Chapter 4: Plugins
Last Updated: 9/1/22
Last Updated: 9/1/22
Plugins are crucial for more complex WordPress sites, even basic sites need contact form plugins. Unfortunately, not all plugins are built equally. Some are great, some will completely break your website.
Some type of contact form is needed on almost every site, it’s an easy way for users to get in touch with you, and allows you to get back to them on your own time. Below are some common contact form plugins and my recommendations for them.
If you read chapter 1: Image Optimization in this guide, you might be tempted to use an image optimization plugin. Don’t. A lot of image optimization plugins will slow down your site. It’s best practice to optimize your images BEFORE you upload them to your website.
WordPress site security is a very important topic, especially since attacks on WordPress sites are increasing every year.
Some users have found that if their site is still slow after looking at these settings, deleting then reinstalling the plugin will solve the issue.
If you’ve got a speedy site, your next step is to work on your SEO. There are a bunch of plugins out there to help you with this. Some are a lot better than others.
Many people use page builders to create beautiful websites in a fraction of the time of traditional developers, with far less code. The good part of this is that it saves you a ton of time, the bad part is that a lot of page builders are slow and clunky.
Let me know about it and I’ll look into it and add it to the list above. You can also test it yourself with WP Hive.