What to choose? What to choose? Here you are, you've proudly set your new WordPress environment up and running, but you're well aware that there's still a lot of installments and activation to be done for turning it from “just” another (otherwise great) looking WordPress website into a true “feature-reach power plant”. But with such an overwhelmingly rich collection of WordPress plugins out there, how do you know which ones are truly vital for your site? Allow me to share with you my list of 10 best WordPress plugins in 2017!
My own “toolbox” at hand whenever I want to “supercharge” the websites I develop with all the must-have additional functionality (since just “looking stunning” and “working properly” sure isn't enough anymore in nowadays digital landscape): increased security, quick and easy backup, streamlined SEO optimization, boosted conversion rates, easy web form building, increased page loading speed etc.
Yoast SEO: On Top of My List of 10 Best Wordpress Plugins in 2017
It's not by chance that I start my list of 10 best Wordpress plugins in 2017 with this specific WordPress plugin: it's my most reliable little “helper” whenever I want to “turbocharge” my website with efficient SEO-aimed features.
Basically, any option you could think of, aimed at optimizing the content on your website, and at rendering it optimally visible for search engines, is incorporated in this all-in-one SEO-specialized plugin!
Let me point out to you some of these options that I'm “grateful” to Yoast SEO for (since they really streamline my SEO strategies):
- it sync your tags on all your data analytics platforms (Twitter Analytics, Facebook, Google Analytics etc.)
- it “warns” you if you haven't properly aligned and included your keywords across the content on your site
- it enables you to add your meta tags
- it streamlines your SEO efforts with a built-in page analysis, thus helping you track down the common errors: you can easily edit your body text, modify the length of your title, if necessary, and pretty much apply all the optimization measures pointed out to you in the analysis.
- it enables you to import/export plugin settings
- it comes with an XML sitemap generator, too, which automatically submits the generated sitemap to the search engines, making your website far more “inviting” and easier for them to read its whole URLs structure.
Cool options for easily optimizing your content + XML sitemap generator for boosting your search engines ranking= the best SEO plugin you could “equip” your website with!
OptinMonster
You don't need to be some sort of visionary to realize that: few subscribers lead to a low conversion rate! Your online business' success is in your email list!
So, how do you entice your website visitors to subscribe (and subsequently to convert)? You upgrade it it with some attention-grabbing, efficient opt-in web forms!
And here is where OptinMonster comes in: your handy conversion rates optimization tool!
It will “overwhelm” you with a wide array of templates to choose from and fine tune your opt-in form to your liking: just use the drag-and-drop builder. And, moreover, it boosts your efforts with its extra “juicy” features, too: analytics, A/B testing etc.
Now, allow me to share with you some of this plugin's highlights, the ones that have convinced me to add it to my list of 10 best WordPress plugins in 2017:
- you'll have a whole collection of opt-in forms at your disposal to pick from (ranging from full-page pop-ups, to sidebar pop-ups and the list can go on)
- you'll get to personalize your forms to your liking, relying on its easy to use drag-and-drop feature and on its tones of templates to scan through
- you'll get to do A/B testing and page-level testing, as well
- you'll get to examine the relevant data reports that the plugin will deliver you
- you'll get to strengthen your conversion-boosting strategy with its exit intent technology: any visitor intending to leave your website will get a pop-up “enticing” him to subscribe/convert
WP Super Cache
I'm well aware that low speed risks to drag all my web development down the drain.
Therefore, I always carry out my developer tasks, whenever I develop a new website, after I've defined “top speed” as one of my priorities.
For reaching my top speed goal I rely on WP Super Cache! It's WordPress's plugin aimed at supercharging your website with high speed: a content management system designed to help your site to properly handle “floods” of traffic without slowing down its loading speed.
Another reason why I added it to my list of 10 best Wordpress plugins, is that it's so, so quick and easy to install and to activate. All you need is to do is install it, activate it, check some check-boxes and you'll be empowering your site to manage high traffic without the risk of lowering its speed.
And, implicitly, without the risk of “harming” the user experience on your website and of “affecting” its good “reputation” granted by the search engines, as well!
Form Maker
Here's a web forms builder that I love! So, no wonder that I've included it in my list of 10 best Wordpress plugins in 2017!
Not only that it doesn't hinder my creativity, for it allows me to craft the web form designs that I find suitable for my website's particular goals, but it also comes to boost my efforts to get to know my audience better, with all the statistical data I need.
Let me detail a bit some of its options:
- it allows you to put together the web form designs that you want choosing from its no less than 41 themes
- it enables you to select from a wide variety of form fields ranging from text input to number, custom select, checkboxes (for multiple-choice questions) etc.
Whether it's a survey, a contact form, a registration form or any other type of form that I need to put together for my website, this is the plugin that I love to work with!
Also, as I've already mentioned, besides the fact that you're free to mix and match all your future web form's features to your liking, to customize it as you want, Form Maker “spoils” you with its statistical data-generating feature, as well.
And such answers-based data is “gold” in terms of getting to know the audience on your website!
Google Analytics WD
Big data-driven business decision making will greatly impact the whole digital landscape in 2017. But this is no news for any of you, after all, right?
So, when you say “website” and you say “data”, you automatically think: “Google Analytics”!
Now, what WordPress does it that it streamlines all your Google Analytics data monitoring efforts. It “lures” you with its Google Analytics WD, a plugin enabling you to monitor and to examine your reports right there, on your WP dashboard. A strong reason for adding this plugin to your own list of 10 best Wordpress plugins!
No more time “wasted” on switching between screens! Boosted efficiency for keeping a close eye on and for interpreting your valuable data in a timely manner.
And here are this plugin's features which have “won me over”:
- you'll get to monitor your users' behaviors in real-time
- you'll get not just pertinent visitors-related stats to examine and interpret, but relevant charts on all the authors and logged in users involved in the whole content management/editing process on your website
- you'll get to monitor each category, each web page, each blog pots's performance
Data is power, but “super accessible” data is superpower! And that's what this WordPress plugin does: it make the whole GA generated-data even more accessible.
Moreover, another feature that I love about this plugin is its “goal management”: you get to monitor your targeted tasks and get informed as soon as they've been completed!
BackupBuddy
Since I'm well aware that all my web developments efforts are as “fragile” as a card castle if the website that I work on doesn't have a solid data backup “safety net” activated, I always install WordPress's Backup Buddy first and foremost.
No more sleepless night for me, with “nightmares” of crucial business or customer data breaches.
Now here is how BackupBuddy has put away my “hacker-phobia”:
- it allows me to schedule my own backups
- it enables me to restore my saved WordPress website nice and easily, turning the whole process into a matter of just a few clicks
- it enables me to store my backup wherever I want to: in my Dropbox, to send it to my own email, on Amazon S3, FTP, Stash, you name it
- it streamlines all my website duplication and migration workflows
- it's not a monthly subscription-based plugin
Sucuri
Now that I've revealed to you my favorite WordPress backup solution, aren't you curious to find out which plugin I favor for boosting my websites with an impenetrable protection “shield”, too?
Sucuri's won my trust due to various reasons. Let me highlight to you just a few:
- it monitors blacklists for me
- it monitors my websites file's integrity, too
- it runs malware scanning
- it performs file audits on my site
In a nutshell: it proactively secures my website against all malware threats, XSS attacks, Ddos and other type of cyber-attacks. Enough reasons for me to predict that this plugin, too, will make it on your own list of 10 best WordPress plugins this year.
Google XML Sitemaps, One of the 10 Best WordPress Plugins This Year
Indexing the websites that I develop is the very first step to optimization! I'm well aware that all the in-page content optimization that I might do could be equal to zero if I don't get them indexed first.
So, how do I streamline website indexing with WordPress? I rely on its Google XML Sitemaps plugin!
It will generate the XML sitemap which will make it easier for googlebots to “crawl” into my site, to easily read and index its whole URLs-made structure.
Moreover, the plugin will also inform the search engines whenever I do some changes to my website: for instance, when I add a new web page. So they get the updated information regarding the web pages on my website in real-time!
Getting my (or my clients') websites into the search engines' spotlights has never easier!
All in One Schema.org Rich Snippets
Since rich snippets are no longer “exceptions”, but a necessity, adding the schema.org markup to the content on my websites is a must.
But it should also be an easy to carry out task, too!
And here is where Wordress comes in to save the day, once again!
Its All in One Schema.org Rich Snippets plugin allows me to add the Schema.org markup to my content in no time, not to mention that it “spoils” me with an user friendly interface, too! It's for sure: this will be one of the most popular, one of the very best WordPress plugins this year!
It instantly generates the SEO-boosting markup (more precisely the needed code for populating my snippets) and I get to choose from a whole variety of rich snippets.
Clearly describing the content on my web pages for search engines is a streamlined process with this WordPress plugin at no. 9 in my personal top!
Soliloquy
Soliloquy's been my “can't live without” slider plugin for a while now!
It enables me to easily create visually-arresting, responsive sliders for presenting my products, my promotional material, my overall content in such a visually-appealing, engaging way.
How do I do that? Easily! By simply dragging and dropping the images, the video content or text that I want to “seduce” my audience with, in the sliders that the plugin provides me with.
I get to dig through an entire collection of templates, I get to pull images directly from my social media accounts and to drop them into my slides. And it's mobile responsive, too! Another reason for it to appear on my top 10 best WordPress plugins in 2017!
What else, excepting creativity, could you possibly need?
Your turn now!
What does your own list of 10 best WordPress plugins in 2017 include? Does it resemble mine to some extend or not at all! I'm very curious to find out what other WordPress plugins you couldn't imagine your whole workflow without now!