WordPress is one of the simplest ways of creating your business website. It is also popular with over 40 percent of the total websites on the internet powered by WordPress. Business websites in particular can benefit a lot from WordPress. The easy admin experience with a wide range of scalability and better ROI are some of the major appeals of WordPress Plugins.
As an open-source content management system (CMS), WordPress has numerous quirks. One such is the availability of numerous fantastic WordPress Plugins. Due to the platform being amplified by the global community each year there are some genius Plugins to make your work easier here. Being updated to these will help you to efficiently do your work as well as improve your website. We shout out some of the very best WordPress Plugins in this article.
What are WordPress Plugins?
A WordPress Plugin is a part of code that ‘plugs in’ to your WordPress site. In simpler terms, it is a bubble that adds to the functionality of your website. These might be new or even an extension of the existing functionality. WordPress Plugins can make anywhere from small tweaks to a lot of major changes to your website. For example, some plugins will help you in creating small updates while others can change it to a fully functional eCommerce site upon your choice.
There are over 60, 000 plugins for WordPress going towards 2020 and each has its own characteristics and functionality. Most of these are free while others might charge you for the premium versions.
Advantages of using web plugins
* It saves a lot of time. Plugin developers have spent their time and effort required. Web developers are greatly helped here.
* It provides some flexibility to customize site functionality and features.
* Plugins can be very reliable for getting things done fast.
* It can help you change different components of your website without advanced technical abilities.
* Web Plugins are easy to install as well as uninstall which prevents hassle in updating your website.
Although there are many advantages of installing different plugins there are certain risks if used the wrong plugins. Some of these include causing an error to your website, vulnerability to your website security, or introducing malicious codes. To prevent these always use well-known and trusted plugins. Keeping a backup is also wise. Using more plugins than you need can also hinder the website speed. Hence, choosing a correct and useful plugin to do the job is significant.
Must-Have WordPress Plugins for Business Websites in 2021
1. Yoast SEO
WordPress is an SEO friendly platform out of the box. Yoast is one of the most complete Plugins to help you and improve the on-page SEO here. It has different tools and features to analyze and improve your content to fulfill the technical requirements. By generating sitemaps, Yoast also helps you to connect with the Google Search Console. It also comes with a powerful feature which detects the change and broken links on your website. You have both free and premium versions here with the latter offering more scalability and in-depth analysis.
2. WPForms
WPForms as the name suggests is a simple WordPress plugin to make a user-friendly contact form for your website. It is very important especially for business websites to get connected to their clients. WPForms makes it possible for your clients to get in touch with you more effectively. With drag and drop features you can easily create different types of forms. With over 3 million users, it is best for websites requiring contact, subscription, online ordering, payment, survey, and similar types of forms.
3. Monster Insights
Monster Insights is easy to reach plugin integrating the Google Analytics components to your website. Taking the data and charts from Google Analytics, you can now analyze and work on the changes from your WordPress dashboard. Unlike Google Analytics, here you are given all the important stats that matter within the website. Monster Insights has both free and premium versions. Although the free version is enough for beginners, the Premium upgrade can give you an extra edge here.
4. WP Rocket
WP Rocket is a WordPress caching plugin helping your website to improve the speed almost instantly. The best part here is that WP rocket doesn’t require any technical skill. It automatically turns on all the recommended caching services by WordPress like compression, page cache, gzips, and pre-loading. As it is a smart plugin it works by automatically building your website cache even before someone’s request. Imagify is an optimization service available for image contents with WP Rocket too. It is a paid version of WordPress Plugin.
5. Updraft Plus
Updraft Plus is a widely used WP backup Plugin on the market right now. Allowing users to set up automatic backups, it is easy to use and manage. Updraft Plus stores these backups in a remote location improving the security factor of the website. Similarly, the easy restoration option makes Updraft Plus a must-have WordPress Plugin for a professional website. It has both free and paid versions. The paid version gives you additional features and priority support.
6. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is one of the most popular and flexible plugins developed to give a complete open-source e-commerce solution. It powerfully blends commerce and content offering an enticing storefront to your website. From bookings, subscriptions, memberships, dynamic pricing, to categorization and display of goods, Woocommerce handles it all for you. Additionally, you can choose multiple payment and shipping options as well as automated calculations too. It is a free WordPress Plugin.
7. PushEngage
PushEngage is a web push notification plugin. This is one of the recent techniques to improve user interaction on a website. PushEngage allows you to send different targeted announcements and messages to your website visitors. It comes with several powerful features coming in handy for any website. Especially for an e-commerce website, PushEngage can automatically trigger price drop alerts, cart abandonment notifications, inventory alerts, and more. Also, managing updates and newsletters are made simple with PushEngage.
8. SeedProd
SeedProd is a simple drag and drop page builder allowing you to create custom page layouts. You can choose from over a hundred different templates or even build one from scratch with SeedProd. All these without a single line of code. SeedProd is the answer for unsteady web support with easy customization of landing, sales, registration, maintenance mode, 404 error, and several other pages. It also has free and paid versions serving different functions.
9. Member Press
Member Press is a useful WordPress plugin that allows you to build communities, courses, and membership sites easily. You can create subscription plans and provide different access levels to your content. It is also designed in a way to combine well with WooCommerce hence supporting several payment solutions. The main features of Member press include drip content, LMS, group memberships, and automation features. Member press is a premium WordPress Plugin with the only paid version.
10. WP Mail SMTP
WordPress by default uses PHP mail functions to send your emails. But, several hosting companies don’t have a proper setup for this feature. It might result in your clients not receiving important email notifications. WP Mail SMTP is an SMTP mail server solving your problems. It has both free and paid versions of Plugins to use.
11. SEMRush
SEMRush is a powerful marketing toolkit beneficial for digital marketing professionals. It will help in your website growth as well as SEO. Similarly, it also aids in Paid traffic and PR strategies of your website. The best part here is that it is a tool to have for gathering useful information and getting the upper hand over your business competitors. Keyword research, track brand mentions, and backlink audits are some of the main features available here. SEMRush is only available in the trial and paid versions.
12. Pretty Links Pro
Pretty Links Pro is a link management WordPress plugin. It is one of the best tools available for affiliate marketers. Similarly, Pretty Links Pro also helps business owners, podcasters, and marketing strategists with the easy creation of short URLs in WordPress. Pretty Links Pro is a paid plugin but you can select from a range of plans that fits your website needs.
13. LiveChat
LiveChat is live chat support for business and e-commerce websites. With tons of customization options, it is gaining popularity lately. The best thing here is that it also comes with a mobile app. You can provide real-time-support to your clients with Live Chat. We suggest you use this with the ChatBot created by the same team for the fastest response and best AI-powered ChatBot features. The WordPress Plugin for LiveChat is free.
Here are some tips to choose WordPress plugins that work best for you.
* Research is the key. Read carefully about the information and functionality available with every WordPress Plugin.
* Spot different versions of your plugins. If there are paid and free versions, select one which is best for your plan. Also, check if it is a one-time purchase or an annual payment.
* Test your plugin before committing to it.
* Check if your plugin is blacklisted. There are a few WordPress plugins that are banned by some hosting services.
* See some reviews and evaluate the functionality and quality of the plugin.
* Choose a trusty plugin developer, some of the best ones here are made by reputable companies.
These are some of the most impressive WordPress Plugins to have on your business website according to our expert study. WordPress is a diverse platform and it never hurts to know more and stay up to date with new ones. Stay connected with us for more tips and information regarding your business website.