WordPress is a powerful and adaptable platform for building and customizing websites. Its vast ecosystem of plugins extends its functionality, allowing developers to add features, integrate services, optimize performance, and simplify development. The right plugins save time and enhance user experiences, ensuring projects are scalable and up-to-date with maturing technologies and trends.
Finding the right WordPress plugins can be tricky. In this article, I will list some of the best plugins I personally use for my clients. Whether you’re a pro website developer or just starting, these plugins will surely help you.
Elementor
Elementor is a revolutionary page builder plugin that has transformed the way developers approach website design and development. With its simple drag-and-drop interface and extensive library of customizable widgets, Elementor empowers developers to create visually stunning and highly interactive websites without the need for extensive coding. I was once a fan of WP Bakery page builder until I discovered this free plugin!
Key Features:
- Visual Editor: Elementor’s visual editor allows developers to see real-time changes as they design, enabling a seamless and efficient workflow.
- Responsive Design: Elementor ensures that websites are optimized for various devices and according to the size of the screen, providing an even and engaging experience across all platforms. This is one of the best features I like in this plugin. It reduces the chances of writing css our own. Elementor has its own tool to check responsiveness and we can style it easily for each device group.
- Theme Builder: The Theme Builder feature enables developers to customize every aspect of a WordPress theme, from headers and footers to 1 post templates and archive pages.
- Dynamic Content: Elementor supports dynamic content, allowing developers to seamlessly integrate WordPress data and create dynamic, data-driven websites.
Woocommerce
WooCommerce is an indispensable plugin for developers seeking to transform WordPress into a robust and feature-rich e-commerce platform. With its extensive unique customization options and seamless integration with WordPress, WooCommerce empowers developers to create online stores that cater to diverse business needs. I haven’t used any other eCommerce plugin for WordPress yet!
Key Features:
- Product Management: WooCommerce provides a comprehensive suite of tools for managing products, including inventory tracking, product variations, and digital downloads.
- Payment Gateways: Developers can easily integrate various payment gateways, such as PayPal, Stripe, and credit card processors, ensuring a secure and convenient checkout experience.
- Shipping and Tax Calculations: WooCommerce automatically calculates shipping rates and taxes based on customer locations, simplifying the order fulfillment process.
- Extensions and Add-ons: Woocommerce’s extensive ecosystem of extensions and add-ons allows developers to enhance the functionality of our online stores, from advanced reporting to subscription-based models. There are tons of Woocommerce addons we can find on WordPress plugin directory for free of cost.
WP Mail SMTP
Effective email communication is crucial for any website or application, and WP Mail SMTP is a must-have plugin for developers seeking to ensure reliable email delivery. This plugin resolves common issues with WordPress’ built-in email functionality and provides a robust solution for sending emails from WordPress.
Key Features:
- SMTP Configuration: WP Mail SMTP allows developers to easily configure SMTP settings, ensuring that emails are sent through reliable and secure channels.
- Email Logging (Pro): The plugin provides detailed email logs, enabling developers to troubleshoot and monitor email delivery issues.
- Email Testing: Developers can test email functionality directly from the WordPress admin area, streamlining the debugging process.
- Multisite Support: WP Mail SMTP offers full support for WordPress Multisite installations, ensuring consistent email delivery across multiple sites.
All-in-One WP Migration and Backup
All-in-One WP Migration and Backup is an essential tool for developers working on WordPress projects. This plugin simplifies the process of migrating or backing up WordPress sites, ensuring that data and configurations are securely transferred or preserved.
Key Features:
- Site Migration: Developers can easily migrate WordPress sites between different hosting environments or domains, minimizing downtime and ensuring a smooth transition.
- Backup and Restore: The plugin allows for complete backups of WordPress sites, including databases, media files, and plugins, providing a reliable disaster recovery solution.
- Scheduled Backups: Developers can schedule automatic backups, ensuring that critical data is regularly backed up.
- Multisite Support: All-in-One WP Migration and Backup offers full support for WordPress Multisite installations, enabling efficient management of multiple sites.
Contact Form 7
Effective communication is paramount for any website or application, and Contact Form 7 is a powerful plugin that simplifies the process of creating and managing contact forms. It has extensive customization options and spam protection features.
Key Features:
- Form Builder: Contact Form 7 provides an intuitive form builder, allowing developers to create custom forms with various field types, including text inputs, dropdowns, and file uploads.
- Spam Protection: The plugin integrates with popular spam protection services, such as Akismet and reCAPTCHA, ensuring that contact forms are protected against spam and abuse.
- Customizable Templates: Developers can customize the appearance of contact forms using HTML and CSS, ensuring a consistent brand experience across the website.
- Multisite Support: Contact Form 7 offers full support for WordPress Multisite installations, enabling centralized management of contact forms across multiple sites.
Yoast SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a critical aspect of website development, and Yoast SEO is a comprehensive plugin that empowers developers to optimize their WordPress sites for better search engine visibility and higher rankings.
Key Features:
- On-Page Optimization: Yoast SEO provides guidance and tools for optimizing page titles, meta descriptions, and content structure, ensuring that websites are search engine friendly.
- XML Sitemaps: The plugin automatically generates and updates XML sitemaps. We can also choose which items to include and not to include in Sitemap.
- Breadcrumb Navigation: Yoast SEO simplifies the implementation of breadcrumb navigation, improving the user experience and enhancing the website’s structure.
- Social Media Integration: Developers can optimize their website’s social media presence by customizing Open Graph metadata and Twitter Cards.
Add Custom Codes by Mak
Add Custom Codes by Mak is a lightweight plugin that allows developers to easily add custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript codes to their WordPress sites. This plugin streamlines the process of customizing and enhancing website functionality without modifying core files, ensuring a more efficient and maintainable development workflow.
Key Features:
- Free Lightweight Plugin: WordPress plugin at no cost, with no paid upgrades. Designed to be lightweight, won’t bog down your website’s performance.
- Code Placement: Developers can choose where to insert their custom codes, including headers, footers, specific posts or pages, and more. We can add HTML codes, javascript, CSS, and other meta verification codes easily through this plugin.
- Code Organization: Add Custom Codes by Mak allows developers to organize their custom codes into separate sections, making it easier to manage and maintain complex customizations.
- No Configuration Required: In Custom Codes by Mak, with a simple interface and syntax highlighter, it’s easy to use without the need for extensive setup.
Redirection
Redirection is an essential plugin for developers working on WordPress projects for managing and implementing redirects. Whether it’s handling URL changes or migrating content to a new URL, the Redirection plugin offers an easy solution.
Key Features:
- URL Redirection: Developers can easily create and manage URL redirects.
- Redirect Monitoring: The plugin provides detailed logs and statistics for redirects, enabling developers to monitor and analyze redirect performance.
- Redirect Types: Redirection supports various redirect types, including 301 (permanent) and 302 (temporary) redirects, allowing developers to handle different scenarios effectively.
- Import/Export: Developers can import and export redirect rules, streamlining the process of migrating or sharing redirects between different WordPress installations.
ElementsKit Lite
ElementsKit Lite is a powerful and versatile plugin that enhances the abilities of the popular Elementor page builder. With its extensive collection of widgets and add-ons, ElementsKit Lite empowers developers to build visually stunning and positively functional websites with ease.
Key Features:
- Custom Widgets: ElementsKit Lite offers a wide range of custom widgets, including advanced sliders, image galleries, pricing tables, and more, enabling developers to create engaging and interactive website elements.
- Header and Footer Builders: The plugin includes dedicated header and footer builders, allowing developers to customize and design these critical website elements without the need for additional plugins.
- Integrations: It integrates with popular third-party services and platforms, such as WooCommerce, MailChimp, and Google Maps, enabling developers to extend their website’s functionality.
- Performance Optimization: The plugin is designed with performance in mind, ensuring that websites built with ElementsKit Lite load quickly and efficiently.
We’re Open
Providing accurate and up-to-date business information is top for keeping customer trust and engagement. We’re Open is a user-friendly plugin that allows developers to easily display business hours, special hours, and holiday schedules on their WordPress websites.
Key Features:
- Business Hours Display: Developers can create and display business hours for multiple locations, ensuring that customers have access to accurate and relevant information.
- Special Hours Management: The plugin enables developers to set special hours for holidays, events, or other occasions, providing a seamless and informative experience for website visitors.
- Customizable Styling: We’re Open offers customizable styling options, allowing developers to integrate business hours seamlessly into their website’s design and branding.
- Shortcode and Widget Support: The plugin supports both shortcodes and widgets, providing flexibility in how business hours are displayed across different areas of the website. The shortcode is extensively customizable using conditions.
Slider Revolution
Slider Revolution is a premium and highly versatile slider plugin to create captivating and visually stunning sliders for WordPress websites. With its extensive features and customization options, Slider Revolution offers a powerful tool for enhancing user engagement and showcasing content in an interactive way.
Key Features:
- Responsive Design: Slider Revolution ensures that sliders are optimized for various devices and sizes of screens, delivering a consistent and engaging experience across all platforms.
- Animation Effects: This WordPress plugin offers a vast library of animation effects, enabling developers to create visually stunning and attention-grabbing sliders.
- Video and Media Integration: SR helps developers seamlessly integrate videos, images, and other media types into their sliders, creating rich and interactive experiences.
- Layer Management: Slider Revolution provides advanced layer management capabilities, allowing developers to precisely control and position various elements within their sliders.
Advanced Custom Fields
Advanced Custom Fields is a powerful and flexible plugin that allows WordPress developers to create custom fields and metadata for post types or taxonomies.
Key Features:
- Custom Field Types: ACF offers a wide range of field types, including text, number, date, image, and more, enabling developers to capture and store various types of data seamlessly.
- Flexible Field Groups: Developers can organize custom fields into logical groups, making it easier to manage and maintain complex data structures.
- Conditional Logic: The plugin supports conditional logic, allowing developers to display or hide specific fields based on user input or predefined conditions, creating dynamic and tailored user experiences.
- Integration with Third-Party Plugins: ACF seamlessly integrates with other popular WordPress plugins, ensuring compatibility and extending the functionality of custom fields across different platforms and tools.
I hope above plugins will help you make building on WordPress easier! From page builders like Elementor and ElementsKit Lite to e-commerce solutions like WooCommerce, these plugins offer a comprehensive toolkit for various development challenges. Plugins like Yoast SEO and Redirection ensure websites are optimized, accessible, and user-friendly.
