otherwise.
Monitoring site speed and performance
Continuously monitor overall site health metrics like uptime, page load speeds, server resource usage etc. This reveals performance impacts of newly added plugins.
Tools like Google Analytics, Pingdom, GTMetrix or webpagetest.org help benchmark key indicators over time. Fix any deteriorations immediately by troubleshooting culprit plugins causing conflicts.
By minimizing performance drag through ongoing optimization, your site remains agile enough to handle additional capabilities via plugins.
Example Plugin Code
Most plugins will contain code similar to this minimal example displaying key components:
<?php /* Plugin Name: Contact Form Plugin */ // plugin code here ?>
Actual plugin code is longer but this shows:
- Plugin name declaration
- Opening PHP tag
- Key functional code
- Closing PHP tag
Beyond just code, plugins include other elements like documentation, licensing information, plugin headers etc. But the functional PHP code is what enables plugins to extend WordPress site capabilities.
