One of the biggest reasons for using WordPress as a framework for your business website is the vast array of plugins available. Plugins are essentially little packages of software which you can add to your site which give you specific functionality and most of the best WordPress plugins are totally free to use.
Here, we take a look at five of the best plugins for small business users who have their site built on a WordPress framework:
Yoast
If you have a blog page associated with your business website, then Yoast is a must. It uses an easy-to-read system of traffic lights to show how well your content is optimised for SEO and will give you a lost of all the issues you need to fix to achieve a green light. One caveat that we would add is that you need to make sure that Yoast is kept up-to-date at all times, as certain sneaky people have found vulnerabilities in the plugin’s security when it isn’t updated.
Sucuri
Leading on from the above, security should be at the top of your priorities list, and Sucuri is probably one of the best protection plugins you can get for your site. It will monitor and protect your site from DDoS, malware threats, XSS attacks, brute force attacks, and basically every other type of attack, keeping your business website safe and secure, giving both you and your customers peace of mind.
Hummingbird
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – page loading speeds are really important. Google has indicated that it uses page speed as part of it’s ranking algorithm, and on a more tangible level, customers often click away from a page that’s taking too long to load. Hummingbird offers a number of functions which will improve your page speeds, including scan and fix, asset optimisation and a full caching suite to load pages faster.
Shortpixel Image Optimizer
Shortpixel Image Optimizer is a freemium plugin, meaning you get premium services for free, to a point, and then you’ll need to pay for ongoing service. However, if you have an image-heavy site, it’s well worth the cost. In their words “ShortPixel is an easy to use, lightweight, install-and-forget-about-it image optimization plugin that can compress all your past images and PDF documents with a single click. New images are automatically resized/rescaled and optimized on the fly, in the background.”
Elementor and Elementor Pro
Elementor, and the paid-for Pro version, are pretty much the be-all and end-all when it comes to designing your WordPress site. It allows you to build your own themes, offering customisable elements across the board, as well as allowing you to build professional grade contact forms, widgets and other features. The Pro add-on “empowers you with more professional tools that speed up your workflow, and allow you to get more conversions and sales.”
