WordPress Plugins
If your business’ website is built with WordPress, there are a certain amount of plugins that are necessary to ensure the best operation possible. WordPress plugins number into the thousands, so it can be a bit intimidating to start picking and choosing which ones you need the most. From security features to sharing features and, of course, search engine optimization (SEO), you’ll want to make sure you have the best plugins for your website.
Here’s a primer on five WordPress plugins you should be using on your website:
For SEO, you should be using Yoast
Yoast is a great WordPress plugin for increasing SEO on your website. The Yoast plugin will take a simple page analysis of your website and let you know how your content is looking. Have you included images or a Meta description? Is your post long enough and does it include important keywords? Yoast answers these important questions.
This plugin will also create an advanced XML sitemap and notify search engines of the sitemap. The “snippet preview” is also a great Yoast feature, showing you how your pages will appear in a Google search.
For great caching, try W3 Total Cache
Optimize your website’s performance using caching and try the WordPress plugin W3 Total Cache. This plugin helps you improve your user performance and increase overall page speed. By using the W3 Total Cache plugin on your website, you’ll get benefits like:
- Improvement in-site performance (up to 10 times overall)
- Allow your site to sustain higher website traffic volume
- Reduce the time it takes to load pages
- Render pages quickly
- Improvement of conversion rates (raising your Google rankings)
The W3 Total Cache plugin helps you improve the overall user experience on your website while preventing you from having to change your theme or your content production.
For Image Compression, check out Ewww Image Optimizer
If your business’ website is full of great images, you’ll need to compress those files to allow for faster loading of your pages. A WordPress plugin like Ewww Image Optimizer is great for this.
Ewww Image Optimizer will automatically optimize images as you add them to your blog or website, and can even compress files you have uploaded in the past. Smaller images mean faster page loading speeds, quicker back-ups, and less bandwidth usage.
To increase Security, you should be using Sucuri
Security is always the most important plugin for your business’ website. Try a website plugin like Sucuri for Auditing, Malware Scanning and Security Hardening.
With Sucuri, you can monitor and audit activity on your website, scan for malware, and harden your security. In the case of a website hack, Sucuri offers post-hack security actions to walk you through the reparation process.
The plugin also provides notifications that alert you when any security issues occur on your website.
For Social Media sharing, try the plugin Shareaholic
“Sharing is caring,” so share all you can from your website to various social media platforms with a WordPress plugin like Shareaholic.
Install social buttons across your website to increase your followers, add share buttons to your business’ website so visitors can share your content with their friends, and check out your own social analytics to monitor your most popular pages and posts.
This WordPress plugin is totally customizable and optimized for mobile viewing. Social media helps your SEO as well, so the more your content is viewed and shared, the better.
V Digital Services
At V Digital Services, we are vastly experienced in the use of WordPress plugins. In fact, our excellent web development team builds brand new business websites with them every day. If you have any questions about how WordPress plugins can improve the performance of your business’ website, please contact V Digital Services today.