Plugins are one of the main reasons WordPress is so popular. When you install WordPress out of the box it has many useful features. However, when you add plugins, it becomes a much more powerful, useful system. The WordPress community is huge and includes many talented developers and designers. Over the years these individuals have found ways to make WordPress a much better platform by building and maintaining plugins. Some are vital, while others have bugs and should be avoided. The following are 5 plugins every WordPress website needs.
SEO by Yoast
Over the years many SEO plugins have come and gone. However, Yoast still goes from strength to strength. Unlike other SEO plugins, Yoast is designed to help you write better content. The plugin analyses each WordPress page you create and identifies problems associated with that content. Once you know what issues you have to fix you will be able to create fully optimized webpages and posts that satisfy the search engines. This is the key function of Yoast but it also includes a range of other functions that improve the effectiveness of a WordPress website.
Backup Buddy
Every WordPress website is at risk of attack from hackers. In other situations you may want to disable your WordPress website for maintenance work. Either way, it?s vital to have a reliable way to back-up your website. Backup Buddy is designed to backup all components of a WordPress website including databases, content and much more. You can use the schedule feature on this plugin to automatically backup your website at certain times.
Floating Social Bar
Modern websites are pretty much redundant if they don?t have some kind of social media feature. A wide range of social plugins are available to address this issue. The Floating Social Bar plugin is one of the most effective and is used by many successful website owners.
This plugin gives you the option to display social media share buttons for the leading social media websites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest on posts and pages. For example, if you had a useful post about a HP 4250 maintenance kit for your printer other HP users would share this post with their contacts using these share buttons. It also includes counters that display the number of times a particular page or post was shared on each social media website.
W3 Total Cache
Your website needs to load quickly. Users leave slow loading websites and the search engines frown on them. The W3 Total Cache plugin is design to address this common problem. This plugin is particularly effective if you have a busy website. The W3 Total Cache plugin lowers download times, caches all elements of your website and provides a much better user experience for your website visitors.
Gravity Forms
Website visitors need an easy way to contact you. Some will phone but many others prefer to fill out a form on a website. Gravity Forms does just this. This plugin includes a drag and drop feature that lets you design your forms the way you want. This plugin goes much further than other forms because you can integrate it with other web applications such as payment processors, autoresponders and accounting systems and much more.
Every WordPress needs the 5 WordPress plugins above. Once they are installed your website will perform better, react better to visitors and make your website a much more powerful system.