To Plug Or Not To Plug
Similar to USB cords or other wires that are plugged into a socket to allow your electronic device to operate, Plugins - also referred to as "add-ons" - can help the functionality of your site, from setting up tables and grids, to social media and monitoring different aspects of your site. Yep, plugins are great, but just how many should we use?
Picture Perfect Plugins
The debate is how many are too many; many would argue that no more than 5 plugins is sufficient; but the issue is not so much how many but the quality of the plugin. We all know that a slow website is the kiss of death, so in selecting a plugin, you need to know which ones will negatively affect your site speed, and which one will enhance it.
Are You Good at Ping Pong?
Ooops....that Pingdom, a nifty little site that can take care of all your plugin anxieties. This little baby will monitor your site's speed, and give you reports on actual site visitors, among other nifty tricks.
If you're unsure about whether or not to add a certain plugin:
- First check your site's speed before inserting the plugin by entering your site's URL.
- It will show you the speed of your site either by the milliseconds or seconds
(anything under a second is ideal).
- Once you've obtained the load time, you can go into your back office in Site Rubix to add the plugin you want, then go back to test your site seed again.
- If the number has increased, you may want to rethink adding that particular plugin. But here's the good news: with access to over 40,000 plugins, you're sure to find one that will be a good fit to match exactly what you wan tit to do for your site.
So don't be bashful...plug away!!! Thank you for reading and please leave any comments or questions below.
Strive to Thrive,
Veronica
Recent Comments
35
LOL! Excellent, we will go ping pong our sites and see what the speed is! ;-) Thanks for sharing!
LOL! ;-)
Hubby: "Ice cream? Right before lunch?" (It's 11:56 in our part of the world.)
Me, shrugging my shoulders nonchalantly: "Sweetheart, that's the instructions from Veronica."
LOL! ;-)
You're a real sister Veronica! :-) I'll tell Hubby! ;-) LOL!
But... of course... this whole imaginary conversation is only the expression of my "artistic license"... you know... ;-) LOL
- seeing that Hubby is at work, it is not lunchtime yet, and there's no ice cream in sight either... but hey, you can't stop a girl from dreaming eh? ;-) LOL!
Yes it can be so tempting to 'over plug' as there are so many amazing plugins available. This is a very useful way to check whether it's worth it or not. Thanks Veronica. ~Mark
Awesome, images and great post - ping pong - great game!
Yes, we need to be aware of our site speed. Thnx, Mizz Vee.
M
Veronica,
It sure is a very handy website to let us know if a plugin will hurt our sites speed. I really like the humor you use in your post, ping pong, lol.
Lisa
It is so good to know that tool is there for us. Other wise we would be getting very unhappy readers! Great job V! thanks for this.
Thanks for this. I like ping pong... I am mean Pingdom.com. It is another amazing plugin to help get our sites on track for business.
When you think about it, Tania, there's really no reason to guess about anything that's related to our sites....there's a gadget for everything!
See more comments
I'd truly rather play ping-pong than slow my site down with too many plug-ins. One is fun and the other is not. I'm going to check out Pingdom.com and see what's slowing down my website these days. Great tips, Veronica, my friend.
I wish you all the best,
Sue (The RV Lady) :)
Glad that Bp shared this with us. Another gem!
So many great gems, Veronica, for sure.