I’ve seen bloggers install so many plugins into their WordPress themes and then not use them, or use them for a little while then deactivate them. The problem with plugins is that too many can be worse than not enough. You really don’t need most plugins. There are so many to choose from that you can find two or three plugins that do the same thing. Which one do you choose?
The easy answer is whichever ones will benefit you the most. But which ones are those exactly? Keep in mind that every plugin you install adds more code to your blog posts. That increases your code-to-text ratio and makes it more difficult for the search engines to crawl your posts and rank you accordingly. Remember, it’s the content that is the most important part of your blog.
So why do you really need plugins at all? That’s a good question. One without an easy answer. To be sure, some plugins are worth it. For instance, you probably want to install a plugin to make it easy for your readers to bookmark and subscribe to your blog. Those are useful plugins. But be careful which one you choose. Someone I know installed a plugin for their WordPress blog that adds several bookmarking buttons to their blog’s face and for every button there is additional code. They’ve got a plugin for del.icio.us, Fark, Pluck, this, that, and something else. Not necessary. One plugin can make it easy for your readers to bookmark at any bookmarking site on the Web and will add less code than any of the other plugsins singularly, let alone all of them at once. The plugin is called AddThis. I highly recommend it.
Be careful with plugins. Too many will make your blogging experience less useful and less effective. You don’t want to murder your blog with useless code. So be judicious in your choice of plugins.
