Starting with WordPress – plugins
WordPress gained it’s popularity thanks to the wide variety of plugins available. A plugin is like an app on our phone, it brings us new features and functionalities on a WordPress site. It’s easy to install and use and doesn’t require programming skills.
What Can WordPress Plugins Do?
In the WordPress community, there is a saying that goes around: “There’s a plugin for that”. With more than 52,000 free plugins available to install through WordPress admin panel, there is a plugin for almost any kind of website, not just blogs.
There are WordPress plugins to make:
- Forum using the bbPress
- Online store using the WooCommerce
- Job board using the Job Manager
- Wiki website using the Knowledgebase plugin
- Photography website using Envira Gallery Plugin
- … and many more
If the feature you are looking for isn’t available in WordPress by default, there is a plugin for that. Plugins can also be just a little feature like a social media buttons. There are great plugins that help us improve SEO, boost performance, create contact forms, photo galleries and much more.
How to install WordPress plugins?
Plugins are installed from administration menu in your WordPress site. But these are not all plugins you can get, you can make one yourself or buy a premium plugin which can be purchased from internet markets. You can upload these plugins in a .zip package through option “Upload plugin”. WordPress plugins installed on your site are registered in your WordPress database. You can activate and deactivate them at any time you want. There are many myths that plugins are bad for website performance or how many plugins can you have installed. It’s not the number of plugins that is a problem; only poorly coded plugins are the problem.
Our recommended plugins
These are the plugins we use on our website or clients’, and recommend them to you.
Yoast SEO
It is one of the most downloaded WordPress plugins of all times and we use this plugin for improving search engine optimization in every website we make. It automatically adds all the important metadata and helps you with content and meta-analyzing. It also adds Open Graph meta data, social sharing information, sitemaps and ping search engines whenever you update your site.
WP Fastest Cache
Caching improves site loading time by making static html files from WordPress PHP files. This greatly speeds up loading time as a server doesn’t need to generate it on the fly. There are many great plugins for caching, but if you want the easiest to use and with great results, we recommend Wp Fastest Cache.
WP Smush
Images are the great assets for your page which easily grab users’ attention. But images can take a lot of space, and slow downloading time. Wp Smush helps us optimize images bay by compressing images without reducing their quality. It automatically compresses images when uploading, and can also bulk compress old images.
Disqus Comment System
By replacing default comment system with Disqus, you’ll be able to engage directly with the audience to build loyalty and retain readers. It’s the most popular WordPress comment system, and it’s also the one we use on this very site.
WPML
Great plugin for making your site multi-language. It offers an easy to use interface for managing translations. It also adds language switching options for your users. We use it on all our multi-language sites. It’s a premium plugin, but worth the money.
Slider Revolution
Simple to use slider but with great features, great for creating big header sliders, mobile and SEO friendly. Another premium plugin you can see on soo many WordPress sites, also often comes with a custom theme.
To sum it up, if there is a feature you need on your WordPress website, try searching for a plugin, as it’s the fastest way to add new features. Plugins will save you a lot of time coding and if they are updated regularly, there will be no problems.
