Question: This was very useful for me! My main question would be how many plugins is too many? 🙂 Perhaps something for another time… I am very tempted by a couple of these…anyway, just wanted to say thanks for sharing – it’s always good to hear what’s recommended from someone with extensive experience, and also that you point out that things change but these are good now.
🙂
Note: She was responding to a recent newsletter on essential plugins. Sign up to the newsletter here.
Answer:
Tara,
SO GLAD the newsletter was valuable to you, seriously brings me joy!
As for how many, well, that’s tricky to answer.
It has more to do with how much resources the plugins suck up, or how well it’s made, how many run on the same page at the same time, how good your website host is [there’s varying quality of website hosts]…and many more factors.
So there’s no hard and fast rule for how many but you’ll have the best experience if you follow these guidelines:
- Install quality plugins [look at their ratings, and support forums to get an idea]
- Going deeper, does the plugin add scripts? add database tables and quires on load? does it call to outside websites? [like Facebook?]
- Use a quality website host [a lower tier shared web hosting company like GoDaddy might buckle with lots of plugins]
- Test and make backups, plugins conflict sometimes and cause erratic behavior, even issues you can’t solve without logging into your cPanel and FTP
- Review what you’re using, often times we forget that we no longer need certain plugins
Here’s a good article on further evaluation from WP Engine: Plugins and Fast WordPress Sites – It’s not the Number of Plugins, It’s the Quality
Outfall designed by Luis Prado from the Noun Project
