7 Best WordPress Plugins for Website Performance
WordPress is one of the most popular platforms for small business websites today. The platform offers a solid foundation with the ability to customize your web design pretty efficiently. If we really break it down, it is that customization ability that makes wordpress such a dominating platform. Add in the WordPress repository of plugins and you have the ability to build almost anything. Oh the possibilities…
Businesses have diverse and complex needs and WordPress packaged with the right plugins can do most of it. However, you’ll find the vastness can also be a challenge when it comes to making a choice. In the end, read the reviews and do your research and you’ll find what you need. Or, shameless plug here, give us a shout and we’re happy to help you sort it all out.
On to the reason you are reading this. While this is in no way an exhaustive list of incredible plugins available for your website, this is a concise list of 7 top rated, highest performing plugins that the WordPress community as a while has much love for.
Yoast SEO
For SEO, Yoast is a great plugin to have, even if you’re already working with a professional WordPress developer. Yoast makes it easy to analyze the various pages of your website and leverage important SEO tools. When it comes to WordPress SEO you’ll find Yoast at the forefront. They’re reliable developers, they support their products and customers and they live SEO.
Contact Form 7
Most business websites have a need for a user friendly contact form. Contact forms are an important element in the lead generation process. but the wrong structure or format can become a quick turn-off for the person who was on the verge of taking a major step on the customer journey with your brand.
Contact Form 7 is a WordPress plugin that not only helps you create and manage contact forms on your website but also helps to reduce spam submissions and eliminates a ton of complicated coding. It’s no surprise that this is one of the highest rated plugins among WordPress users.
Google XML Sitemaps
To get maximum performance from your website, you need to do everything possible to make it easy for search engines like Google to get in there, crawl around and dig up all the information they need to easily rank your website and place it in front of the most relevant audience. The Google XML Sitemaps plugin makes this process incredibly easy.
As soon as you install the plugin, a sitemap is instantly created. This makes it easier for search engines to more effectively crawl your site and it provides a nice boost to your SEO strategy. Yoast SEO creates XML sitemaps for you as well, if you are using Yoast you will not need this.
Broken Link Checker
There is a lot that happens behind the scenes of a website to keep it running smoothly. When you’re working with a professional WordPress developer, the responsibility to constantly monitor your site’s performance is on their shoulders. However, if you have a more hands on approach, a plugin like Broken Link Checker is a must.
Broken links occur frequently, and they seem to happen out of nowhere. If left unchecked, they can quickly become an issue for your website’s visibility and usability. More importantly, search engines will not look kindly on you as an authority result. The Broken Link Checker plugin constantly scans your site and sends a notification if a broken link is found – giving you the chance to fix it before it can negatively affect your SEO.
Smush Image Compression and Optimization
Your digital audience is highly visual, and you want to make a significant impact by featuring lots of high quality, engaging visual elements on your WordPress site. The current trends in web design focus on hero images and other graphical elements that capture the instant attention website visitors.
The only problem is that image heavy web pages can cause sluggish performance and take forever to load. Since speed is important to both search engines and your website visitors, any tool that helps you optimize images to not affect performance is essential. The Smush Image Compression and Optimization plugin does just that by automatically optimizing all the images on your website.
WooCommerce
If your WordPress website serves as an e-commerce site for your business, then you’ll want to install WooCommerce. WooCommerce is a plugin that is behind at least a third of all e-commerce stores. Building a successful e-commerce presence requires a lot of work and WooCommerce streamlines the entire process for you. From making it easy to sell your goods and services to offering membership and subscription programs, WooCommerce is worth a look.
MailChimp
Email campaigns are growth drivers for businesses of all sizes. Unfortunately, smaller businesses are often hesitant to dip their toes in because the process of managing a campaign is something that they just don’t have the resources to cover. If this sounds like you, then the MailChimp plugin could be your business’s new best friend.
MailChimp offers a range of email services but one of the reasons they make it onto this list is because of the extensive benefits that are offered with their free plan. If you’re looking to enter the world of email marketing, add this to your list of must have plugins.
Work with a WordPress Expert
2019 is going to be a great year for your business, especially if you have a WordPress site that is optimized for success. If you’d like to know more about maximizing your WordPress website we’re here to help. Schedule a consultation and learn how your business can grow in the coming year.
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