chapter five
5 Adding functionality with plugins
This chapter covers
- Choosing the best plugins for your site
- Including the right number of plugins and avoiding conflicts
- Adding the Jetpack plugin’s module set
- Ensuring you’re managing accessibility and cookies correctly
- Understanding the purpose of widgets
- Creating your own widgets and plugins using AI
- Ai-generated HTML, CSS, and PHP executable code
A WordPress plugin is like an extension in Chrome, Edge, or Safari (Firefox calls them add-ons). Plugins are typically small programs that can be installed in WordPress to add functionality. Examples include spam blockers, ecommerce managers, apps that help improve the site’s rank in Google or AI searches, contact form builders, security systems, and many others.
You can find more than 50,000 plugins in the WordPress plugin directory (https://wordpress.org/plugins/). And thousands more on third-party websites.
It can be daunting for site owners to find just the right plugins to improve their websites. That’s where this chapter comes in. Here you’ll find:
- Which kinds of plugins are useful in almost every type of site
- How to find plugins of the highest quality
- How plugins can help you incorporate certain best practices (such as ensuring accessibility)
- What best practices you should follow when working with plugins themselves