• Menu
  • Skip to right header navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary navigation
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Before Header

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

The Social Media Hat

Always On Top Of Social

  • Coaching & Consulting
  • Community
  • Speaking
  • Articles
    • Digital Marketing
      • Influencer Marketing
    • Social Media Articles
      • Facebook
      • Instagram
      • LinkedIn
      • Pinterest
      • Twitter
      • YouTube
    • Social Media Tools
    • Virtual Events
  • Newsletter
  • Search
  • Coaching & Consulting
  • Community
  • Speaking
  • Articles
    • Digital Marketing
      • Influencer Marketing
    • Social Media Articles
      • Facebook
      • Instagram
      • LinkedIn
      • Pinterest
      • Twitter
      • YouTube
    • Social Media Tools
    • Virtual Events
  • Newsletter
  • Search

When You Should (And Shouldn’t) Use a WordPress Plugin

You are here: Home / Digital Marketing / When You Should (And Shouldn’t) Use a WordPress Plugin

October 22, 2013 //  by Mike Allton

Reading Time: 3 minutes

WordPress is easily the most widely-used and powerful blogging platform available, and a large part of its success is due to the wide array of plugins that are offered to those who use it.

On the one hand, plugins can provide a great deal of functionality and can benefit your site in quite a few ways, helping you to combat spam, getting Google to index your page and improving your page’s overall load time.

There is no doubt that these are all great advantages, but there are some cases where you should think twice about using certain plugins.

Using plugins habitually, or simply for the sake of having more plugins, can get to be a major problem for your page, with one of the worst being increased loading time (even with the cache plug-in that is designed to improve load time). It can even eventually knock down your search rankings, since Google uses load time as a metric for SEO.

Bloggers can, in a way, get “hooked” on plug-ins, believing that they need a lot of them, or assuming that, “maybe just one more plugin will be that silver bullet that gets me a ton of traffic.”

Looking at plugins in this fashion is a mistake, and it can ultimately lead to your blog being choked out and slowed down.

Therefore, the question you need to ask yourself is, “Do I really need this plugin and is it essential to the functioning of my site?”

If a certain plugin doesn’t benefit your site in a functional way with no alternative solution, it’s probably not necessary to have to begin with.

To help you answer the question, let’s discuss the arguments for and against WordPress plugins.

When You Should NOT Use Plugins

Plugins should be used in response to a need, rather than a means of hopeful benefit or a manufactured need.

For example, you shouldn’t use a plugin simply because you’re speculating that it could bring you more traffic or make your WordPress site more popular. Likewise, you shouldn’t have to come up with excuses for plugins as you’re looking for new ones to install.

Secondly, when the functionality that the plugin provides isn’t necessary for the overall benefit of your site (and those who read it), you probably don’t need the plugin at all.

A good barometer for when you’re deciding whether or not you need a plugin is to ask yourself whether or not the problem it’s solving even requires a plugin, or if a plugin is the best possible solution to that problem.

For example, Broken Link Checker is one that you could leave out, simply because there are other tools available to check for broken links, like the W3C validator, making the plugin redundant. Additionally, Easy Tweet Embed and Pinterest Auto Pin are unnecessary for the same reason.

If the issue can be solved (with a reasonable amount of convenience) without a plugin, then you probably don’t need to search through the WordPress plugin repository for your solution.

When You SHOULD Use Plugins

On the other hand, when a plugin provides a solution or functionality that isn’t easily obtained or dealt with outside of that plugin, you’re probably good to go.

Even under these circumstances, it’s best to keep your list of plugins to only the bare bones– usually less than ten.

When deciding which ones make the cut, think about which plugins are essential, in that there isn’t a non-plugin solution or a viable alternative. Plugins that improve SEO and help with your search engine standards, like the WordPress Jetpack, are usually the ones you’ll want to target.

WordPress JetPack is an eight-in-one, easy-to-install plugin that offers you up-to-date information on your WordPress.com Stats, After the Deadline, LaTeX, WP.me Shortlinks, Gravatar Hovercards, Twitter Widget, Sharedaddy and shorcode embeds, all of which make managing your WordPress site much easier.

Likewise, WordPress SEO by Yoast and the Disqus Comment System are widely-used, reputable plugins that serve a necessary and functional purpose.

SEO by Yoast will allow you to control which pages Google shows in its search engines, as well as which pages you don’t want to show. As WordPress itself only shows canonical link elements on single pages, using this plugin makes it output canonical elements everywhere.

The features offered by Disqus are many (threaded comments and replies, subscribe and RSS options, spam filtering, etc.), and it’s a popular service tool for web comments and discussions. Simply put, using this plugin makes commenting much easier and more interactive. When it comes to engagement, Disqus is the winner in that it connects websites and commenters across the thriving discussion community, which is definitely something you want to aim for.

Another plugin that I highly recommend is Solo Build It! for WP, which gives you powerful keyword research tools, and then allows you to target specific keywords with specific pages or posts. Combined with Yoast’s onpage SEO, this is an incredible combination to help ensure your content is reaching the right people, and well worth the additional plugin.

Don’t Overdo It

It’s easy to ignore protocol and go way overboard with the plugins on your site, so don’t fall into the habit of trying to solve all your problems with them. While they’ might be ideal to use in certain situations, keep them on the sidelines until you’re sure they’re the right solution.

Image courtesy of Titanas, Flickr.

Related

Category: Digital MarketingTag: SEO, WordPress

About Mike Allton

Mike is an international keynote speaker, an award-winning blogger & author at The Social Media Hat, and Head of Strategic Partnerships at Agorapulse where he strengthens relationships with social media educators, influencers and partner brands. He has spent over a decade in digital marketing and brings an unparalleled level of experience and excitement to the fore, whether he's delivering a presentation or leading a workshop.

Join The Community!

35,000 savvy marketers have signed up to get the latest social media insights and ideas. Will you?


Previous Post: « View Twitter Relationships within HootSuite
Next Post: How to Use Hashtags on Facebook »

Primary Sidebar

Work With Mike

Work with Mike Allton in a consulting capacity, or to speak at your next event.

Meet Mike

Mike Allton is an international keynote speaker & consultant, and an award-winning blogger and author at The Social Media Hat, where he has been educating businesses and organizations on the best use of content marketing for reaching and converting target audiences. Mike is proud to serve as the Head of Strategic Partnerships at Agorapulse, where he builds relationships with influencers and brands around the world.

Since 2012, Mike has worked with over a hundred brands and executives to help them identify and implement successful strategies. As a certified NLP Coach & Practitioner, he helps YOU achieve excellence. Work With Mike

Partnership Unpacked

Featured Posts

How To Recruit High-performing Affiliates w/ Farzad Rashidi

How To Recruit High-performing Affiliates w/ Farzad Rashidi

February 6, 2023 //  by Mike Allton

Partnership Unpacked, Episode 7, with Farzad Rashidi

Mike Allton’s Quick Start Guide To Becoming A Brand Influencer

February 4, 2023 //  by Mike Allton

Getting paid to represent brands and help our audiences satisfy their needs is what influencer marketing is all about. But how do you get started?

Goldie Chan Partnership Unpacked - Landscape graphic - 1920x1080

B2B Influencer Marketing From The Influencer’s POV w/ Goldie Chan

February 3, 2023 //  by Mike Allton

Partnership Unpacked, Episode 6, with Goldie Chan

More Like This

  • Rules And Regulations Every B2B Influencer Needs To Know
  • How Much Revenue Can A B2B Influencer Earn?
  • B2B Influencer vs B2C Influencer Marketing

Footer

Recent Posts

  • How To Recruit High-performing Affiliates w/ Farzad Rashidi
  • Mike Allton’s Quick Start Guide To Becoming A Brand Influencer
  • B2B Influencer Marketing From The Influencer’s POV w/ Goldie Chan
  • Rules And Regulations Every B2B Influencer Needs To Know
  • How Much Revenue Can A B2B Influencer Earn?
  • B2B Influencer vs B2C Influencer Marketing
  • Fintech CEOs Demonstrate Leadership Through Personal Brand
  • Setting Goals for Partnerships & Omnichannel Marketing

Marketing Resources

  • Marketing Hyperdrive Podcast
  • The Virtual Event Strategist Podcast
  • Partnership Unpacked Podcast (Coming soon!)
  • How To Craft Your Marketing Plan
  • The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect LinkedIn Profile
  • Social Media Spring Cleaning
  • Social Media Planner
  • Get The Newsletter
  • Home
  • Virtual Event Strategy
  • Mike Allton, Your Next Keynote Speaker
  • Mike Allton’s Newsletter
  • Work With Mike
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclosure

Site Footer

Partnership Unpacked Podcast

  • Listen on Amazon
  • Listen on Apple
  • Listen on Google
  • Listen on Spotify
  • Listen on Stitcher
  • Social Media Articles
  • Digital Marketing Articles
  • Social Media Tools & Resources
  • Virtual Events Articles
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2011–2023 The Social Media Hat ยท All Rights Reserved