When talking about mobile solutions for WordPress, WP Touch is the first that comes to mind. This very popular plugin has been downloaded over six million times and replaces your site with a user.
What Are the Most Popular WordPress Plugins?
WordPress plugins are a great way to increase the functionality of your website and easily add additional features.
There are thousands of different plugins for you to choose from. In fact, the WordPress plugin repository has over 45,000 different plugins available. So, how do you know which ones you need?
Luckily, a lot of those plugins perform the same functionality, so that will help narrow down your search. And some of those plugins are low quality, so it’s not recommended to install them on your site.
Below you’ll find a list of the most popular WordPress plugins that you’ll want to consider installing on your WordPress site.
1. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is a must-have WordPress plugin. If you’re looking for ways to improve your onsite SEO, then this plugin will help you do just that. It not only makes it easy for you to optimize your content for your target keywords but will educate you about SEO throughout the process.
2. Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is one of the most popular contact form plugins out there. This plugin will help you create simple contact forms very quickly. Even with little technical know-how or experience you can create an attractive contact form and embed it anywhere on your site.
3. Akismet
Akismet is typically installed with every new WordPress installation. All you have to do is activate it, and your site will be protected against comment spam. It’s quite a useful plugin, especially if you’ve had a problem with spam comments in the past.
4. W3 Total Cache
If you’re looking to improve the speed of your website, then caching will help you do just that. W3 Total Cache is one of the most popular caching plugins available. Activating this plugin will help to reduce the amount of time it takes your site to load, and improve overall performance.
5. Smush Image Compression
If you want to grab your visitor’s attention, then you’re going to need to use compelling imagery. However, a lot of high-quality images can be quite large, which results in a slower loading site. To reduce the size of your images without sacrificing quality, then you’ll want to use a plugin like Smush Image Compression. This popular plugin also has paid upgrades to extend its functionality even further.
6. Google XML Sitemaps
Creating a sitemap will help the search engines better navigate through your website and understand its structure. Google XML Sitemaps will help to index your site with the search engines. All you have to do is activate the plugin and a sitemap will be automatically generated.
7. WordFence
If you’re concerned about the security of your WordPress site, then you’ll want WordFence in your arsenal. WordFence is one of the most popular security plugins and it includes features like malware scans, login protection, firewall protection, and much more. This all-in-one security plugin is worth checking out.
8. NextGen Gallery
NextGen Gallery is one of the most popular WordPress gallery plugins. This plugin is a very flexible gallery plugin for people looking to add multiple different images to their sites. It also includes a paid upgrade for those looking for even more gallery options.
9. Jetpack
Jetpack was developed by the team behind WordPress, Automattic. Instead of being a single plugin it offers a wide range of different extensions, including site security, social sharing, improving site performance, optimizing your images, and a lot more.
10. Slider Revolution
Slider Revolution is a very versatile slider plugin. You can create simple slideshows, entire media galleries, and even newsletter sign up pages. With this plugin, you’ll have control over the final layout of each slide.
11. Redirection
Redirection is one of the most popular link redirection plugins. With this plugin, you’ll be able to change the permalinks of certain pages or posts, and easily redirect your users to the current version of the page. This plugin is also useful when you’re migrating pages or posts from an older site.
12. Page Builder by SiteOrigin
Sometimes you want to give your pages and posts a completely custom design. This is where you can use a plugin like Page Builder by SiteOrigin. This plugin is very easy to use and will let you create custom designs from within your WordPress page editor.
13. MailChimp for WordPress
This plugin will let you easily sync your WordPress site with your MailChimp list. You can also create opt-in forms to add to your site to encourage readers to join your list.
14. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is one of the most popular plugins for adding eCommerce functionality to your WordPress site. This plugin will work with most themes, however, keep in mind that some themes are better suited for WooCommerce functionality than others. Currently, this plugin powers 30% of online stores.
15. Limit Login Attempts
Your WordPress backend is one of the most vulnerable points of access across your website. Limit Login Attempts does exactly what the name suggests. It will lock out users who have input a certain number of failed login attempts.
Hopefully, the list above will help to simplify your plugin selection. Remember, you don’t need to install every single plugin on the list above, but instead that plugins that have features your site requires.
Are there any plugins we failed to mention on the list above? Please share your favorites in the comments below.
Kevin Wood writes about technology and human potential. You can find him at his virtual homes Wooden Writing and Counter Culturist.
Related
We are proud to announce the arrival of our newest theme, Journal Pro, which is a WordPress journal theme designed to give the user simple yet customizable options to make it your own digital book of entries.
Read on to find out about the various new features and customizable theme options that you have as a user.
Elegant by Default
The Journal theme is elegant and is designed to bring attention to text content. The titled area and the way the blocks are placed creates a clear divide among pieces of content and also allows for large background pictures to take center stage if necessary.
Like a Tumblr blog but far more deep and detailed, the space for background images allows for a simple interface but plenty of personality, no matter which site is using our theme.
Theme Customizer
Changing colors of text and content areas is as simple as visiting the Appearance > Customize section of WordPress with Journal Pro. Simply navigate to the “Colors” tab on the left and adjust colors to match the exact look of your website.
Again, you can adjust colors of text and also the major navigation sections of the theme. It is very powerful and featured immediately with purchase of Journal Pro for WordPress.
Beautiful WordPress Galleries
Our theme works with the Envira Gallery plugins to create a beautiful image gallery that looks impressive and has some style.
Rather than just using rote blocks (like WordPress core galleries), the gallery plugin allows the user to display photos in a lively fashion. Photos can move around and are display in a way that gathers them creatively and uniquely.
With the gallery plugin, it is easy to show a bunch of photos as a photographer and bring simple attention as a photojournalist.
Content Layouts
You may have noticed that all of the images on this page place the sidebar on the left of the page with content on the right.
Fear not!
With the content layouts in our Theme Options panel, a user can shift the website, so that the sidebar is on the right versus the left and content shifts over accordingly.
And this options is just one button click away from working.
Easy Fixed Sidebar using WordPress
Our theme options panel in Journal Pro allows the user to make the sidebar fixed or not fixed, depending on the needs of the website.
If you have a smaller sidebar with a few items, it is easy to keep them on the page at all times. This way, you always have access to the contact information you want as content scrolls on the right (or left!!).
If your website has a long sidebar with lots of content, it might be better to simply leave the Fixed Sidebar on “NO” so that a viewer does not lose visibility to certain elements of the sidebar.
Explore the rest of our fun theme options panel too, we have tons of fun surprises in store!
Works with image and slider widgets
Along with the aforementioned Envira Image Gallery and also with the popular Soliloquy slider plugin, Journal Pro is made to display pretty images. A slider placed into the text will smartly respond to mobile devices.
Images simply look great on Journal Pro, from sliders, to galleries, to giant background images.
Header call to action widgets
There is also support for a cool call to action in the header if you do want to get someone to check out a specific page or subscribe to your feed or subscribe to an email list!
This displays right underneath the title on the website for maximum exposure!
Responsive theme design
We have even customized the theme to be optimized for smart phones and tablets. The look of the menu navigation will change at this point to provide a better touch screen application. It also keeps the attention on the content so that people are ultimately still reading content versus swimming through options and filler.
Design Inspiration of Journal Pro
The inspiration for the design of this theme came from the idea of simple elegance. Everything from the font type to the default colors to the way content is laid out had one word in mind. Simple.
The idea is to put the focus on the content of the site, not the business of menus or the attention of advertising. While you can add plenty of ads to the sidebar and customize it through code, the theme is really made to bring to light a few pertinent items.
If I am an author, here is my bio and here is my work. See? Simple.
We are not sacrificing quality here, we are simply making it easy to find the important stuff that matters in a journal. Your thoughts.
Want to try our theme?
Click here to view the page for Journal Pro and take a demo of the website, before you buy it.
Have any questions about functionality? Leave a comment below or contact us on the site to inquire about the newest theme in our line of clean, beautiful themes.
This entry was posted in Blog, Design, Development, WordPress