WordPress Essentials: Top 10 Plugins
When it comes to PHP based website creation tools, WordPress is, pretty much, the ultimate choice. It offers plenty of functionality and comes with a ton of features. However, it still goes lacking in a few areas. Fortunately, there are plugins that can help fill the gap and allow users to make the most of WordPress. But, how do you know which plugin to go for? Well, there is no established method as such. You just have to go with trial and error. However, we’ve made things easier by narrowing down the list to ten of the best WordPress plugins available. So, do take a look.
OptinMonster
Need something that improves your conversion rates? Well, OptinMonster does exactly that. It turns exiting visitors into email subscribers. No more barren email lists to worry about now.
Jetpack
This free plugin is actually developed by the same people who made WordPress. So, you can be sure it’s going to work perfectly with the PHP tool. Now, Jetpack does a ton of things. It improves website performance, optimizes images, boosts site security, and even manages your website’s appearance. It also comes with a distribution feature that shares your published content with other services to boost overall visibility. If that isn’t enough, it even creates sitemaps to aid indexing. Finally, it monitors downtime and alerts you to issues, if any.
Constant Contact
This is another email marketing plugin that helps users create email lists. What makes Constant Contact great is that it is extremely easy to use. There is practically no learning curve. There are inbuilt tools that help create sign-up forms and anything else you need with regard to email marketing. It can also be incorporated with OptinMonster to boost leads.
MonsterInsights
This plugin is probably the best as far as Google Analytics for WordPress sites is concerned. You can use it to gain insights on visitors. For example, you can determine where they’re coming from and what it is that they do on your site. Naturally, the end result is that you get to improve your sales by optimizing your website to meet visitor requirements.
Akismet
Akismet is an anti-spam plugin that was also developed by WordPress creators. It monitors comments to identify spam content and remove them. You get to access a “status history” that tells you what comments were identified as spam and why. You even get to know which commenters have high approval rates and scan for suspicious links.
BackupBuddy
As the name indicates, this is a backup plugin and a highly effective one at that. It’s super reliable and restores your entire website in a flash. Don’t want to lose your website data? Well, make sure you get BackupBuddy.
W3 Total Cache
Looking to boost the overall experience for your visitors? Well, W3 Total Cache would be your best bet here. This plugin increases page load speed, which, needless to say, is an important ingredient in the website experience mix. What the plugin does is that it reduces download time to boost server performance. This, in turn, causes the page load time to drop, thereby, enhancing your site’s performance and visibility. The plugin can do this during heavy traffic too, which makes it ideal for voluminous websites.
Defender
WordPress is the most commonly used PHP based website development tool. Naturally, this puts under the hacker spotlight. Fortunately, you can fight the hackers by using Defender. The security plugin offers automated security scan, customized hardening, blacklist monitoring and vulnerability reporting. You can even test it out for 14 days before actually buying it.
Ultimate Branding
For businesses, the way a site looks can make a lot of difference. That’s why you need a plugin that can help with this. The Ultimate Branding App does exactly that. It allows you to customize various aspects of your site such as the admin bar or the logo. To put it simply, it helps you establish consistent branding throughout your website. Moe importantly, it is easy to work with and you don’t even have to know code. You can use it for single installations or multisite networks.
All in One Schema.org Rich Snippets
When you search for certain sites, you’re likely to come across results with extra bits of information below the primary search link. This could be reviews, images, or ratings. These extra bits of information are put there to help visitors know a little more about the site they’re about to visit. These bits of information are called “Rich Snippets”.
So, if you want rich snippets for your site, then the “All in One Schema.org Rich Snippets” plugin is your best bet. The plugin allows you to configure the kind of information that will be highlighted as rich snippets when someone comes across your site in the search results. This can help you boost your search rankings.
Appointments+
This plugin helps with scheduling appointments, meetings, and consultations. You don’t have to bother with making errors such as double booking ever again. In fact, the plugin even allows users to pay for appointments in full or as deposits. Site owners can customize the plugin to book appointments with widgets, add-ons or shortcodes. Integration with Google Calendar and Social Media is also possible.