3 Tips for Choosing the Right Plugins To Add To Your Blog
While having a theme that takes care of a lot of the features of plugins inherently can be helpful, you often can’t get everything you want all in one theme without adding at least a few plugins. But if picking the perfect theme for your new blog wasn’t hard enough, now you have to decide from the hundreds of plugins available to further customize and simplify both the front end and the back end of your blog. And with the amount of plugins available, how are you supposed to know which one to choose when starting a blog? To help with this dilemma, here are three tips for choosing the right plugins to add to your blog.
Comparing Needs vs Wants
Because of the amount of plugins available to add to your blog, you can essentially find one that will give you any feature you so desire. However, just because you can doesn’t necessarily mean you should.
Ahmad Imran of ReasonToUse.com shares that it could be a good idea to only use a plugin if it has features you absolutely need for the functionality or overall look and feel of your blog, rather than just because you think the feature is cool or interesting. The reasoning behind this way of thinking is that, eventually, having a large amount of plugins could be more hassle than they’re worth. Especially when you have plugins that all interact differently with other plugins or your theme in general, you could have to deal with a lot of maintenance and management that you otherwise wouldn’t.
Understand Potential Security Risks
When deciding between any number of plugins, one thing you should be aware of is the potential for security risks and how to safeguard against those potential invasions. Depending on the plugin you choose to use and how that specific plugin was coded, you could be opening yourself up to big security risks.
Creative Minds shares that of all WordPress sites, 22 percent are hacked through security problems that resulted from plugin issues. This goes to show just how important it is to choose the right plugin to bring into your blog or website. One way to know that you’re getting a reliable plugin is to always use the most up-to-date version. With newer plugins, former security issues were hopefully addressed and fixed for future users. This minimizes the risk of you getting more easily hacked due to your use of an older and more feeble plugin.
Check the Ratings and Reviews
There are any number of plugins on the market that accomplish basically the same results. The features are similar and the prices are similar. So how can you know which one to pick?
As with any number of online purchases you make, the staff at WPBeginner.com recommends looking closely at the ratings and reviews for any plugin you’re considering purchasing before you install it. The information you can glean from ratings and reviews can be invaluable, especially if they can persuade you not to purchase and install a plugin that would eventually cause you any number of issues. Even if you remember hearing good things about a particular plugin, always check the online ratings and reviews before making a final decision.
Plugins can be great features to bring into your blog that can give you the exact look and feel you’re aiming for while simultaneously making it easier for you to run your blog. So, to make sure you’re making the best possible choices when installing your plugins, use the tips mentioned above when deciding on these products.