WordPress Plugins: A Beginner’s Guide

There are thousands of WordPress plugins, so choosing the right ones for your site can seem overwhelming. Luckily for you, we’ve put together a blog of the most useful WordPress plugins you should take advantage of.

Best WordPress Plugins for SEO:

Yoast– Yoast’s comprehensive toolkit makes it easy to optimize your content to improve your SEO. It’s easy to use, allowing you to add meta tags, sitemaps, social media, and more.

All in One SEO– AIOSEO uses the most current strategies to help you surpass competitors on Google. While it is a little less user-friendly than Yoast, the results of this WordPress plugin speak for themselves.

Both Yoast and AIOSEO bring exceptional results when it comes to SEO, we suggest you begin utilizing one of these WordPress plugins ASAP to keep you ahead of the competition. These plugins score your pages and posts so you feel confident they’re going to perform well. Learn how to further optimize your WordPress site for SEO by reading our blog.

For eCommerce:

WooCommerce is the most recommended WordPress plugin for online stores with approximately 42% of all eCommerce stores using it. If your store provides a digital product, the Easy Digital Downloads plugin may serve you better.

For Professional Content:

Even if you’re a native speaker, it’s easy to forget things like commas or accidentally use incorrect subject verb agreement. Grammarly is a free writing assistant that catches all your errors, from spelling to conjugation. While not technically a WordPress plugin, Grammarly checks your writing across all the sites you use.

Security:

IP Geo Block– Keep your account safe from attacks outside the country as well as spam and zero-day exploit.

Askismet– Prevent comment and trackback spam.

Google Captcha– This non-intrusive form thwarts automated spam.

Jetpack– Comprehensive WordPress security including backups, malware scans, and spam defense.

Although WordPress provides basic security, a security plugin is recommended to further protect your site.

Email Sign Ups & Lead Generation:

Mailchimp– Add sign-up methods to your website.

OptinMonster– Use a drag-and-drop editor to create opt-in forms and A/B test for optimization.

MailOptin– Transform visitors into subscribers and send event-triggered emails.

Chat:

Live chat is essential for customer service and online sales. Providing instant and quality support increases sales, leads, and other conversions. If you help your customers virtually or make online sales, you need a WordPress Plugin to provide chat support.

LiveChat– This industry-leading WordPress plugin consistently ranks #1. It integrates with many other services and allows you to chat with customers without logging into WordPress.

ChatBot– Want to offer live chat without an agent constantly available? This AI allows you to create a chatbot interface that addresses multiple conversation scenarios.

Editing:

While many users are familiar with the Classic Editor, Gutenberg is a newer block-style editor with increased functionality and ease of use. Gutenberg allows the user to navigate to the features they need quickly. In addition, editing and formatting options that were difficult to implement with the Classic Editor can be done in seconds with Gutenberg. If you’re set in your ways, the Classic Editor is perfectly adequate and still allows you to create engaging pages and posts in the familiar style you’re used to. Want to change your WordPress theme? Check out our blog that walks you through changing themes.

Forms:

Ninja Forms– If you need a free form plugin, Ninja Forms offers the basics with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder.

Gravity Forms– This WordPress plugin is a favorite for the depth of features and customization. It can even manage payments.

Image Compression:

If you’re not compressing your images, your page speed may suffer, as thus your SEO. We recommend using one of the following WordPress plugins.

Imagify– Free for up to 25 MB a month, Imagify compresses using three methods and also allows dimension resizing.

Optimole Image Optimization Service– Allows unlimited optimization using lossless compression on files up to 1 MB in size.

Smush Image Compression and Optimization– This cloud-based optimization WordPress plugin supports all image types and resizes and compresses without a loss in quality. The free plan extends to 1 GB of optimization and 5GB views.

About the author: Sheri Holshouser is a marketing manager based in Dallas, Texas. In her free time, she likes to read science fiction novels and play with her pug Chloe. Learn more about her professional qualifications on LinkedIn.