WordPress plugins are used to add additional functionality to WordPress websites. This can include things like contact forms, social media sharing buttons, and even e-commerce capabilities. Plugins are written in the PHP programming language and are installed on WordPress websites to extend the functionality of the site beyond what is available in the core WordPress software. There are thousands of plugins available, both free and paid, that can be used to add almost any type of functionality to a WordPress website. Here are some of our favourites…
SEO Plugins
Bing Webmaster Tools – easily connect to Bing Webmaster Tools to notify Bing of your website content and get it indexed to show in Bing search results.
Sitekit by Google – Site Kit is the official WordPress plugin from Google for insights about how people find and use your site. Site Kit is the one-stop solution to deploy, manage, and get insights from critical Google tools to make the site successful on the web. It provides authoritative, up-to-date insights from multiple Google products directly on the WordPress dashboard for easy access, all for free.
Slim SEO – There are many plugins available to enhance your website SEO ranking. Slim SEO is one that requires very little management. Others include SEOPress and the original Yoast SEO
Microsoft IndexNow Protocol – this is a tool created by Microsoft to easily notify search engines of new and updated content.
Email and Newsletter Plugins
Post SMTP Email Sender – Post SMTP is a next-generation WP Mail SMTP plugin that assists and improves the email deliverability process of your WordPress website..
Post SMTP Notifications – This chrome extension will show notifications when emails fail on your WordPress site. This is key to detect email issues on your contact forms etc.
ActiveCampaign – create contact forms on your website that automatically create new contacts within ActiveCampaign and kick off automation routines when the user completes the form. We love ActiveCampaign to use as a CRM and email marketing automation tool.
Pipedrive – similar to ActiveCampaign, Pipedrive is a CRM and marketing automation tool. This plugin creates forms on the website that integrate with Pipedrive.
Contact 7 – simple contact forms that send an email when filled out.
Accessibility
AODA Compliance – AODA is a set of guidelines to ensure websites are following best practices for accessibility.
Equalize Digital’s Accessibility Checker – Equalize Digital, a WordPress accessibility products and services company, has added a new frontend highlighting feature to its free accessibility checker plugin, which is used to perform audits on self-hosted sites. The feature was funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), through Equalize Digital’s consulting work on the new NASA websites.
Contact 7 AODA Compliance – a plugin to further enhance Contact 7 forms to be compliant with accessibility regulations.
Flamingo – a Contact 7 form database that adds the user information to a database as a redundency to the Contact 7 emails.
Honeypot – Contact 7 form anti spam tool that adds a hidden field to contact forms to foil the spam-bots.
Easy Theme and Plugin Upgrades – To manually update a plugin that’s already installed
Formidable Forms and Formidable Forms Pro – looking to create custom mortgage calculators? This is your tool! Formidable Forms also allows you to create any number of forms, from a simple contact form to complex calculations.
WordPress Admin Tools
Docket WP – manage to-do checklists for maintaining websites
Sticky Update Button – always scrolling up to find the update button? This plugin moves it conveniently where you’re at!
Safe SVG – use vector logos and images on your website safely
Wordfence – a website monitoring system that checks and sends alerts to website admins for user logins, and potential software vulnerabilities.
Website under maintenance – a plugin that takes the website offline and replaces it with an ‘under maintenance’ page. Mainly used for staging sites that are not meant to be found live on the internet yet.
Add From Server – used when a lot of images or pdf documents are required to be added in bulk to a website.
All-in-One WP Migration – if you’re looking to move a website to a different domain, or just complete a backup ‘just in case’, this plug in was made for you. The free version is all you need unless you want to backup a really large site, or store it on the cloud.
Better Search Replace – for replacing a temp url in your database with the real live domain url or any other database changes. Use with caution!
Website Speed Performance Optimization
A WordPress cache plugin helps to improve the performance of a WordPress website by storing a static version of the page and serving it to users instead of dynamically generating the page each time it is requested. Cache plugins can be configured to store different types of content, such as pages, posts, and custom post types, and can be configured to clear the cache at specific intervals or when certain events occur, such as when a post is published or updated.
EWWW Image Optimizer – crunch those large images with this plug in.
Breeze Cache- proprietary and included with all Cloudways hosting
Nitropack – everything you need to speed up your website
Sentry – PHP and JavaScript error reporting
Imsanity – stops insanely huge image uploads.
Themes, Page Builders and Editing Tools
GeneratePress – the best WordPress theme out there, bar none!
GenerateBlocks and GenerateBlocks Pro – when you combine Generate Press theme with Generate Blocks builder, you have a powerful combination that will give you a broad range of design styles at your fingertips.
Media File Sizes – Displays file sizes next to media items in library. (For image files, also displays total size of all generated sizes.)
Shortcode Finder – Widgets: search, archives, categories, pages, posts. Shortcodes: archives, bloginfo, categories, posts.
Yoast Duplicate Posts – if you have imported some posts from other sites and then realize you have duplicates, this plugin will save you.
Shortcodes Ultimate – a collection of visual components
Advanced Scripts – GeneratePress theme uses hooks for PHP but if you need more advanced customization such as SASS and LESS code, try the Advanced Scripts for WordPress plugin
Google Map Integration
Interactive GeoMap – This is a different take on Google maps that allows you to use custom designed maps on your website.
Maps SVG – Map plugin for vector, image and Google maps.