By making the use of plugins, you can make your WordPress website more functional and can also increase the popularity of your Content Management System (CMS). You can track the performance of your site and provide security to it with the help of plugins. For minimizing spam, improving SEO and managing the backups, it will be good to install the plugins. However, your website can break if you will use a large number of plugins. So, whenever you select a plugin, it becomes necessary to test and maintain it. Now, I am going to describe how to ensure plugins don’t mess up your WordPress site.
- Optimize the performance of your site – You can avoid the site-crashes related to the plugin if you will use a website platform that is stable and fast. If you will use shared or free hosting then it is not good for your site. It can negatively affect the performance of your site. It will be good for you if you will use dedicated hosting. But how will this be helpful to you? Your website may be using a server. It is possible to have a good control over the server if you will use dedicated hosting. If your website contains a lot of data, then its speed can slow down and it can hurt the performance of the plugin. However, it is possible that without removing the content, the data can be minimized, simply by compressing it. Compress the videos, images, JavaScript files and CSS files so as to improve the performance of plugins.
- Don’t make the theme an issue – Every WordPress user uses a theme so as to integrate the plugins. It is possible that certain plugins fit to your theme only and not to others’ themes. As an example, for managing the passwords, a particular plugin may suit your theme but it may not be good for displaying the content on your website. Several websites may be using a common theme. For gaining stability, you can pick that common theme. In order to ensure their compatibility with WordPress, check if these are accepted on a large scale. You must use the best Web Hosting Theme to make your WordPress website hassle-free.
- Use as fewer plugins as possible – If you will use too many plugins then it can result in the breaking of your website. Therefore, you need to lower down the plugin count. A better way to do this is removing the plugins with similar functionality so that you can eliminate the duplication that is not required. Along with this, it will be good for you if you will install a plugin that can perform several functions instead of performing a single function. As an example, site management, automated backups, performance monitoring and handling security are the various tasks that can be performed by a single plugin known as JetPack. This plugin can replace the functionality of a number of plugins. So, always go for a centralized control.
- Test the plugin after each update – Whenever any software code changes then you need to make sure that it will not break the behavior of the plugin and for this purpose it becomes necessary to do regression testing. Along with this, the site and the custom code that works for the site should also undergo regression testing. With the frequent changes in the custom code and regular updates in the plugins, it becomes necessary to test the website thoroughly. This testing includes testing any plugin update or CMS update or database modification. The simplest method of doing it is documenting 10 to 15 things and then checking these quickly. These things can be landing pages, menus and the ads behavior. Running the test for 1 hour is sufficient. The process of site maintenance can have continuity if we do repeatable testing. Perform the testing when the website receives the traffic in a very small amount.
- Go for a process of plugin approval – By implementing an approval process for the plugin, it is possible to remove unnecessary and poorly performing plugins.
To create a wonderful site, you need a CMS that is the most powerful in the world. You can attract a large group of audience with a website that is highly functional. If you want to build custom WordPress websites then it will be good for you to contact WordPress development company.
