Anybody that has used WordPress before knows that the biggest thing that WordPress is famous for is the many plugins that are available on it. With thousands of plugins ready to be downloaded, WordPress becomes a powerhouse that works for you. Through adding a few key plugins you can make your site an instant success. Well…maybe not instant, but you will certainly have all of the tools needed to give it a shot. Having the correct plugins installed on your WordPress site is the first step to making your website an amazing masterpiece that attracts attention just like candy in a candy shop. Follow along as we run you through our 6 favorite WordPress plugins.
1. WordPress SEO By Yoast
WordPress SEO by Yoast is the most comprehensive SEO plugin ever built. This plugin is easy to install and once installed it will become the SEO powerhouse that you need. More than your average SEO plugin, WordPress SEO by Yoast is a complete website optimization package. It will allow you to easily publish an xml sitemap, run page analysis, view meta data, and so on. WordPress SEO by Yoast is your one-stop SEO shop.
2. OptinMonster
Got a website and its picking up traffic? Good for you. Now it’s time to harness that traffic and start collecting some email subscribers. This will build your list, and your list will build your reach, and your reach will build your bottom line. OptinMonster will help you create awe-inspiring opt-in forms that will get visitors subscribing in no time. It includes many features, such as split-tests, page-level targeting, targeting users as they attempt to leave your site, and so much more. This is one plugin that you don’t want to miss.
3. Floating Social Bar
The Floating Social Bar is a sweet little no-frills social media plugin. While most social media plugins on WordPress include buttons for an endless amount of social media platforms (half of which nobody has ever heard of before); the Floating Social Bar will allow you to pick and choose which sites on include. This way you add just the few social media sites that your company actively participates in. This plugin is also optimized for speed so it doesn’t slow down your pages load time. It just runs nice and quiet in the background and does its job. Isn’t that the best kind of plugin?
4. Disqus
If you visit any site online that allows comments you’ve probably seen Disqus before. Disqus is a third-party commenting platform with built-in anti-spam filters. As your website grows you’re going to want to give them an easier way to comment. Since Disqus stores all of it’s data at a separate location for your site, having a lot of comments will not slow down your site load speed.
5. Thirsty Affiliates
Once your site gets going you may want to consider adding affiliates as an additional source of income. Affiliates can asset to you and your site, and the Thirsty Affiliates plugin will give you everything that you need to manage them. It will help you with easily adding affiliate links, cloaking links, and auto-inserting them with certain keywords. Thirsty Affiliates makes the entire process as simple and fun as possible.
6. BackupBuddy
Your site is only as good as the backup system that you have in place. Don’t let one mistake wipe out your entire site. Once you install the BackupBuddy plugin you can easily setup routine site backups. This plugin is simple to use and once setup it will do everything for you. Since it stores your backups on the cloud it doesn’t take up any extra storage space and your backups can be easily accessed from anywhere should you ever need them.
Remember, these are just 6 of the top WordPress plugins out of thousands when it comes to WordPress. These are some of our personal favorites that we have used many times for our WordPress web design projects, but there are always more great WordPress plugins available. Make sure to keep an eye out and always try testing new plugins as they come out. Most good WordPress sites use many different plugins together. This allows them to be tailored to meet the unique needs of each company’s client base. Once you develop a clear plan of attack, you can use the plethora of plugins available to make a truly amazing website. Do you have any favorite WordPress plugins that we did not list here? Feel free to share them in the comments below. We’d love to hear back from you.
About the Author: Brad Fogel
