Some of the most important tools for you to have in your toolbox are WordPress plugins. When I first started out, I had no idea how much these things could do – if you have the right plugins, the possibilities will be endless! Plugins can be powerful, but you must keep in mind, the wrong plugin can be just as powerful and can destroy your whole site.

            I can’t stress enough how important it is to do your research on every-single-one before you install anything onto your site. I do admit that I have been fortunate in this department, and I only know of other’s horror stories. So, I have a couple tips:

1. Check the reviews / How many installs – this way you know how it worked for other business owners and how many of them have installed the plugin before.

2. Ask yourself, do I really need this plugin? – you don’t want to add too many to the site, otherwise you could overload the whole thing and then it will move super slow for your visitors.

3. Research, research, research! – There are endless articles on the internet about WP and all it’s cool additions, this is the best way for you to get the idea of what would work best for you and your own website. I have personally found Pinterest to be super helpful with this because, other business owners share their experiences on there.

I like to recommend to my clients some of my own favorite plugins, I have personally used everyone that I am about to recommend. Remember to follow my tips above, to make sure that these are the right ones for you and your website.

1. Jetpack: the core focus of this plugin is security, performance, and marketing. I prefer the plugin specifically for backup purposes, you can never be too safe! It is very important to keep up to date backups just in case something tragic happens to your website.

2. WooCommerce: this is obviously a given, I haven’t done much research on other ecommerce platforms (if there are any) but this one is primo. This is (in my opinion) the best ecommerce platform, it is versatile and extremely user friendly. The developers have continued to create extensions for this plugin, so the user can customize their shop to their satisfaction.

3. WPBruiser: I recently began to use this plugin to help fight off spam comments on my blog posts. It also sends me notification emails whenever I sign into my website, which I love, so then I know if anyone ever hacks into my website. It has excellent ratings and I find the name slightly comical, so I decided to use this instead of my previous spam blocker called Askimet.

4. WPSuper Cache: this plugin makes a copy of each page on your site in the form of a static HTML file. So, whenever someone visits your site will be served the copied version quickly instead of having to generate the whole site from scratch. In other words, this improves your website performance and makes it faster.

5. Opt-in-Monster: this is a handy dandy plugin that helps you create pop up forms for your customers/clients to subscribe to your newsletter.

6. Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a service that provides statistics and basic analytical tools for search engine optimization and marketing purposes. In simpler terms: it keeps track of your traffic and where it originated from.

7. All in one SEO: this is the original WordPress SEO plugin that helps you improve your search engine optimization. SEO is what controls how easily your website can be found on search engines like Google or Yahoo.

8. Contact Form7: I didn’t realize how awesome this plugin was until recently, it’s simple and easy to create. I can say that I don’t use contact forms very often, but one of the companies whose themes I use recommended it, and I love it.

9. Elementor: Oh man I could rave about this plugin for hours; the pro version is currently on my wish list. The free version is awesome, I just randomly clicked on it one day and now I can’t live without it. This is an easy way to drag and drop widgets into your posts or pages. Elementor has oodles of ways to customize your website, some prefer this way of web design because it’s quick, easy and no coding required.

10. Coming Soon by Seed Prod: I love having this feature attached to my website. Any time I need to make changes or updates to the site, I put up the maintenance page. This way no one can see the possible disasters that could occur during updates. Also, handy to use while you are first building your website.

I hope that these plugins give you a nice jumping off point and some more understanding what plugins are for. Once you have your sites up and running, I would love the chance to hear what YOUR favorite plugins are!