If your website or web application is powered by WordPress, then you have likely relied on a few plugins to make life easier for yourself, your clients, and your visitors.
WordPress has plenty of bells and whistles out of the box, but once unwrapped you might find yourself adding more features and utilities to make your website shine in order to attract more users, and you’re likely adding these features via plugins. Thankfully, WordPress has one of the richest plugin ecosystems around.
Whether you are running a simple blog, selling products from your custom eCommerce marketplace, or trying to attract users for your business, there is no problem too big or small that WordPress and its plugins can’t solve.
Let’s dive into some of the most powerful and popular WordPress plugins available to you:
Advanced Custom Fields (https://www.advancedcustomfields.com)
There is no better plugin out there in terms of extending WordPress’s already rich feature set and user interface capabilities. Advanced Custom Fields gives you greater control over WordPress content, empowering you to connect your data with intuitive drag and drop interfaces and forms. ACF puts all the power in your grasp that’s normally at the fingertips of the most advanced web developers. If you want to dig deeper, there are plenty of tutorials on YouTube that explain how to use ACF to its maximum potential.
Custom Post Type UI (https://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-post-type-ui)
Custom Post Type UI serves a very specific use case, but a very powerful one. Have you ever needed to create a section for your inventory, with each inventory item needing its own page? Similarly to how a blog post can be its own unique page within a list of blog posts, you can create a unique product list from the WordPress admin dashboard. Use this plugin in tandem with Advanced Custom Fields to create an easy-to-use dashboard for uploading custom text, images, descriptions, or a list of specific details for your product inventory listing — all without writing a single line of code!
WP REST API Controller
Now that WordPress has added the popular rest API to its core feature set, this plugin deserves its due. The WordPress REST API Controller opens up your site and user data to external services that might be important for your business. Maybe you have a web app built with React, Angular, or Vue that needs data from your WordPress site, or maybe you have created a Custom Post Type (using Custom Post Type UI, of course!) for your product inventory, but you also want to share your inventory data on another platform such as Facebook or Etsy. The WP REST API Controller opens up your site’s integration potential when used with an integration platform, such as Tray.io, or your businesses preferred ERP, like Netsuite.
The SEO Framework (https://wordpress.org/plugins/autodescription)
If you’re tired of bloated SEO plugins that slow down your site, then The SEO Framework will be a breath of fresh air. It has all the necessary tools to get discovered by search engines.
PixelYourSite (https://wordpress.org/plugins/pixelyoursite)
This is another great no-code required plugin that might seem small on the surface, but can have a huge impact on your business. If you are not familiar with conversion Pixels, you might want to take a moment to get acquainted. Conversion pixels are utilized to track and measure your visitors actions across your website, which has huge implications in terms of seeing what drives your conversions and how to better optimize your site to influence potential customers. PixelYourSite works great with both Facebook Pixels and Google Analytics, and many other platforms also.
GeotargetingWP (https://geotargetingwp.com)
It’s now more important than ever to target your customers by their unique characteristics. One of those characteristics is their location. Geotargeting is a very impactful tool to convert customers from specific locations. If you are selling used cars in Florida, how likely is it that a user from California will want to see a portion of your inventory located across the country? GeotargetingWP delivers content that is most relevant for your unique users, no matter where they live.
MemberMouse (https://membermouse.com)
Do you need your own membership platform where you can manage users and subscriptions, all while automating customer retention? Need I say anymore about MemberMouse?
WP Rocket (https://wp-rocket.me)
Search engines are becoming more and more intuitive, and they know that users don’t want to use slow, sluggish websites. Your sites page load is critical for being not simply search engine friendly, but also people friendly. WP Rocket takes care of unnecessary bottlenecks to ensure that your site will stay in orbit.
Gravity Forms (https://www.gravityforms.com)
One of the tried and tested ways to drive customer conversion is through forms. Gravity Forms is another great no-code plugin for setting up custom forms, no matter the complexity. If you need a contact form on a contact page so customers can reach out directly, then you need this plugin. If you need a call-to-action where customers can simply submit their email or phone number, then you need Gravity Forms. It’s intuitive interface has the flexibility to quickly and effectively manage your forms requirements without inducing headaches.
SuperPWA (https://superpwa.com)
It’s no secret that mobile usability is growing and with that, more and more users are turning towards their phones to find what they need. Progressive Web Apps are becoming the latest greatest tool for the modern web developer. Why are Progressive Web Apps so cool? Well, imagine you have an established website, but wished you could access it like a regular ol’ app from your iPhone or Android device. Now you can! SuperPWA “appifies” your current website, so you don’t have to break the bank creating a whole new app with compatibility across the most popular devices.
Other great plugins to note…
AppPresser - Build Mobile Apps for WordPress
Simple Image Sizes - Scale and optimize images for better performance
Google Analytics Dashboard for WP - Google Analytics in your Admin Tool
Metabox.io - Another no-code solution for devs or non-technical website managers
Elementor - Design and customize your own site. No coding required.
WordPress, the enduring solution.
It’s baked into the spirit of WordPress to ensure that you have the right tools to easily maintain your own web services, completely stress-free. This comprehensive list of plugins is put together to showcase the tools that we use at iFrog to empower our customers. These plugins will better serve your business and draw in its core audience by utilizing the most effective modern marketing methods. Ultimately, WordPress has proven to be effective as the internet’s de facto content management platform, but it can also be creatively used as a no-code website and audience management platform thanks to its rich and lasting plugin marketplace.
At iFrog, we believe in working with our clients to make them feel more like partners. Our team of experienced technology specialists help empower you to build better websites while creating product solutions to give you an edge over your competitors. Are you ready to take the leap with iFrog? Contact us today!
Comment