Housework for your Website

Introduction

Is there anyone in the world who really likes housework? I sometimes see people claiming that they love getting out the hoover and giving the whole house a spring clean every week – but I don’t believe them – do you?

Where do all these WordPress themes and plugins come from?

Now onto the point of this article – tidying up your website. It’s as easy for your website to get untidy as it is for the dishes to pile up in the kitchen.

How many times have you experimented with plugins and themes on a WordPress website? Many people do install a few themes until they find one that they like.

I also understand why people install plugins trying to find something that does what they are looking for.

I certainly know, from reviewing many people’s websites, that after experimenting with many themes and plugins, people do not delete them ;-(

Website owners are their own worst enemy when it comes to cluttering up their website.

The second offenders who mess up websites are certain web hosting companies. You can imagine that over the almost 20 years of creating websites I have used quite a few hosting companies. And I have learned that not all WordPress installations are the same. Some hosting companies will bundle themes and plugins with their WordPress installation scripts. I never use these themes or plugins.

Why you need to remove unwanted themes and plugins from WordPress

If you are one of those rare people who like housework you would probably just want to delete the unused themes and plugins to keep things neat and tidy. But there are a couple of more serious reasons:

1. The list of unused plugins and themes tends to grow as time goes on – like the dishes. This means that the files, and the entries in the database, are taking up unnecessary resources. If you don’t have a clear out, with time, your website may be slowed down – people don’t like slow websites.
2. If you are not using any plugins or themes the chances are that you are not updating them either. This is where security holes can appear in the code. Plugin and theme developers do issue fixes in the constant battle against hackers. So plugins and themes that are not updated are a risk to your website and of course to your business.

How to delete themes and plugins from WordPress

This bit is relatively easy if you are comfortable using the WordPress dashboard:

Deleting themes:

1. Login to your WordPress dashboard
2. Click on APPEARANCE
3. Click on THEMES
4. Hover your mouse over the theme you need to delete and click on THEME DETAILS
5. Click DELETE

WARNING!

If you are using a child theme, under NO circumstance should you delete the parent theme.

Deleting plugins:

1. Login to your WordPress dashboard
2. Click on PLUGINS
3. Click on INSTALLED PLUGINS
4. Find the plugin you want to delete and click DEACTIVATE (if it is activated of course)
5. Click DELETE

Conclusion

That’s all that needs to be said about deleting themes and plugins from WordPress

Now I’m off to find the hoover. But if you need help with the website declutter give me a call – 07813 769719. Or send me an email.