Must have plugins – Guide to selecting, installing and managing WordPress plugins

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Must have plugins – Guide to selecting, installing and managing WordPress plugins

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wp-plugins-presentation

A presentation on WordPress plugins for the WordPress meetup group in Cambridge, UK, being delivered on 11 January 2016

On Github BenAttenborough / wp-plugins-presentation

Must have plugins

Guide to selecting, installing and managing WordPress plugins

Created by Ben Attenborough / @WebDesignerBen

What are plugins?

According to the WordPress Codex: “Plugins are ways to extend and add to the functionality that already exists in WordPress. The core of WordPress is designed to be lean and lightweight, to maximize flexibility and minimize code bloat. Plugins then offer custom functions and features so that each user can tailor their site to their specific needs.”

What plugins should I use?

There is no such thing as an essential plugin. It will depend upon your site's needs and other factors such as the hosting platform you are on.

If a plugin were 'essential' to the running of WordPress it would be already have been incorporated into the core of WordPress

1. Hosting: If your host does auto backups you don't need a backup plugin. Similarly with caching plugins.

First things first - planning

Rather than asking what plugins you should use, ask yourself what functionality you need your site to have.

For anything more than a hobbyist site you should plan out what you want to achieve. Think about what the essential objectives of your site are and plan to meet those.

Beware of adding lots of bells and whistles to your site - you might end up distracting users from what you really want to achieve.

Give examples of social media feeds and new tickers distracting from a marketing site

Keep it simple

The idea of planning a site is to boil things down to the essentials and focus on your key objectives.

This will help when selecting plugins, but will also help avoid the site growing out of control. The easier it is for a user to get the information the better. Ideally the user will be able to get the information from the front page without clicking on anything...

...With this in mind think about simple ways to implement your objectives without using plugins. For example do you need a contact form on your site when a simple email address will do the job?

Give examples of social media feeds and new tickers distracting from a marketing site

Plugging in

This is where files are installed. Be careful not to make changes here because of updates
Show how to update. Point out where notifications appear. Note some plugins will not inform you of updates. Especially if they are paid for.

Plugins best practice

Develop your site locally. Spin up a test site, seperate from your main project and have fun experimenting with plugins there. Test them and make decisions there before installing on your main site.

Research your plugins. Look at reviews, number of installs etc. But also look at the level of support - check out resources such as wpmudev

Backup your database and files before updating plugins - but keep plugins and WordPress core updated

1. This is good practice for many reasons. Will stop db being clogged up - get you to feel comfortable - allows free experimentation.

Plugins and themes

Themes do more than control the look of a site. They provide areas for posts and widgets to appear in and can affect the content of posts.

Therefore be aware that some plugins will not work with some themes, and that some themes have been written with specific plugins in mind - so other plugins may not sit happily with them.

If you are thinking of using a bespoke theme for your project you need to consider how it will affect plugin functionality. Again this comes down to planning.

Plugin pitfalls

  • Plugins can conflict with each other
  • Badly written plugins can slow your site down
  • Lots of plugins can make the admin and new post areas a mess of options
  • Plugins seldom do exactly what you want - you need to be adaptable
  • As WordPress is upgraded older plugins can stop working
1. Explain why plugins should be disabled before using a new one 3. Explain about clients using site and keeping it simple for them 5. Why it's important to select plugins that are well supported

Rules of thumb

  • Try to keep plugins to a minimum
  • Focus on your objectives, not bells and whistles
  • Only use one plugin for a task if possible
  • Deactivate and remove plugins you don't need
  • Beware plugins that promise speed increases
5. Find out what your bottleneck is - perhaps a better host is needed?

Rules of thumb pt 2

  • Develop locally and test plugins thoroughly before deploying live
  • Make sure you have a backup strategy and...
  • ...backup before activating or updating plugins
  • Do your research before installing plugins

WP CLI

Resources part 1

The WordPress Codex is the official documentation and first port of call for probelms

www.wpbeginner.com is a great resources, for beginners especially - but also for people looking to get into development

premium.wpmudev.org has a useful blog

themeforest.net has a load of premium WordPress themes. These are paid for but are tested by the envato team and come with excellent support

Resources part 2

wp-cli.org is where to go to get and find out more about wp-cli, a command line interface for WordPress

teamtreehouse.com is an excellent (paid for) series of tutorials on WordPress by Zac Gordon which will take you all the way from beginner to starting to build your own themes and plugins.

wpdevelopersclub.com is an online school for learning about WordPress - but from the fundamentals of computer science upwards. Still a new site but worth a look

Must have plugins Guide to selecting, installing and managing WordPress plugins Created by Ben Attenborough / @WebDesignerBen