Most of the websites we create these days are built on the WordPress content management system, with over 70 million websites built with WordPress across the world we thought we would recommend some of our most used and favourite WordPress plugins!
What is a WordPress Plugin?
Plugins are a way to add additional features and functionality to a website, they can be altered and styled to suit any website and usually come with many useful options and additional features, best of all there are thousands of plugins available absolutely free.
10 Essential WordPress Plugins
All of the plugins listed below are free to install and use however some may ask for a donation to the creator of the plugin but this is completely optional.
1. ALL IN ONE SEO PACK
What does everybody want with their newly built, beautifully designed WordPress website? To be found on search engines! This plugin will help a great deal with getting your website found, with dozens of options to help enhance the optimisation of your website including the ability to change the page titles, descriptions and keywords through the back office we would highly recommend this plugin for anyone looking to manage their own Search Engine Optimisation.
2. CONTACT FORM 7
We believe almost every website should have some sort of contact form, from simple enquiries to more complex call back features or requesting a brochure, a form is a must on any website. Contact form 7 is the ideal plugin for creating such forms, Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents through the back office with easy to understand markup.
Spam is always a problem with any contact form so to counter this Contact Form 7 has the option to add CAPTCHA boxes to deter those pesky spam bots as well as being compatible with Akismet anti-spam plugin.
3. SLIDESHOW JQUERY IMAGE GALLERY
Sliding image galleries look great, they add a feel of movement and excitement to a webpage, whether you want a single sliding image gallery or twenty, Slideshow by Stefan Boonstra is our favourite. It is extremely easy to use and manage, giving plenty of options to the appearance and functionality of your image slider.
4. NEXTGEN GALLERY
NextGen Gallery is the perfect plugin for managing and editing an online image gallery. It is very easy to manage and with many options for displaying thumbnails, images and slideshows it saves hours of time by automatically cropping and resizing your images to fit any dimensions you set.
Folders and zip files can be uploaded and NextGen will automatically create a beautiful looking gallery to manage in the back office as well as looking great from the front end.
5. TINYMCE ADVANCED
WordPress comes with a user friendly WYSIWYG interface for editing your text in the back office, by default it comes with several options for changing the appearance of text such as making text bold, inserting links and more.
However sometimes you want to change more than just the basics of text, with TinyMCE Advanced there are dozens more options for editing text in the back office from changing the font-size to using multiple fonts and colours on your pages / posts.
6. JETPACK
While Jetpack usually comes pre-installed with every WordPress Theme it still needs to be activated to work. Once activated there is so much more you can do with your WordPress system, from connecting your WordPress website to every social media page you own to automatically feed through from your blog post to your Facebook page.
There are lots of great reasons to install Jetpack here are just a few:
- Easily embedded media from popular sites like YouTube, Digg, and Vimeo.
- The ability to post to your blog from any email client.
- Your writing will improve thanks to After the Deadline, an artificial intelligence based spell, style, and grammar checker. Previously provided by the After the Deadline WordPress plugin.
- A CSS editor that lets you customize your site design without modifying your theme.
- A mobile theme that automatically streamlines your site for visitors on mobile devices.
7. SPECIAL RECENT POSTS
This plugin is a great alternative to the default “Recent Posts” widget in WordPress, it allows many different options on how you want your recent blog posts to be displayed. Options include image thumbnails, setting the amount of characters or words to feed from the blog post, changing the display format and much more.
Whether you want your blog posts to feed through into a sidebar or take up a whole page, Special Recent Posts is the best way to display your recent blog posts.
8. KEBO TWITTER FEED
Kebo Twitter Feed is a great way to display your recent tweets, quick and easy to set up Kebo will display as many tweets as you want. With options for visitors to retweet, favourite and follow your recent tweets it is a must have for any twitter user.
9. PAGE LIST
Creating a sitemap is important for search engine optimisation as well as user friendliness on any site, Page List will automatically create a list of all the pages on your website which can save a great deal of time on larger sites.
10. WORDFENCE SECURITY
Wordfence is the Leading Cyber Security solution for WordPress. It provide a Complete Anti-Virus and Firewall Package for your WordPress Website including Two Factor Authentication, a Firewall incorporating Machine Learning and Tools to help Recover from a Hack. Wordfence Security is available free.
WordPress plugin Training and Support
We would highly recommend all of the above WordPress plugins and many more, if you are interested in converting your website into WordPress to have access to all of these plugins and thousands more, or if you already have a WordPress website and need some training and support on how to install / use certain plugins give us a call today on 0161 427 9911 or e-mail [email protected] we look forward to hearing from you soon.
