It seems like many bloggers + business owners treat WordPress plugins like they are collectibles. However, this is one instance where “more is better” doesn’t work.
That’s because plugins can add some really awesome functionality to your website. While at the same time add more work to your plate — by requiring on-going maintenance, testing + hogging resources from the rest of your website.
Which is why some WordPress plugins are better off being removed when you’re done using them. Even if you need to re-add them later, it’s better for your website speed + your business to keep things as clutter-free as possible.
The WordPress plugins to use now + then
If you’re not sure what they can do, get an understanding of how incredible WordPress plugins are first. Then you can dive into using these 3 types of plugins — and remove them as soon as you’re done.
Want to know what these 3 have in common? They are very helpful tools but they can be resource hogs!
Broken Link Checker
This type of plugin is banned from some WordPress hosting companies because of how much it can slow a website down. I’m guessing the 24×7 tech support teams got tired of answering “my site is way too slow” requests with “remove this plugin.”
2-4 times a year, I install Broken Link Checker on my website + let it run in the background. After an hour or so, I review any broken links, fix the ones that are issues + then I delete the plugin completely.
Even though I’m blogging weekly, my content isn’t changing enough to warrant looking for broken links every day. Yet leaving that plugin in place does just that! Which is why it can slow things down to a pace you really don’t want for your business.
Need a reminder on how to remove plugins? Head to Plugins + deactivate the one you don’t need anymore. Once it’s inactive, then you can click “delete” to clear it out.
Revision Removal
Not many folks use revision removal plugins at all, which means they are missing out on a chance to speed up their website slightly without much work at all!
Any plugin like WP Sweep will clear out revisions from blog posts + pages. What many WordPress users don’t realize is that every time you hit “save” or “update” on a page / post, that creates an entry in your database.
Do you need to worry about your database? Nope.
But knowing that 100 individual edits to your About page over the years means you have 100 “saved” versions of that About page on your server is something to worry about. Because it’s an easy problem to solve.
You’re likely not making dozens of revisions every day. So I use these plugins when major changes are happening. As well as once a year as a “new year, new site” type cleanup.
Image Compression
The only time I advocate using an image compression plugin is when you’re adding more than 10 new images to your website at one time. Otherwise, use the free service like tinypng.com to save images.
What is image compression? It’s a way to shrink image file sizes down so they load faster. Which is great for keeping your site visitors happy.
Why don’t I recommend them? Because they can slow your website down. And most WordPress users are adding 1-3 images to their site a week, at most. Which means you can make image compression a part of your process outside of WordPress.
The other perk of doing it outside of WordPress means that you aren’t saving extra file sizes to your website. Not every hosting company is as nice as we are + some will take your site down if you have too many files stored on your account. So why give them the chance to do that? Simply upload “ready for web” images from the start.