Happy New Year! I can’t believe it’s 2015 already. This time of year is pretty routine but in a good way. I love the additional time away from work to spend with my family and friends. My workload tends to calm down a bit to where I don’t feel so under the gun with deadlines and clients tend to get distracted with their own family time. Most importantly, I like to take a bit of this “free time” to reflect on the previous year and also try to build a lose roadmap for the months ahead.
One thing I have personally become accustom to doing this time of year is probably one of the simplest “WordPress hacks” you can do to increase the speed and security of your websites. Best of all, it doesn’t require any type of fancy htaccess tricks or optimization tactics! Simply audit the plugins installed within your active WordPress sites for their usefulness.
Simple WordPress Tip: Review your active plugins to remove any unnecessary ones
Ask any WordPress developer for the number one way to keep your site lean and secure and you will likely get an answer related to reducing the number of plugins installed within your website or blog. The New Year is a great time build a habit of doing this check, much like you might replace the batteries in your home’s smoke detector. Simply head on over to your plugins tab and review the functions and necessity of each active plugin to determine if those added features are really necessary. Deactivate and/or delete the unnecessaries if you find they are not mission critical. It’s also a good idea to audit your plugins more than once a year.
Believe me, it’s easy to get caught up in trying out all of the awesomeness of new plugins but it’s important to stick to only the essentials so your WordPress site remains secure, fast and healthy for the road ahead.
Here’s to a great New Year!