Just A Notch Please?

I have been on for several contracts for either new builds or maintenance on several sites for a few marketing agencies and a new client of my own. Some of these sites are about six years old and do not look too bad. They probably have about another year or two left in it before it would make sense to start work on a new website. But that is only when you take a look into the website itself. It looks pretty good up front and have a few Console Errors or Warnings on there. However, when you get to the backend as a developer and designer, you start to notice the mess behind the scenes and wonder where to even start. 

Some back-ends I have seen have about 22-27 WordPress Updates and are on a WordPress Version before 5 which is now well over a year old. Some I have noticed this and they are on a way earlier version of PHP (the server-side programming language behind WordPress websites) and one as early as 5.4. Security and Support for that version of PHP ended ages ago! There was no wonder the site would lag or run extremely slow. The look is fine, but the programming is outdated.

I go into the Theme and see if it is a Pre-Built/Purchased Theme or a Custom Build Boilerplate theme that you would normally get from a pro-developer or marketing agency.  You go into the files and you find out that all little things that could have been added to the theme or functions.php file are being used by plugins.

This mess can be as good as starting a good several months cleaning up carefully if your situation is terrible and you have bad theme code discrepancies as well that require theme and plugin development time added on top of the many plugin updates. Many rounds of testing, debugging and fixing aside, you are looking at basically building a brand new website because the functionality was supported by unknown 3rd parties that expired out through time.

Why So Many?

Sometimes when developers or marketing agencies are developing websites, they may not have the most experienced on staff to take care of your website or they are outsourcing to another 3rd party to handle the development which is dependent on who you are doing business with.  Sometimes it happens when there is little bit of timing in development and a last second functionality request was asked and the launch date cannot change for reasons. Most experienced agencies or freelancers would push the launch to a later date or tell the client it is not feasible for the time being if that was the case.

But in my opinion, it happens when things are not planned out and there are no development standards within the organization or freelancer. I was honored to work at one of Cleveland’s best digital marketing agencies and I have learned that having plugins in WordPress websites are not necessarily a bad thing if you have a trusted relationship with the plugin. In fact, a great agency or developer has a small list of plugins used and may not even have all of the activated at all times as they could be used for development purposes. Having 3-7 plugins in one website is not harmful at all.

Plugin optimization is still important and there has to be a good reason on why you are going to use the plugin.  Some websites I have looked into have plugins for posting photos a specific way or dimension when you can easily add a function for that. Little things that could have been done. And if this is a custom boilerplate, why were these functionalities not thought of during development or added on in the theme? Some of those things I might not understand. But it leads to either inexperience or poor organization and development standards.

For the Best Interest

Now I have no problem with plugins or Plugin Developers if the solution provided is going to be a good fix or addition. In fact, I used to use quite a few plugins when I started out and when I got more experienced, I only narrowed down to using at a max of 5 plugins per site  for E-Commerce builds and 3 plugins for basic sites.

The issue I am having is that we have all of this trust in a 3rd Party extended software solution for your website. There is no thought about the Plugin’s history of updates, reviews and even testing for potential future versions of code that is coming up. The cleanup in some of these sites requires a massive effort of plugin updates that takes a toll on the server and could potentially break the site if one of those plugin updates is not compatible with WordPress’ latest version or the theme itself. 

There are wonderful plugins out there like Advanced Custom Fields, Gravity Forms, WooCommerce, Yoast SEO and much more well-known WordPress Plugins out there where there is well known support and constant updates over time. With the future becoming more challenging online and technologically, it might be time to go on a minimal approach and try to solve the problem based on your need. 

Some other things to keep in mind, a not well-known plugin can slow down your website. It can do some more damage than justice to what you want to achieve that can potentially be done with writing a function in your functions. A time saver, and well easier to track. You could also face website security issues with separate plugins as you may not know what is going on the developer’s end. 

Just an interesting take as I have been finding a lot of these websites lately and I always have to come back and spill the bad beans and potentially start building a website from scratch or start cracking them knuckles and getting right to work on fixing a lot of problems. I never like having to tell a business owner the fix is going to cost as much as a new site because they might think I am trying to stick them for a price. 

Like I said before, I use about 3 – 5 per site at most! A plugin to me is like a last-minute or a must-need resort for a solution that I know will last a very longtime for the customer and it will be easy for me to manage and ensure best quality as I continue my upkeep on the website. My clients hardly deal with speed issues unless it is a hosting provider issue at hand because I make sure minimal plugins are in use, images are optimized and best practice code is in place in their website and they are up to date at all times! 

If you would like some more information, please feel free to reach out to me!