Don’t let your next plugin ruin your WordPress website

If you are the owner of a WordPress website, then you have definitely heard of what a plugin is. You have maybe even downloaded or considered using one, but did you know that with each plugin you use, you are decreasing your company’s websites stability? 

With too many or poorly coded plugins, your business website could degrade in performance or even break. That is why it is essential for you to take precautionary measures before using a new plugin. This is exactly what we are going to discuss in this article. 

So, what exactly is a WordPress plugin? 

Think of plugins like an app on your smartphone. You install it to your WordPress website, and they incorporate custom features that make your website have more specific functionality than before. They have a wide variety of functionalities that they can do, from ecommerce to podcasts functionality and through custom plugin development, so much more can be achieved. There are thousands of available WordPress plugins, and even more, if you look to third-party developers.

What causes plugins to break your website. 

If not chosen smartly or installed correctly, your business website could run into many problems. WordPress updates itself about twice every month which is another factor that can cause issues with plugins. For more about those updates, read our article on why it is important to maintain your WordPress website. 

If you have customized the source code of your business website, the next plugin you install could cause issues. The source code could have been changed for a number of reasons including custom functionality and styling. It’s a great way to make your business website unique and fit your brand better, but plugins sometimes clash with the changes. 

Certain plugins may use a lot of resources and that can greatly affect the websites load time. Your company’s websites speed is important for search engine optimization (SEO) as Google prefers faster loading sites. SEO aside, your clients prefer that too. There’s a good chance that if your clients are waiting too long, they may give up or find an alternative solution. 

How to stop WordPress plugins from breaking. 

It can be difficult to figure out whether a plugin will break your website or not, but all hope is not lost.  This is why we have made 4 steps on how to make sure your next plugin won’t ruin your WordPress website. 

Only use trusted plugins. 

Choose plugins that show signs that they are supported and maintained by the creator. They will have a high number of active users and their last updated date will not be close to your current one. These types of plugins will often have many reviews that you can go through. Look for what people have complained about and if those issues have been fixed. 

Use less plugins.

The more plugins we use, the higher chance they have of breaking your business website. Some plugins can break others causing your company’s website to crash. To prevent this, we will remove unnecessary plugins or find one function that can replace others. This won’t only make your business website more secure but will also make it easier to manage and maintain. 

Increase website speed.

There are multiple ways we can increase the load speed of your business website and we recommend you do as many as you can. It won’t only help mitigate plugin errors but give your clients a better experience with your brand. 

We can increase website speed by making use of a cache which makes often used data easier for browsers to access. Another way to achieve faster load times is through compression of code and images. The last method we will mention in this article is using a reliable host. Gaining a dedicated server to your website will stop other websites from affecting your company’s. If you want to find out more about increasing your website speed, keep up to date with our Web2Web Blog.  

Backup backup backup.

Before installing any new plugin to your business website, you need to backup what you have. If you don’t and the new plugin breaks it, there may not be a way to recover what you had. Backups should be done on a regular basis regardless of the website and database. So, if you don’t have a regular backup plan for your business website, now is the time to make one. 

Web2Web are WordPress plugin experts 

With so many plugins to choose and manage, making sure your business website doesn’t break can be challenging. At Web2Web, we know exactly how important your website’s stability is. That is why our team of trained WordPress experts can do that for you, so you can get functionality and stability.