Out of the box, WordPress has a lot of features to get a good looking business website up and running. Despite this, you will still need plugins to add more functionality and make your site even better. WPamplify has listed below some of the most popular plugins, ranging from eCommerce to SEO.
WordPress SEO by Yoast
There are many aspects to Search Engine Optimization or SEO. You have to optimize your post or page titles, write meta descriptions, control how your URL looks, and so much more.
With this plugin from Yoast, much of the legwork can be done within the post editor page. Once you write your content and enter a focus keyword, Yoast SEO will analyze your content, giving you a checklist of things you did right and things that could be improved.
Other things this plugin can do to help with SEO includes:
- Setting up 301 redirects.
- Edit your SEO title and meta description.
- Set up rules for search engine robots, such as no-index or index.
- Customize the descriptions used by Facebook and Google+ if you don’t want to use the default description.
- And much more.
The WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin is an absolute must for any small business WordPress website.
Askimet
If you utilize the comments feature of WordPress, then it’s important that you have a solution in place to combat spam. Askimet is one of the most popular anti-spam plugins, in part due to that it comes with every WordPress installation.
Setting up this plugin is simple. You have to register at Askimet.com to get a WordPress API key. Once you get the key, you can just paste it into the Askimet settings page. That’s it! You can breathe a sigh of relief that your site has a layer of protection against spam.
W3 Total Cache
Using the W3 Total Cache plugin can help increase the loading speed for your WordPress site, and a fast loading time will improve your visitors’ browsing experience. It does this by caching every aspect of your website, from pages to posts, images and CSS files. This can be a great benefit, especially during high traffic periods.
Formidable Forms
People who are interested in purchasing might have questions about your products that need to be answered before they make a final decision. In order to do so, they need to be able to contact you. Adding a contact form onto your WordPress website is a convenient way for them to quickly get in touch.
There are plenty of options to choose from. One of the most popular plugins is Formidable Forms, available for free from the WordPress repository. Creating and adding the form is fairly easy for beginners as it uses a drag and drop builder, and you can match the style of the form with the theme of your website.
You can get plenty of functionality from the free version. For additional features, such as integrating with MailChimp or WooCommerce, Formidable Forms offers premium extensions.
WooCommerce
Speaking of WooCommerce, this just happens to be the most popular WordPress eCommerce plugin. An already popular plugin, it was acquired in 20015 by Automattic, the organization that operates WordPress. Add this to the huge community of developers and support system and it’s easy to see why it’s the most popular solution for selling products.
- No matter how big or small your store is, downloading and installing WooCommerce is free.
- You can sell digital downloads, physical items, subscriptions, and more.
- It comes built in with the top payment gateways.
- Its popularity means that it’s not going anywhere.
WooCommerce, along with many related extensions, is available for download in the official repository. You can also find many extensions for it in the repository as well, or you can visit their extensions page for both free and premium solutions.
WPamplify Can Help You with WordPress Plugins
There are thousands of WordPress plugins in the repository, and it can be overwhelming to try and decide what works for your business website. Contact WPamplify to discuss what plugins may work best for your needs. Our team of developers is experienced in working with many of them and can work with you to add functionality.
