Best WordPress Plugins, Free & Premium
Utilizing the best WordPress plugins allow website owners to expand the functionality of there website. Many website owners can be shocked at the amount of functionality that they can include on their blog by utilizing some of these amazing plugins. Each year there are a new set of the best WordPress plugins which are ideal for the setup of nearly any website or blog. In 2013 there have been a lot of amazing new WordPress plugins released, some of which are premium plugins, but most of which are free.
The Best Premium WordPress Plugins
Revolution Slider – The Best WordPress Slider Plugin
The first plugin, Revolution Slider, is a new premium plugin which, at My Media Magnet, we are using for every install as of late. This slider is extremely easy to use, with the ability to include it directly into the theme with an easy to use template tag, and also the ability to add a slider to any page with a shortcode. This slider includes functionality which is all the rage in 2013, layer slider. A layer slider is capable of creating multiple layers on a single slide, and animating these layers onto the slide based on setting applied from the WordPress admin area. With most sliders, this has been complex, and required a coding background in order to work correctly. Revolution slider is the first WordPress slider plugin capable of performing cutting edge animation, while providing an extremely easy to use drag and drop interface. That’s right, Revolution slider allows you to simply drag and drop a layer onto a slide, and then with a couple simple settings choose how, and when, you would like the layer to come in. I was truly amazed the first time I used this WordPress Plugin.
The Best Free WordPress Plugins
JetPack – The WordPress Plugin that Does it All
When we first put a website onto a live domain, the first plugin I install is JetPack from WordPress.com. This plugin does so many amazing things that it really deserves a post on it’s own. The most noticeable feature is the statistics which comes with this WordPress plugin. Web design clients so far have love it’s simple user interface, yet easy access to vital information relating to traffic on the website. On top of this, JetPack will provide you will an alternative comments design and functionality for your blog and website. By utilizing the JetPack comments, we have noticed a decrease in spam, while getting an increase in real, valuable comments. On top of this, this incredible WordPress plugin allows you to add features such as a contact form, great additional widget options, custom CSS editing, automatic sharing to social media networks and several more. This plugin is truly a must for any WordPress website.
Get it Now, or install from your WordPress dashboard
WordPress SEO by Yoast – The Must Have WordPress SEO Plugin
SEO is crucial for almost any website. After all, without an extensive traditional marketing effort, it is very difficult to get traffic to your website without optimizing it to rank within Google’s search engines. This plugin will allow you to make edits to your META data, which is vital for SEO rankings. On top of that, by adding a focus keyword for a page or post, this WordPress plugin will give you suggestions on changes you can make to your content and META information to improve your rankings on Google. Any serious website owners will want to make sure they have a plugin like this installed on their website.
Get it Now, or install from your WordPress dashboard
Post Types Order – Simple Yet Usable WordPress Expand-ability
Often times WordPress website owners look for a way to make sure the a Post or Portfolio item is placed at the top of it’s page. WordPress by default will order your posts based on date created, and developers use this functionality to create things such as portfolios. Users are forced to change the publish date in this instance in order to place the desired post or portfolio item at the top of the page. Post Types Order solves this issue. Attached to each of your post types (these can be your Portfolio, Products, Events etc), you will get an additional link which will provide you a simple drag and drop interface for ordering your posts. This plugin is very simple, but we no longer setup a website without it.
Get it Now, or install from your WordPress dashboard
SEO Friendly Images – WordPress SEO plugin for Images
Images are often overlooked as a factor for SEO. We ourselves notice that to often we would forget to optimize our ALT tags on our new blog posts. This plugin will make sure that keywords from your page and categories are used in order to optimize the images on your page. You can always overwrite these tags, but it’s a great way to make sure that the images are optimized to get you the most traffic throughout the entire site.
Get it Now, or install from your WordPress dashboard
W3 Total Cache Combined with Cloudflare – Best WordPress Performance Plugin
W3 Total Cache is great for any websites not using E-commerce that are looking to improve the performance of their WordPress website. There are several caching options available, and most notably the ability to integrate with some of the most popular Content Delivery Networks. While Cloudflare is certainly not the best CDN available, it is free after all, and provides a lot of extensions which users like. Simply put in your username and your custom API and W3 Total Cache should take care of the rest for you. Do be aware, that caching plugins can conflict with some E-commerce plugins, so make sure to do thorough testing before implementing the plugin on your online store.
Get it Now, or install from your WordPress dashboard
When you first setup your new website, these plugins are some of the best WordPress plugins to get the most out of your website. One of my favorite things about WordPress is the vast amount of plugins available, and I am constantly learning about new options that could potentially bump any one of these options off the list. For now, these are our go-to WordPress plugins
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