Originally created as a blog-publishing platform in 2003, WordPress has since grown into one of the most popular open-source content management systems around the world. More than 42% of all websites are currently using WordPress, and with its evolving plugin architecture, it’s no surprise that this number is forever increasing.
With more than 58,000 plugins currently available, there is bound to be something for every purpose and in terms of SEO and website analytics, many of these plugins are highly beneficial for business operators who have taken part or all of their business online. We have compiled a list of the 10 most useful WordPress plugins in 2021 for businesses.
Yoast SEO
By far the most popular WordPress SEO plugin, Yoast SEO is currently installed on more than 5 million WordPress sites across the globe and an absolute must-have. It is the most downloaded WordPress plugin of all times, extremely user-friendly and pre-configured to show you a list of simple SEO recommendations for your target keywords. Further analyzing your content’s readability, it can help you improve your SEO and keyword strategy, ultimately helping you to rank higher in search engine results
Jetpack
Not only is Jetpack an official WordPress plugin developed by the same team, but its list of features is also very extensive. From security and performance improvements to backups, real-time stats, social media sharing and marketing tools it is jam-packed with gadgets that every business website should have. It’s easy to use, comes with a professional support team and helps you enhance, monitor and manage your WordPress site better.
WooCommerce
For anyone starting or running an eCommerce store on WordPress, WooCommerce is the best plugin available. It is an all-in-one complete package including multiple payment gateways such PayPal and does not limit you as to what and how much you can sell. WooCommerce is compatible with a range of other WordPress and WooCommerce plugins and themes and its powerful features basically allow you to create an online store from scratch. Having been created by the same team that is behind WordPress.com and Jetpack, it comes as no surprise that WooCommerce is currently the most popular plugin on WordPress.
UpdraftPlus
More than 30,000 websites daily are falling victim to hackers. Backing up your website regularly is vitally important to save yourself a massive headache in the event of such attacks as well as technical glitches, compatibility issues and even manual errors. UpdraftPlus makes backing up and restoring websites easy while integrating with multiple cloud storage options such as Dropbox, Google Drive, FTP and email for storing your backup archives. Rather than worrying about manually backing up on a regular basis, let UpdraftPlus do it for you automatically in pre-set intervals ranging such as daily or weekly.
WP Rocket
While there is no free version available, WP Rocket has been the leading caching plugin for WordPress pages for several years. By creating cached copies of each dynamically-generated page on your site, storing data and activating it only when needed, your servers have to do less work and your loading time is sped up significantly. Tests have shown that WP Rocket can decrease page load time by up to 63%.
The plugin also improves user-end caching, enables lazy loading to further reduce load times and integrates your caching solution with a Content Delivery Network CDN. WP Rocket is extremely helpful when it comes to your site map and it informs all major search engines whenever you undertake changes to your site.
Optimole
Images can take up to 50% or more of the average website space, hugely impacting your page’s loading time. Considering that 30% of users will abandon ship if they have to wait for more than 10 seconds, ensuring you are literally up to speed is essential. When it comes to image optimization, Optimole is one of the best options on the market. Since all computing is moved into the cloud, your site loads a lot faster and consumes fewer server resources. Once installed, Optimole basically goes into autopilot, optimizing all images on your website so they use up less disk space without compromising on quality.
WPForms
If you want your readers to be able to contact you directly via your website, having a contact form installed is an absolute must. In terms of functionality, there are plenty of contact form plugins available on WordPress to choose from, but WPForms is definitely one of the most up-to-date ones. It provides anything from a simple contact form to more complex, customizable and eye-catching setups such as email lists or pop-up forms, all without having to work on JavaScript or other codes.
The simple drag-and-drop online form builder also allows you to create online order and payment forms as well as surveys and polls. Furthermore, WPForms is highly user-friendly and mobile responsive, making it even more valuable for business owners.
Akismet
One of the oldest plugins available on WordPress, Akismet is still doing a fabulous job keeping spam away from your website and is in fact still one of the most popular anti-spam plugins for WordPress. Once installed, it automatically filters and prevents spam on a daily basis from your website as well as in comment moderations. It is a cloud-based application with a massive database, but will not impact the site or performance of your site at all.
How to choose the right plugin
Which plugins you should install and which ones you can definitely ignore highly depends on your needs and what you want to achieve with your website. To help you decide, create a list of features that you expect from a plugin and start looking. Check out customer reviews and ratings and ensure you are choosing a plugin that gets regularly updated. Having a 24/7 live chat support is also a good sign that the plugin you are about to choose will keep you happy in the long run.
If you would like to know more about WordPress and which plugins can help you get the most out of your website, contact the friendly team at Energise Web today.