Many of our clients are using WordPress as a CMS because of it’s extreme ease of use and large number of plugins made available by its community. One thing we take for granted is the knowledge behind what makes a WordPress plugin worthwhile. Is it the idea or the implementation? Maybe it’s both. But furthermore we take for granted the number of popular plugins and rarely take a look to see who has possibly done it better.

So here are a few of the things I take into consideration before installing a new WordPress plugin on our site.

Age

Basically, if a plugin hasn’t been updated within the last few months there is cause for concern. Was the plugin really that good to begin with that it never needed to be updated? Chances are someone just forgot about it and it may not even be compatible with your current version of WordPress.

Speaking of compatibility. The WordPress plugin directory just added a new community moderated compatibility box. Once this takes off, if it takes off, it could become the most reliable way to find updated plugins.

Popularity

Another sign of a quality plugin is just it’s popularity. Every plugin allows you to view it’s stats which can be a great metric for the plugins quality. Spikes in traffic are usually do to high profile referrals from sites like Smashing Magazine and LifeHacker which is usually a good sign the plugin is worthwhile.

Rating

Now just because a plugin is up to date and very popular does not mean it’s going to work the way you want. I always check the ratings and look into anything with less than 3 stars.

Proof of Concept

This is usually the first thing I look at when trying to decide between multiple plugins that serve the same function. Most good plugins will have a Screenshots page. I like this for two reasons:

1. It shows how the plugin works and what your getting
2. It shows the developer took the extra time to set up their readme.txt with the proper information

However, if there are no screenshots I’ll usually click on the Plugin Homepage link to see a working demo or screenshots on the authors site.

Support

When all else fails, this is the best way to learn the inner workings of a plugin without installing it. It’s the easiest way to see what’s working and what’s not. Just look for the “See what others are saying…” text on the plugins Description page for a list of forum topics about the plugin. No topics can mean it’s just not popular or has no problems.

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So now that you’re better educated on the art of finding new WordPress plugins, go and explore the WordPress directory with ease.

But it also makes linking to images with creative commons licenses a snap:

All within the WordPress wysiwyg. Now moving beyond just regular embeds …. Apture takes hyperlinking to the next level as well. You can now easily link to Twitter accounts (Magicomm), wiki pages (Social Media), and more without sending your readers elsewhere.

So go and Download this plugin as soon as possible and start bringing some rich media to your readers.

• I can’t find a link to your Twitter account
• You’re social bookmarking buttons don’t work
• I can’t find any contact info
• I can’t find an ‘About’ page

And the list goes on.

I honestly don’t think we pay enough attention to the usability of our websites sometimes. So this is where your mom comes in. Well it doesn’t have to be your mom, but someone outside of your little social media bubble should take a look at your blog and report back to you on how intuitive it is. Have them click around and ask questions, you might be surprised what they come up with.

It’s easy to get caught up in a whirlwind of plugin madness when it comes down to populating your WordPress blogs sidebar with cool new widgets. We convince ourselves that our readers would find them useful and we picture them gleefully playing with the little widget that allows them to feed virtual fish. Now when is the last time you played with virtual fish, well maybe that’s a bad example as virtual fish can be pretty fun sometimes. But what value does it provide to your reader and furthermore, how is it in any way relevant to the message you are trying to get across with your blog.

Now take a step back for a moment and go check your analytics (this is where someone usually, sarcastically, says “I’ll wait a second while you go ahead and open that”). Once you have your analytics open, check to see how much traffic your categories and tags are getting. Also check to see if any author pages are getting some decent traffic. If the answer is no to any or all of these questions, what value is there in putting these links in the sidebar? Especially considering that these types of widgets are usually displaying content that is already being displayed in part of the post via “This was posted in blah blah with the tags blah blah blah”.

So these are just a few examples of easy ways to waste valuable sidebar real estate. Next time you add ANYTHING to your sidebar, first ask yourself; How does my reader truly benefit from this added functionality and how does it support my goals?

Photo by sindesign