CMS WordPress serves to make life easier for developers and administrators of web resources. This great CMS has a huge variety of plug-ins that greatly simplify the addition of certain necessary functions to the website. We would like to bring to your attention an article in which we describe the best plugins for CMS WordPress. This article will be useful for both beginners and experienced website developers. The ranking in the article does not matter. Below are the plug-ins (free and paid), which are most often used by our team when developing websites. So, our hit parade:
1. Advanced Custom Fields
The ideal tool for creating additional custom fields in the CMS WordPress admin panel with the possibility of the subsequent output of these fields on the site pages. Easily customizable, has a wide selection of fields, such as WYSIWYG Editor, Color picker, Textarea, Text, Image, etc. You can select any page of the site to place additional fields, any post type, set custom rules for display. Those who previously used the usual WordPress meta fields will appreciate this plugin. Without it, rarely does any client-oriented development work to create a convenient and understandable administrative panel.
Pros of ACF
the basic version is free;easy to configure;very easy to display;detailed documentation with examples;a wide selection of fields.
Cons of ACF
the most needed fields such as Repeater (repeater), an Options panel, Flexible content are available only in the premium version;Unlike builders (Visual Composer) it has limited functionality, but it doesn’t load the site much less.
2. Contact Form 7
Do you want to install a feedback form on the site? Naturally! What is the contact page on the site without it? Contact Form 7 is the most popular WordPress plugin, installed on more than a million websites (according to WordPress repository statistics). Its rating among users is 4.5 out of 5 stars. Contact Form 7 is absolutely free. It has built-in support for Ajax sending, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filter and many different add-ons that significantly extend the functionality. After creating a form, a shortcode is generated that allows you to paste it into any place on the page of the site. When installing, the default contact form is created; it can be changed in the Contact Form 7 settings. It has a wide range of fields and settings of the form itself, you can select several recipients and send a counter-message to the from sender.
Pros of Сontact Form 7
free;there is all that is needed to create a full-fledged contact form;supports HTML markup;Ajax sending support;With the help of add-ons for this plugin, you can create huge forms \ questionnaires \ polls \ tests and connect the payment.
Cons of Contact Form 7
need to understand the setting;sometimes slightly weights the site;sometimes conflicts with other plugins (for example with the Nextgen Gallery).
3. All In One WP Security & Firewall
Do you need to be sure that the site is not hacked? Need extra virus protection? In this case, All In One WP Security & Firewall is perfect! By itself, CMS WordPress is a fairly secure system, but it is possible to provide additional protection. Plug-in for CMS WordPress, allowing you to protect your site from hacking – All In One WP Security & Firewall. This tool will take your site protection to a whole new level. It has intuitive settings and a wide range of protection options. Also in the plug-in built the so-called “Security Strength Meter”, which will show the overall protection of the site on a scale from 0 to 205 points. All In One WP Security & Firewall is absolutely free and will not slow down the loading speed of your website.
Pros of AIOSPF
easy to set up and use;well protects from hacking the administrative page of the site database.
Cons of AIOSPF
there is no possibility of scanning directories for the presence of malicious code;it is easy enough to hack a site or close a site from being indexed by search engines in case of incorrect settings;badly protects the file system.
4. All In One SEO Pack
Planning to conduct a search engine optimization site? All In One SEO Pack – number one for search engine optimization (SEO) site. Allows you to flexibly customize the internal optimization of the site. Not as easy to set up like its rival Yoast SEO. But since Yoast makes the site heavier when loading and often conflicts with other plugins, we chose the All In One SEO Pack. What features will the All In One SEO Pack provide? Creating sitemap.xml, defining canonical pages, creating robots.txt, micro marking for social networks, fine-tuning the “Title” and “Description” on the necessary pages of the site, integration with Google Search Console and much more.
Pros of All In One SEO Pack
the basic version, which is enough for the site – free;does not conflict with other plugins;has integration with Google Search Console;works great with multilingual plugins.
Cons of All In One SEO Pack
not easy to configure;fewer add-on modules than the Yoast SEO Plugin.
5. WPML – WordPress Multilingual Plugin
Plugin for a multilingual site. The only plugin in the review that does not have a free version. This is rather difficult to set up a translation tool, but unfortunately, there is no constantly updated, high-quality alternative. One of the best WordPress plugins to install additional languages on the site. WPML includes support for more than 40 languages. Until recently, we used QTranslate X, it is free and easy to configure. However, the developers stopped its support 2 years ago. And currently, our team is working with WPML. WPML is suitable for all kinds of multilingual sites from blogs to online stores. Compatible with any themes and plugins that work using the WordPress API. Is friends with Advanced Custom Fields, Contact Form 7, Visual Composer, Woocommerce, Yoast and many others. Currently, perhaps the best plugin for a multi-language site.
Pros of WPML
compatible with any themes and plugins;supports 40 languages;wide options in the settings;great support.
Cons of WPML
paid ($ 29 – for one blog, $ 79 – for three multilingual portals, $ 159 – for any number of sites);quite complicated to configure.
6. WooCommerce – An E-commerce Plugin
Do you want to make an online store? WooCommerce is the most popular and best plugin for creating a full-fledged online store based on CMS WordPress. WooCommerce includes features that are very important for an online store. The basic version is completely free. There is a huge amount of inexpensive extensions that can add various features to the site. Has good documentation, often updated.
Pros of WooCommerce
free basic version;good support;Google has almost any problem solving;a lot of extensions;excellent documentation.
Cons of WooCommerce
hard enough to integrate into the topic;many templates are broken down into numerous directories;with inept tuning can negatively affect the speed of the site;expensive official additions.
7. Imsanity – Image Compression Plugin
Is the site loading slowly? Most likely you either have no caching enabled or visual content is poorly optimized. To solve the problems with image optimization, we recommend using the Imsanity plugin. In the settings Imsanity, you choose the maximum size for images. When uploading images to the site, it automatically reduces the size of the images. Very well suited for blogs that do not require high-quality images.
Pros of Imsanity
completely free;many image compression settings, size, quality, resolution;allows you to compress already loaded and those that are just going to load.
Cons of Imsanity
Google Page Speed doesn’t always like the way it compresses images, even with the most “optimal” settings.
8. WP Migrate DB – Database Transfer Plugin
Do you need a database transfer from one hosting to another? You made a site on a local server and want to upload it to the hosting? To do this, we recommend using a good free plugin WP Migrate DB.WP Migrate DB makes it much easier to migrate a database. Allows you to specify a new domain and a new location of files in the hosting directory. Creates an archive with a database for later transfer.
Pros of WP Migrate
completely free;easy to use;with the right settings, changes the paths unmistakably.
Cons of WP Migrate
Poorly suited for transferring large databases (online stores, corporate portals).
9. Simple Share Buttons Adder
Need buttons for social networks? There is nothing easier. The Simple Share Buttons Adder plugin makes it easy to add share buttons for social networks to any place on the site’s pages.
Pros of SSBA
free basic version;You can customize the colors of the buttons;choose popular social networks;create a shortcode and embed in any place on the site.
Cons of SSBA
Not all social networks are supported.
10. Autoptimize – WordPress Caching Plugin
Is the site loading slowly? Include caching (about compressing images was written above).Autoptimize is one of the most popular free caching plugins. It has many settings and allows you to compress scripts and styles, turn to cache on and off, transfer scripts to the footer, combine scripts and styles. Alternative – WP Rocket
Pros of Autoptimize
absolutely free;easy to set up;well raises site performance in speed.
Cons of Autoptimize
often breaks the site when all options are enabled, so you need to carefully read the documentation.
Here, perhaps, that’s all. We would be grateful if you share the article on social networking platforms.
