Top Ten MUST HAVE WordPress plugins you can’t afford to ignore
by Sam Davis
If you’re a web developer, you’ll no doubt be familiar with WordPress. It is a Content Management System that is used by 60.1% of all the websites whose CMS are known by W3Techs – equating to 29.6% of all websites. Over the years, it has become increasingly innovative, and therefore is not only utilised by the casual blogger, but also now by big multi-natural corporations – who are enjoying the simplicity yet power that the software provides.
The beauty of WordPress lies with the themes and plugins that can be hooked up to the platform – which can perform tasks from the sublime to the ridiculous. Matt Mullenweg and co have done well to keep bare bones installation of WordPress as close to the 2003 release as possible – with the focus on posting blogs and pages. However, the rise of the plugins now means the software can successfully run E-Commerce stores, business directories, multimedia content, and much more besides.
Whilst the niche of a website will determine the specific plugins that a “webmaster” will install on to the site he or she is creating, there is however a list of ten MUST HAVE plugins that should be installed on any new installations, regardless of what type of site it will be. Each of them can improve the functionality, search engine friendliness, and speed – of a website.
WP Smush
Large images can slow down a website considerably, so WP Smush works by automatically optimising every picture you upload to your website – retaining quality but reducing file size. A must for the SEO conscious site owner.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free tool to monitor your web traffic, the amount of visitors you re getting, the terms they use to find you, where they enter your site, exit your site – and much more. This plugin makes integration a complete doddle.
Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 allows you to place feedback forms on your website. You can have an unlimited number of forms on your site, plus there are extra plugins available which can also integrate received feedback into CRM’s, Mailing Lists and more.
Duplicate Posts
If you’ve ever wanted to clone a page or post, this plugin is for you. It can be especially useful if you’re building pages with plugins such as Visual Composer, and you want to retain the layout but just change the content.
Facebook Like Box Plugin
Having a Facebook Like box on your site gives visitors an easy way to quickly give your page a “like”, however also acts as social proof for the validity of your business or brand – ensuring peace of mind, and helping you achieve better conversions.
Real Favicon Generator
This plugin will not only create a Favicon for your site, but also takes you through the process of generating icons for iPads, iPhones, Android, and also Windows Phones too – helping you retain brand consistency.
Launcher & Coming Soon Plugin
Don’t want potential visitors seeing the bare bones of the site whilst it’s being built? This plugin will only allow logged in users (ie: you) to see the site, the rest will see the holding page! Includes countdowns!
Yoast / WordPress SEO
One of the most powerful SEO tools on the market. A lot of it is automated, so upon activation your site will instantly be in a better place, however there are numerous enhance it provides including site maps, SEO scores, and much more too.
Really Simple SSL
Once you install an SSL certificate, there may be some hard-coded links or database URL’s which contain a reference to your HTTP addresses – this corrects all of them, thus preventing the “insecure content” error message appearing.
Tag Pages Plugin
By default, WordPress only allows you to enter tags for blog posts, however they can be very useful for pages too – as they can improve your SEO by ranking some of your grouped content accordingly. A must for any website developer.
If you have any WordPress plugins that you install on to a new site without even thinking, then I would be happy to add it to the list, as it would be great to share the free plugin love!
Sam Davis
I am fanatical about providing useful web experiences, via bespoke websites which engage, inform and entertain. I have been making websites since a young age, and am a keen supporter of AFC Bournemouth.
