Before anything else, a word of advice ... Wordpress is an extremely complex ecosystem ... CMS, theme, plugins, widgets, etc. it works incredibly well, but every single new component - even the smallest one - is a potential risk factor that could overthrow the hardly achieved balance.

Long story short: I highly recommend you to create a full site backup before installing a new plugin!

Or even better, you could use an offline test environment to play around a bit with your new shiny toy without affecting your live website. It's really easy to install Wordpress on your computer, and believe me, you'll spare yourself a whole bucket of drama!

Here is how to do it:

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OK. With that having said, let's see the first important question ...

How to choose a Wordpress plugin ... the right way

The very first thing you should do: create a prioritized checklist with the features that you’re looking for.

Why? Because, most likely, you won’t find everything in one plugin!

Which is OK. It doesn’t have to be one plugin that does everything. If you can find two good plugins that work well together to give you what you need, you have found the perfect solution.

I know, I know ... I can hear you ... MANY "experts" will tell you that having too many plugins is a very bad idea ... They will affect your site speed, etc.

Well, hear me out! I have 20 years of online experience and I'll say it loud and clear:

The total count of plugins does not matter! THE QUALITY DOES! More on this topic a bit later ...

OK. Now let's see how to choose the best Wordpress plugin ...

Obviously, everything starts with a search. The WordPress plugin directory search feature will give you result pages based on relevance by default.

You can see the rating, description, number of active installs, author name and tested with WordPress version.

Your goal is to find a plugin that has a decent number of active installs, a good rating, and has been tested with the most recent WordPress version:

Once you have found a few candidates, you should open each plugin page in separate browser tabs to compare them. Check out any relevant information. Description, installation, features, what it does, how to use it, technical details, user reviews, ratings etc:

A few words on the Support overview tab ... The support section of the plugin page’s sidebar will give you a quick overview of the number of support threads opened and resolved for the given plugin during the last two months.

No doubt, is another important and relevant information, but you need to keep in mind that unresolved support threads do not really mean that the plugin has some issues!

However, if a plugin has many unresolved threads in the last two months, then this could be an indicator that the author has lost interest. Which means less support, less updates, etc.

Also, don't forget to check out the available screenshots too! These screenshots are a quick way to see how the plugin looks on the front-end and on the back-end of your WordPress website.

Finally, check out the FAQs section! It's sad, but is true, sometimes users end up complaining that a plugin doesn't work ... without even reading how to use it ...

So make sure you read these sections so that you can configure and use the plugin properly on your website!

And the really final step: testing the winner.

So ... you have made your choice. Great! Now is time to test it out. Why? Because, even ONE tiny plugin could slow down your site if is poorly written or doesn’t follow the WordPress coding standards.

Here is how to do it ...

Go to Pingdom ...

https://tools.pingdom.com/

Test your website’s page speed before activating the plugin and take a screenshot.

Now go back to your WordPress website, activate the plugin, test your website speed again and take another screenshot.

I've made the test using the very popular Contact Form 7 plugin.

Here are my results before installing the plugin:

So ... At this point I have a 1.70 seconds loading time ...

Not something to be proud of, but at least is under the 2 seconds limit recommended by Google.

Now let's see what I got after installing Contact form 7 ...

Here it is:

Yep :(

The amazing Contact Form 7 added 0.70 second to my loading time! Almost one second!

Do I need to say it? I will ... I won't use Contact Form 7!

The point: if a plugin adds a significant amount of time to your site’s speed ... FORGET IT!

Please note: while these factors won’t guarantee that you’ll pick the right plugin 100% of the time, it will definitely increase your chances of success.

OK. Let's move forward ...