A WordPress website is only as good as the plugins installed on it, and there are thousands of plugins available to choose from. From simple contact forms to complete e-commerce solutions, the options are endless.
We’ll discuss some of the best plugins around, so you can have peace of mind knowing that your WordPress site will always have all the functionality it needs.
Lead Generation/ Conversion Plugins
If you’re trying to attract visitors to your site and improve conversion rates, here are a few great WordPress plugins for lead generation and conversion.
Yoast SEO: Yoast SEO is one of our favorite WordPress plugins because it makes it easy to optimize your content for search engines while also making sure readers can easily find what they’re looking for on your site. The plugin includes features like keyword optimization, breadcrumbs, XML sitemaps, and even a built-in WordPress editor that simplifies HTML editing.
Contact Form 7 : Contact Form 7 is another popular WordPress plugin. It has been downloaded nearly 50 million times and it makes it incredibly simple to add contact forms to your website so you can capture leads from interested parties. It comes with plenty of customization options, including conditional logic for customizing which fields appear based on user input. And if you want to track which form submissions come from which source, there’s support for tracking codes as well.
Optin Forms
This is a brilliant idea! If you are just starting and didn’t know any better, then Optin forms are a feature built into WordPress. Fortunately for those who don’t realize how easy it is to get started creating Optin forms, there are plenty of WordPress plugins that make adding Optin forms to your site a breeze.
For example, SumoMe offers two WordPress plugins: SumoMe List Builder and SumoMe Share Buttons. Both of these plugins allow you to easily add Optin forms (as well as share buttons) to your WordPress site in seconds.
The options available within each plugin vary depending on what you want to do with them, but they both offer a lightbox pop-up option. The lightbox pop-up allows users to enter their email addresses without leaving your website. In addition, they both offer simple analytics so you can see exactly how many people are signing up through your Optin form(s).
One thing to note about WordPress plugins: They tend to be more expensive than regular WordPress themes or templates. However, when you consider all of the features available within WordPress itself — not to mention all of its third-party plugins — it’s hard not to justify paying a little extra for convenience and ease of use.
Social Media Sharing Tools
Posting to Facebook and Twitter is a great way to drive traffic back to your website. There are dozens upon dozens of WordPress plugins that will make sharing your content on social media sites easier, but with so many options out there, it can be hard to know which ones are right for you. In 2022, consider using Social Media Sharing Tool, ie.
Social Share.
This plugin will let you share any post from your site directly onto Facebook and Twitter by clicking one button on either platform. The plugin also integrates seamlessly into your site’s navigation menu, making it easy to find and use when needed.
Best of all, Social Media Sharing Tools has over 1 million active installs and an average rating of 4.8 stars — making it an ideal choice for just about anyone who wants to improve their social media presence.
Caching Plugins
Most blogs won’t need a caching plugin. If your site gets more than 5,000 visitors per day, though, then a caching plugin might help you improve your load times and therefore increase traffic to your site. WP Rocket is one of the favorites for sites with high traffic — it’s easy to set up and helps reduce load times by more than 50%. It will only cost you $49/year. It is an all-in-one web performance plugin.
Another option is W3 Total Cache; it works great but can be a bit tricky to configure properly. You should watch the tutorial before you started.
Another option is WP Super Cache; it’s free but doesn’t work as well as WP Rocket or W3 Total Cache.
Yet another popular option is Autoptimize, which can sometimes cause conflicts with other plugins if not configured properly. You may also want to consider CDN support, which can make your website faster by serving content from a server closer to where your users are located.
Another favorite CDN plugin is called Cloudflare; it’s free and extremely easy to set up.
If you don’t want to use Cloudflare, check out MaxCDN or KeyCDN instead.
Email Newsletter Tools
Email newsletters are a great way to stay in touch with customers and contacts without getting in their faces on social media. The basic format is as follows: Issue 1, Issue 2, Issue 3, etc. It’s easy enough to start by creating an email newsletter once a month or every two weeks. You can create your template using a program like Microsoft Word, Pages, or Google Docs. You can also use services like MailChimp (free) or Constant Contact (paid).
Be sure to include links to your website, social media profiles, and other contact information at the bottom of each newsletter. Also, be sure to let people know how often you plan on sending out newsletters so they don’t get annoyed if you go more than a week between issues!
Site Search Tools
If you’re going to be creating a lot of posts, it might make sense to invest in some sort of site search tool that can help readers find what they’re looking for. These will help your users navigate around your site much more easily and convert into leads and customers.
While there are quite a few different types available, Use Yoast SEO because it is free, easy to use, and easy on SEO. It allows you to set up keywords and write content that targets those keywords so that readers can find exactly what they want. It also gives suggestions for other keywords as well as provides an overview of how many times each keyword has been used within the post.
Image Optimization Tools
Let’s face it, one of your biggest priorities for your website is to make sure it loads fast and looks great. And one of your greatest enemies, when you’re trying to do that, is huge images, which can bloat page sizes, reduce load speeds, and create a negative user experience.
If you’re using WordPress, there are many tools you can use to optimize your images, For example, Smush and EWWW Image Optimizer. What’s even better about using the tools is they all work with different kinds of images, meaning you don’t have to install multiple plugins on your site just to handle everything from JPGs to PNGs. All in all, a quick way to get more speed out of your site.
Keyword Research Tools
To start, you’ll want to think about which keywords are relevant to your topic. Using a tool like Google’s Keyword Planner can help you research that. Not only does it show you search volume, but it also gives you other related terms and their monthly search volume if available.
Adding these terms to your keyword list will help you to create content that is catered to users searching with the terms. You can use the tools alongside Google Trends to see what people in your industry are searching for over time. The more data points you have, the better off you’ll be when creating content. Use Google Site Kit plugin as it is the one-stop solution for WordPress users.
Development and Testing Tools
Sure, there are thousands of free WordPress plugins out there. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay for a premium plugin once in a while, especially if it helps your business or blogging run more smoothly.
Since most bloggers don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to development and code, you may have to shop around to find something that works for you but if you do, consider investing in a professional solution.
For example, Divi Builder is an easy-to-use drag-and-drop page builder from Elegant Themes that lets you create custom layouts without having to deal with coding. It’s not free, but it makes creating new pages easier than ever before and can be used on any site using WordPress.
Customer Feedback & Review Tools
It’s good to know what you think is great, but that’s not important. What matters is what your customers think and whether they find your product useful. To make it easier for people to give you feedback on your WordPress products and services, implement a customer feedback loop. Ask them for their opinions on how to improve your products and services and then provide them with opportunities to share those thoughts with you by email or other contact methods.
Tools like SurveyMonkey or WP Forms can help. They have several survey templates available so you don’t have to start from scratch. They also allow you to set up automatic follow-up emails so that after someone completes a survey, they get an email thanking them for their time and letting them know when they will hear back from you.
There are also some tools available that make use of reviews as well such as Product Review which allows users to submit reviews in exchange for free products in return!
Bonus Point: Smart Podcast Player: Smart Podcast Player is a WordPress plugin that makes it easy to embed podcast episodes into your WordPress site. It comes with several design templates and options for customization so you can match your podcast’s branding across all platforms, including mobile devices. Plus, it integrates with many major podcast hosting services so you don’t have to worry about uploading files manually.
Conclusion: The WordPress platform has many amazing features, but you may need to add additional functionality to your site to fully realize its potential. Plugins are one of the best ways to do this, but finding the right ones can be tricky.
source: https://charleslovichblog2022.wordpress.com/2022/04/07/the-best-wordpress-plugins-for-2022/