WordPress is a great hosting platform and content management system for businesses and is used by over 25% of websites on the internet. A WordPress plugin is an add-on program installed to complement the core running of WordPress, such as improving SEO, managing comments or monitoring spam. With more than 38,000 WordPress plugins and loads of features, it can be hard to know which ones are necessary for efficient running of your site. We narrow it down to 5 essential types of plugins with some handy features you should install on your website today.
- SEO
An SEO plugin such as Yoast SEO allows you to fine-tune your SEO (search engine optimisation), bulk edit your meta data and optimise every page of your website, all in one place. Yoast is by far the most useful SEO plugin and one of the most downloaded WordPress plugins of all time. It is essential for optimising your pages for search engines to attract more traffic to your website.
- Contact Form
Contact forms are essential for any type of website, whether it be for submitting enquiries, newsletter sign ups, member registration, surveys or feedback. Use the many features to customise your form to collect the essential information you need from your visitors. E.g. WPForms, Contact Form 7 or Ninja Forms.
- Social Sharing
There are many social sharing plugins for your blog which are great for showing readers which posts are more popular and encourage visitors to share your content to social media. Many social sharing plugins have many features and customisable options so you can match them to your WordPress theme and website layout. E.g. Monarch, Shareaholic or SumoMe.
- Security/Spam
It is crucial to protect your blog from spam and enhance your website’s security to prevent it from being hacked. Many security plugins can eliminate spam from comments, contact forms and registrations. E.g. Askimet or Jetpack.
- Broken Link Checker
This type of plugin is a very handy tool for monitoring your website pages, comments and blog archives to detect links that don’t work. Fixing broken links helps to give your visitors a better user experience and will improve your website’s SEO. E.g. Broken Link Checker
Working with a professional marketing company can ensure you improve your website in a timely manner and use essential plugins for your business’ functions. Here at Clarity Marketing and Communications we have the resources and knowledge to help you with all of your web design and development needs. For further assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact us on 1300 060 204 or submit an online enquiry.