What is WordPress Plugin?
WordPress Plugins are software or extensions added within the website to extend the functionality of the website. One of the main advantage of WordPress is that there are thousands of free plugins available in the plugin repository. There is a good chance that for the requirements for your site, a plugin that can do the work is already available in the plugin repository. Most of them are well managed and reviewed.
Advantages of WordPress Plugins?
Here are some of the main advantages of the plugins.
- Provides added functionality in the websites
- Save time and cost in development
- Doesn’t effect the WordPress Core and easy to update and install as needed.
How to Select the Plugin?
So here is the tricky part. With so many options, how to select the best one that suits the requirement. When you are looking for plugins good chances are that you can find multiple plugins matching your requirements. So here are few steps you can take:
- Check the Compatibility
Checking the plugins compatibly is quiet important. Most of the plugins have minimum requirement as well they might only be compatible up to certain version of WordPress. So it’s quiet important to know these stats beforehand.
- Read the Reviews
It’s always good to check what user are talking about the particular plugin. Even the wordpress developer like me use the plugins. So for every plugins, some of the reviews had been written by the developers who have tried ins and outs of that plugins.
- Check the Ratings
Like reviews, every plugin has ratings. WordPress ratings are done out of maximum 5 stars. More star, much better is the plugin. Other stats to look within the ratings would be number of people that had submitted the ratings.
- Is the Plugin Maintained Frequently
It’s really important to see how often the plugin is maintained. WordPress does update from time to time, and some of the old and unwanted functions get deprecated and replaced by more powerful and new function. Plugins that aren’t updated frequently might not be compatible with the latest version of WordPress Core and may stop site functioning properly.
- Number of Downloads
Number of downloads shows how popular the plugin is. The higher the number more popular the plugin is. And it does prove that the plugin is well trusted by users.
Conclusion
Hereby I have listed few points on how to select the plugin. Not all plugins are good, but with careful studies and research you can find one that suits you better. A good idea will be to weigh up all the points mentioned above and then choose the best one fitting in the bill.