Blog plugins are one of those ‘cannot live with – cannot live without’ things that occasionally irritate us. Don’t get me wrong, plugins do a great job at adding that extra dimension to your blog. They are also a great aid to reducing your workload – well sometimes anyway.
The problem is, unless you check them every day they have this habit of getting out of control. You check your blog plugin option from the dashboard and it seems like every second one needs an update. So you go through all the updates. A week later, here we go again.
I have found one solution. Go through each of the blog plugins that you have activated and really think about whether or not you need it. I would also do a search on the specific plugin to see if there are any others out there that can do the same job. Better yet, there are some blog plugins available that can do multiple jobs, particularly in the SEO area.
Once you have sorted out what can stay and what can go, delete the unnecessary ones and learn to live without them. As a side benefit you will find that your blog loads a just a little faster.
As bloggers I think at times we become to ‘plugin happy’. A new blog plugin becomes available and the first thing we do is download it and give it a try. Often it is a plugin that we have done without in the past – and if that is the case, we can do without it in the future.
Before installing a blog plugin, or keeping what you have now. Ask yourself these questions:
- Does it improve my readers viewing experience
- Does it improve my readers ability to communicate
- Does it have any SEO value
- Does it have an blog protection value (spam)
- Does it help me create a better post
If you answer no to all those questions, then deactivate the blog plugin. If you answer yes to any of those questions then ask one more – is it being duplicated with another plugin?
Blog plugins can be a great aid – they can also be a pain in the ……..
This is really excellent advice. I’ve been plug-in happy in the past myself on several of my blogs, only to find that the page begins loading more and more slowly. (The stat- and visitor activity tracking ones are the worst about this.)
One benefit of WP 2.5 from a user’s standpoint is the auto update feature for plug-ins. That’s not to say that the update will correct the slow-loading problems, but it does lessen the pain in the butt problem.