Having a website is pretty much a must-have these days, especially for businesses. In light of the recent pandemic, everything has shifted online, even more than before. However, for many business owners, especially those with not much experience in the workings of the online world, starting a website can seem like a daunting task.
However, you should not worry. Creating a website with WordPress is quite simple. For starters, you need to register a domain name, get a hosting plan, and spend some time creating and adding pages and posts to your overall website. If you anticipate high traffic or require more control over your website’s resources, you might consider investing in a dedicated window server for enhanced performance and customization options.
Probably the most important feature of WordPress is the unlimited repository of plugins and extensions that can upgrade your website. Many of them are free, or you can buy a premium one developed to help make your website better by adding new features to your site. You can also try online SEO tools. For example, one such tool is Website SEO Checker.
There are plugins for adding contact forms, image galleries, Google Analytics, SEO improvements, site speed, backups, and lots more.
However, you should be careful when choosing a plugin. If they are designed poorly, they can actually damage your site more than they could help improve it. But don’t worry. We have compiled a list of the best 15 WordPress plugins we think you should have on your website.
1. Under Construction and Coming Soon Page Plugins
UnderConstructionPage
UnderConstructionPage plugin helps you build a coming soon page quickly. Coming soon pages are designed to provide your visitors with a better experience of arriving on a page and seeing it being re-designed (with some more information if you want) than just the usual 404-error page. With this plugin, you can create landing pages with a beginner-friendly drag and drop builder.
You can choose from a library of more than a million premium images or use one of the templates to make your site. You also have access to good technical support if you encounter any issues while creating or running your coming soon page.
Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode
Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode plugin helps you create coming soon pages. Again, like with the Under Construction Page, you can choose from a library of high-quality images. You can also pick from professional and customizable themes that you can edit to match your brand. You will also be given built-in tests and guidelines to help you achieve a good SEO and search results ranking.
This plugin also supports CRM and marketing software that will collect emails from your visitors and subscribers so you can reach them at a later time when your site is up and running. Lastly, you can remotely disable or enable the page, synchronize data, and view traffic stats.
2. WP Reset
WP Reset is a tool designed to help you speed up the testing and recovery of your website. Many website owners use this plugin to develop and maintain their websites. For example, if you made an update plugin decision and everything went wrong, you can easily go to the previous settings with 1 click.
With this plugin, you can also create collections of plugins or themes you wish to install to make it quicker.
You can also clean those demo installs easily, or if you want, click on the nuclear reset option and get back to a clean slate. Lastly, there is the white label option and an automatic snapshot feature, which creates automatic snapshots of your website so you can restore your site if anything goes wrong.
3. WP 301 Redirects
WP 301 Redirects is a plugin that helps you fix the two most common issues that many website owners overlook- redirects and 404 errors. For example, old content, old links, and bad links can lead to a huge loss of traffic and conversion rates. This plugin will help you address this issue painlessly.
Instead of leading your users to those annoying 404 error pages, you can just redirect them to the pages you want them to see.
Also, the redirect will not work on bad bots and will simply ignore them and provide them with the usual 404 pages. You will also get built-in charts and reports with the information from Google Analytics on what is happening with your traffic. Lastly, you will have access to a friendly and helpful support team if you encounter any issues.
4. WP Sticky
WP Sticky is a plugin that makes any element on your website sticky. This includes sticky headers, menus, navigations, and widgets. This plugin is very fast, and you don’t need to know any coding.
You can just pick the element (you can pick as many as you want) you wish to make sticky. It is compatible with all themes and plugins and is quite user-friendly to use. Also, you get access to a great support team.
5. Simple Author Box Pro
Simple Author Box Pro is a plugin that creates responsive author boxes for your blog posts. You can showcase the author’s name, their gravatar, short bio, and many more features. You can assign guest authors to your blog posts, assign multiple authors to credit everyone properly, adjust how those author box links will behave (such as open in a new tab or use the nofollow link).
Besides just these options, you can design and edit them to make them fit your brand. You can edit the typography and the appearance, as well as add social media icons to support your authors’ work and their contribution to your blogs.
6. Google Maps Widget Pro
Google Maps Widget Pro is, in short, a map plugin. With this plugin, you can have a map on your site in two minutes. You just have to install the plugin and join over 100,000 users who are happy with how this plugin works. You can create as many maps and add as many pins as needed.
You can use the street view, add directions, and add your maps to your posts, custom post types, sidebars, menus, or widgets.
There’s also an option to customize these maps so they could match your overall design. Also, the plugin is lightweight and will not slow down your site. If there are any issues, you can rely on technical support.
7. BackupGuard
BackupGuard has been designed to back up and restore your website and databases. You will have access to an up-to-date backup copy of your site, and you can access all these copies in one list and restore them if needed. You can also store your backups offsite for better safety. It even comes with a security plugin with a powerful firewall.
8. 10Web AI Builder
10Web AI Builder is a WP website builder that uses AI assistance to automate the technical parts of creating a website. This is useful if you want to transfer your website from Wix, Squarespace, or some other platform to WordPress.
The plugin will automatize all the technical work and create a customizable template for you to manage. It features a drag and drop builder, and you can build responsive and mobile-friendly websites.
9. Optinly
Optinly is a plugin for building goal-based pop-ups. You can set up different triggers to engage your visitors and have them sign up. You can collect feedback, promote special offers, increase your cart value, and these templates can be customized. There’s an option to add images, animations, links, and set up, which triggers will display the pop-up (exit intent, time on page, device type, and more).
10. Blogely
Blogely helps you research, write, SEO boost, and publish original content on multiple platforms. With this plugin, you can manage content material, organize, edit, write, and publish it on your website (all done within the app). This will save you hours of time-consuming processes when writing a blog post.
It will collect search results, and you can analyze your competition and build your SEO. The plugin uses an AI writing assistant to help you write better and faster. Also, it will scan your content for plagiarism.
11. External Links
External Links is a WP plugin that helps you manage all external and internal links. You can set up control icons, add follow or nofollow, open links in new tabs, add user-generated content, set attributes like title and CSS classes, and scan complete pages. It is effortless to download and use.
12. WP Force SSL and HTTPS Redirect
WP Force SSL & HTTPS Redirect helps you redirect unsecured HTTP traffic to secure HTTPS. You just have to activate Force SSL, and it will configure everything. The plugin is lightweight and has only two settings. All you need to do is get an SSL certificate, activate WP Force SSL, test the certificate, and you are done. WP Force SSL comes with an SSL testing tool, and it will test if the certificate is valid, properly installed, and up to date.
13. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is a great plugin for SEO. It will help you rank higher and increase your traffic flow. It helps you by creating meta tags and sitemaps, improves your loading times, and provides you with a great SEO analysis of your content. You can also integrate it with a range of themes and plugins for a wider range of features.
14. Constant Contact
Constant Contact is one of the best plugins for email marketing and marketing services. You can create detailed lists and send engaging newsletters to your subscribers. It will also capture visitor information, create forms, and customize its data fields. This can help you analyze your audience and customers for better marketing strategies.
Conclusion
We hope you found this article useful. As you can see, there is a range of useful WP plugins you can use to enhance your site and improve its functionality. As such, we recommend you spend some time analyzing your site’s needs and see which plugins would work best for you. Also, make sure you download and install good quality plugins, as bad plugins can end up hurting your site more.