How to Choose the Plugins for Your Website

When you are putting your website together, there is a lot to think about. You are excited about your new project and you know it is important for your business so you put your heart and soul into it. There are so many options that you have to look through for your site design, features, functions, pricing and more and it can be stressful. If you understand what you are looking for, it makes it much easier. In this article, we are going to talk about how to choose the plugins for your website.

Goal for Your Site

Before you go all trigger happy and start downloading plugins all over the place, you need to know what goal you have for your site. You should know that your site goals can change and they should change as your business and your site grows and develops. You have to have a goal for your site so that you know what you are gunning for. If you aren’t sure what you are working toward, you are likely to spin your wheels, download a punch of random plugins and crash your site.

Writing your goals down or creating a mind map so that you can visually see what you are going to do is important. Take the time to get it that done before you start downloading plugins.

Site Performance

One of the key things you need for site is good performance. If your site doesn’t load quickly and your visitors find themselves waiting for your site, it is likely that they are going to click away.

Finding reputable plugins that allow you to improve the speed of your site will help you enhance user experience on your site as well as help your performance in the search engines. The less people bounce off your site and the more that they stay on your site, the better this is for you. There are lots of different plugins that help with site performance. Looking for plugins that help with cache, compression and the ability to minify are good places to start.

Site Functions & Features

Do you want a special function or feature on your site like being able to use the best live chat software? You’ll need to find which plugin is the best for the goal that you have. There are plugins for just about any function that you could hope to have on your site. You can use plugins to create optin forms, contact forms, build your website in an attractive manner and more. The sky’s the limit when you are downloading plugins to your site.

Plugin Reputation

Before you start installing and activating, you need to look at the rating of the plugin. You want to find plugins with a lot of 4 and 5 ratings. If they have ratings that are lower than that, you are likely to experience problems when dealing with it. You also need to make sure that the plugin is up to date and tested with your current version of WordPress. Using an outdated and unsupported plugin can hurt your site.

Your Budget

Of course, you do have to think about your budget. You don’t want to break the bank but you need to make sure that you are spending money on the right plugins. There are many different free options that are going to allow you to use them with full access and some have restricted access that require upgrades. Always make sure to check the terms when you are going through the sales page.

Comparing is Caring

If you care about your site, you are going to carefully compare each of the plugins that look like they could do the job for you. When you do this, you are going to be able to make sure you get the plugin that has the features that you need at a price that you can afford.

Don’t only compare the features but also look at and compare the user reviews so you can be sure that you are getting the best option for what you need.

Creating a Top of the Line Site

When you want to create a top of the line site, you may need to spend some money on plugins. Most of these plugins allow you to use them over multiple sites so if you have more sites that you want to build, you will have them for the next time. Investing in the look and function of your website is key if you want to get the best results for your site.

Conclusion

When you are adding plugins, make sure that you add one at a time and check your site after each one. If you start seeing errors, you want to know exactly what caused them. If you are adding too many plugins at once, you won’t know which one caused the problem and you are going to have a hard time fixing it. If you only add one at a time, you will know exactly which plugin is giving you the problem.

If you find yourself experiencing a problem with a plugin, you can either contact their customer support or you can simply go to the WordPress store and find another option that is going to work for you better. There are plenty of options and no reason to use a plugin that you don’t love.

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