Properly enqueueing scripts and styles on a WordPress website is essential for ensuring that the website functions correctly and loads efficiently. By properly enqueueing scripts and styles, you can ensure that your website’s code is organized and loaded in the correct order, which can help to improve the overall performance of your website.
One of the main benefits of properly enqueueing scripts and styles is that it can help to reduce the number of HTTP requests that are made to the server when a page is loaded. When a browser loads a webpage, it makes multiple requests to the server to retrieve the various resources that make up the page, such as images, scripts, and styles. By properly enqueueing scripts and styles, you can reduce the number of requests that are made, which can help to improve the loading speed of your website.
Properly enqueuing scripts and styles can also help to ensure that your website functions correctly, even when certain resources are missing or not loaded correctly. When you enqueue scripts and styles, you can specify the dependencies that each resource has, which can help to ensure that the correct resources are loaded in the correct order. This can be particularly useful when working with complex scripts and styles that have multiple dependencies.
Properly enqueueing scripts and styles can also help to improve the overall maintainability and organization of your website’s code. When you enqueue scripts and styles, you can give them unique names and specify where they should be loaded, which can make it easier to identify and troubleshoot any issues that may arise. Additionally, by properly enqueueing scripts and styles, you can ensure that they are only loaded on the pages where they are needed, which can help to reduce the amount of unnecessary code that is loaded on each page.
Furthermore, Properly enqueueing scripts and styles can also help to improve the security of your website. WordPress has a built-in security feature called nonces, which are used to verify that a specific action is being taken by an authorized user. When you enqueue scripts and styles, you can include nonces, which can help to ensure that only authorized users are able to access and interact with them.
In conclusion, properly enqueueing scripts and styles on a WordPress website is essential for ensuring that the website functions correctly and loads efficiently. By properly enqueueing scripts and styles, you can reduce the number of HTTP requests that are made to the server, ensure that your website functions correctly, improve the overall maintainability and organization of your website’s code, and improve the security of your website. It is important to be aware of the importance of properly enqueueing scripts and styles, and to make sure to implement it in your next WordPress project.
How to enqueue a script on WordPress properly.
Create a new function in your theme’s functions.php file, or in a custom plugin.
Use the wp_enqueue_script() function inside the function you created. The wp_enqueue_script() function takes several parameters, including the handle of the script, the source of the script, and an array of dependencies. You can read up on “wp_enqueue_script” here. Here is an example of it in use.
function my_enqueue_scripts() {
wp_enqueue_script( 'my-script', get_template_directory_uri() . '/js/my-script.js', array(), '1.0.0', true );
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'my_enqueue_scripts' );How to enqueue a stylesheet on WordPress properly.
Likewise the same can be done for a stylesheet using the wp_enqueue_style() function inside the function you created.
function my_enqueue_scripts() {
wp_enqueue_style( 'my-stylesheet', get_template_directory_uri() . '/css/my-stylesheet.css', array(), '1.0.0' );
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'my_enqueue_scripts' );