Last week I shared my favorite WordPress plugins, but if you’re deciding what platform to use or new to WP, you might wonder how do I even install a WordPress plugin? Is it confusing or hard to do? The good news is, even if you don’t consider yourself techie, it’s not too difficult to install a WP plugin.
Selecting a WordPress Plugin
Before you even start installing plugins, you want to make sure you are selecting the best plugin for the job. With almost 50,000 to choose from, it can be overwhelming. WordPress does manually review each plugin before it’s available for download, but once it’s available, the developer may not bother to support or update it.
Before deciding to add a plugin to your website, ask yourself the following questions:
- What is the plugins rated? If there are no ratings or low ratings, stay away from the plugin.
- Does it have a lot of active users? If there aren’t many people using the plugin, that can be a sign that it isn’t a reliable plugin.
- When was the plugin last updated? If a plugin has not been updated by the developer in a year or two, it’s possible it might not be compatible with your version of WordPress.
Installing a Plugin
Best Practices
- Update your plugins at least 1 time a week
- Delete inactive plugins. You don’t want them to slow down your website.
- Keep the amount of plugins on your site to a minimum.
- Find out what plugins are slowing your site down with the P3 Plugin Profiler.
See, installing and updating your plugins isn’t too hard, right? Now, head back to last week’s post and decide what plugins your website is needing!