Need a hand with your WordPress website? Keep calm and install a plugin (or 6). No, not those hair implants from Turkey – although you might need one if you keep pulling your hair out over your website…
What is a plugin (and why install one)?
From customisation and security, to search engine optimisation (SEO) and image purity, plugins are applications designed to enhance the functionality of your site. The best ones will make your life easier, save you time, expand your website’s capabilities and improve your user experience in one fell swoop!
Plug in, and chill out
There are over 70,000 WordPress plugins to choose from, 59,553 of which are free – so stick with us to cut through the noise and discover half-a-dozen of the top plugins proven to elevate websites, time and time again.
WooCommerce
Specially designed to help businesses build online stores, WooCommerce is the go-to plugin for the ecommerce industry. It’s easy to set up, fully customisable, and growth-ready for when your business evolves.
Like most plugins, WooCommerce is designed to help you create amazing outcomes in non-techie ways – empowering you to create cool aesthetics, streamline hefty admin tasks, manage inventories and payments with ease, and so much more.
PLUGIN IN ACTION: JOCO Cups have created a clean, minimal aesthetic that isn’t only visually appealing, but provides a seamless image scroll-through experience on the homepage.
Yoast SEO
SEO can be a headache, but deep down you know it's important for getting you that all important increased web traffic. Yoast SEO takes the pain out of that process, tweaking your content and settings so that your website ranks higher on the search engine results page.
As well as including super handy frameworks for things like meta descriptions and titles, it'll analyse your content in real-time as you write it, advising you on keyword usage and readability. Yoast is also aligned with the latest updates and Google’s algorithm shifts, so you know your site is always on trend.
PLUGIN IN ACTION: With a 4.6 TrustPilot rating, Yoast’s customers are all happy ones.
Jetpack
Jack of all trades Jetpack is the one-stop-shop plugin for all kinds of website-elevating tasks that, individually, might have taken you all day – from sophisticated security support and automatic back-ups, to traffic growth analysis and website speed enhancements.
It would take forever to delve into each aspect of what Jetpack offers, so instead we’ll simply list some of its many features – website statistics, contact forms, SEO tools, custom site search and social sharing buttons.
PLUGIN IN ACTION: More than 27 million WordPress sites use Jetpack to boost performance! Like this historic UK bookshop – read all about how the plugin helps them maximise their online performance.
Elementor
This mighty WordPress website builder powers 16 million websites worldwide – really living up to its name as the #1 website builder. Its drag and drop interface turns amateur website creators into pro developers. Well, not literally, but you wouldn’t know from some of the outcomes!
The design possibilities are almost endless with tons of themes and widgets to choose from that add extra site functions with ease – such as animations, videos, galleries and Google Maps. Its intuitive nature also gives you fully responsive layouts across all devices, guaranteeing your customers a lightweight seamless experience.
PLUGIN IN ACTION: Zensho Agency built its site on Elementor, and we love its use of big bold imagery and clean finishes, making use of simplicity for impactful messaging.
Envira Gallery
Create a swish image gallery with this super easy-to-use drag and drop plugin. Downloaded over 5 million times, everyone from small business owners to professional photographers and designers can make use of its rapid capabilities for great results.
Envira is highly optimised for web and server performance – not to mention search engines and mobile display too. It also integrates with WooCommerce so you can seamlessly monetise your gallery while showing off products!
PLUGIN IN ACTION: As a wedding photographer, imagery needs to be the star of the show on your site. Discover how this Hawaii-based business used Envira to its full potential.
Pretty Links
Pretty Links is pretty good at helping you master your affiliate marketing strategy. No, scrap that, it’s *very* good.
Self-proclaimed as the “all-in-one” link management tool, Pretty Links makes all your affiliate links short and memorable. Plus, you can create QR codes, automatically add relevant links to your blog posts with the keyword replacement tool, and manage all of your links in one place.
PLUGIN IN ACTION: For an in-depth breakdown of all its finest features, along with image-led use cases and applications, check out this glowing review.
Ready, set, build with Fasthosts
What a line up! With these plugins in your WordPress arsenal the sky’s the limit. Now all you need is a host with the most that makes sure your visitors can benefit from those amazing features.
With industry-leading page speeds, the clue is in the name of our WordPress Hosting solution. Built-in security and 24/7 support means your website is always in safe hands – and we’ll even help you tie it all together by choosing the right theme for your site.
Get in touch today.
