WordPress is awesome! It’s an amazing platform for building any web presence upon. However, a fresh install of WordPress will not necessarily provide you with all of the tools you need to run a dynamic and successful website. This is where the Plugin comes into play. WordPress plugins extend the power of your website – and there’s a seemingly endless amount of additional features that could be added. With over 33,000 plugins listed in the official WordPress Plugin Repository – we are spoiled for choice, and finding a great plugin can be overwhelming. For your convenience – here are our Top 10 Free WordPress Plugins for late 2014. Install some of these and you will be well on your way to developing a great website for you and your visitors.
JetPack
Jetpack is like several plugins in one – with over 20 various features designed to boost your websites functionality.
This plugin includes a lot of cool features (just dive in and explore the Jetpack settings) – however, here are the stand-outs that Snug Site recommends:
Publicize – Automatically share new Posts to various social media networks automatically – a very powerful tool for SEO.
Custom CSS – If your Theme Options do not already include this feature – here is a must have for those willing to dabble in a bit of Custom CSS.
Jetpack Comments – Allows your visitors to leave comments on Posts by using various Social logins – this also ensures that your website is being seen across Social Networks.
Contact Form – An easy to set up Contact Form that can be placed on posts, pages or in a Widget – Also integrates with Akismet.
Subscriptions – A simple widget that allows for visitors to sign up for email notifications when you your site has a new Blog Post – or Comments.
Sharing – A great customisable Social Share bar which you can set to appear below Posts, Pages, Media and others.
Note: Requires a connection to your free WordPress.com account.
Contact Form 7
This is a fully customisable Contact Form with Akismet integration. It does have a steep learning curve, however it is more than just a Contact Form. Create Multiple forms, customise the email notification contents and embed anywhere on your website.
WordPress SEO by Yoast
Developed by an SEO guru (Joost de Valk) – this plugin is your all-in-one Search Engine Optimisation solution. It includes a content analysis tool on the Page and Post Editor screens – which that is extremely useful and effective.
Other amazing features include – Social Integration, .htaccess and robots.txt editor – Add Breadcrumbs – RSS optimisation.
Akismet
Protect your website from comment and email Spam. This plugin will check comments against a database of known spammers and spam language, and automatically send them to your Discussion Spam tab for later moderation. This plugin also integrates with Contact Form 7 – which helps reduce the amount of spammers using your on-site contact form. Note: Requires a connection to your Akismet account.
Limit Login Attempts
Prevent brute-force login attacks. This simple plugin that limits the number of times someone can get your admin password wrong. If someone fails to login too many times – their IP address is blocked from login for your specified time.
Note: Although this plugin hasn’t been updated in over 2 years. We have tested it for vulnerabilities and compatibility and everything is still working fine.
Rename wp-login.php
This plugin also prevents brute-force login attempts – as it hides your WordPress login page from public view. With this plugin you can easily and safely change the login url to anything of your choice.
Telephone Number Linker
Ensures that those viewing your website on a Smart-Phone can simply tap any phone number link you have added and dial you immediately. Absolutley essential for any website that relies on Phone Enquiries for sales.
Optional: Call now Button – This plugin adds a “Call Now” style button at the bottom of the screen for those on smart-phones.
W3 Total Cache
This is arguably the best all-in-one WordPress speed performance plugin. W3 Total Cache incorporates the power of: Page, Feed, Browser, Database, and Object caching. Minification of HTML, JavaScript and CSS. CDN integration. Most test have shown website speeds double after the set up of this plugin.
EWWW Image Optimizer
Large images (file size) can really slow down a website. It is recommended that all images on your website be below 200kb,
This plugin can takes your existing images and any new images you upload and reduces the file sizes. It can do this using a “lossless” method – by stripping stripping meta data, optimising compression, stripping the un-used colours from indexed images and more. The result is often a image half the file-size, but without any noticeable quality loss.
WooSidebars
Create your own Widget Areas!
The default Widget Area system which comes with WordPress is quite restrictive. With WooSidebars you are not only able to create new Widget Areas, but specify rules about their behaviours. Including where these widget areas appear based on context – ie by category, taxonomy etc.
If you would like any assistance with the installation and set up of any of these plugins or more – you can always contact Snug Site for further guidance.
