Hey! Are you new to WordPress? Don’t you know what a WordPress Plugin is?
You are missing out a lot if you don’t know about WordPress and, of course, about WordPress plugins and themes.
Look, I am a marketer, and in today’s era, as you know, after Covid, almost everything has been shifted to online platforms. All small and medium business owners have realized the importance of having an online presence on the internet. And that’s why Web Development and Web Designing services are touching their peak now.
You are here, which means you want to know a WordPress plugin. You must be falling under the following categories: –
- Small and medium business owner.
- College or school student to upskill yourself on WordPress.
- A fresher eager to learn about Website Designing.
- A naive in the field of Digital Marketing.
- A freelancer who wants to start his career in Web Designing.
- A business owner who wants to design his/her own website without heiring any developer or designer.
Before moving forward, I want to tell you clearly that I have tried website designing as a digital marketer already. This article will guide you on all the basic WordPress plugins (as you are a beginner) that you must use on your website. After getting hands-on, you can try as many plugins as you want according to your use. But I recommend not to use more than twenty plugins as it can slow your website.
And if your website slows down, users won’t have a good experience, due to which the number of traffic coming to your website will decrease. If the traffic on your website decreases, conversions also decrease; as a result, there will be a huge impact on your business.
Your website is the main address of your business, especially in this online era. Let me first give you a brief on WordPress and all its components. Then I will take you around all the plugins.
What is WordPress?
First, let’s talk about WordPress and why WordPress.
WordPress today is the most dominating Content Management System among all the CMS out there. Many CMS such as Joomla, Wix, Magento, Drupal, etc. In CMS, all the content you write on your site is managed. This content is stored in a database and displayed in the presentation layout to the users.
Earlier, when WordPress was only a blogging platform (you couldn’t create your website around WordPress), all the responsibilities of creating a whole website were on the shoulders of a Web developer. For becoming a Web Developer, you need to master all the programming languages such as JavaScript, CSS, PHP, HTML, etc.
But today the situation is totally changed. Today any normal user can create their website on their own. This huge credit goes to WordPress. In WordPress, everything is coded by default. All the themes and plugins are by default coded by the web developers. You have to install and use it.
There are various components we use while creating our WordPress website but let me mention the main components used in a WordPress Website: –
- Domain
- Hosting
- Themes
- Plugins
- Page Builders
Let me give a short description of all the above components: –
Domain– It is the name of your website. It is basically your website’s address. If you think of the Internet as a vast map full of streets and buildings and your website is your house, you need a domain name to find and reach your house for anyone. Every website has an IP address (a random string of numbers). It is almost like saving your home address when you purchase a domain name. Your domain gives IP addresses a simple, easy-to-remember name anyone can type in to reach your website.
Hosting- It is a service where you rent space on the internet. When you start a website, all your text, images, buttons, media, videos, all these things need to be saved in a physical server, somewhere connected to the internet.
Themes– It is basically like the skin of the website. You use themes to design your website. Themes help to give your website a very appealing look. A theme includes colors, styles, elements, and different layouts.
What is a WordPress Plugin?
A plugin is a piece of software that enhances the functionality of your WordPress website. WordPress Plugins go beyond what the basic WordPress installation has to offer. They are like the apps you install on your cell phone to carry out different activities you need to do. Plugins allow you to use your WordPress site to the most potential.
WordPress itself provides most plugins. These are the free plugins already present in the WordPress plugin directory.
Let’s dive deep and check out the nine best plugins you must install as a beginner in your WordPress Website.
Page Builder WordPress Plugin:
ELEMENTOR: –
Elementor is the most famous drag and drop page builder in the market used in WordPress. The incredible feature of Elementor is that it doesn’t require any coding skills. Suppose you prefer to use Elementor to design your website. In that case, you don’t have to be a coding expert, and you don’t have to rely on any experienced Web Developers & Designers as they charge a premium for their services. If you are a novice in WordPress, I highly recommend learning and executing yourself.
- It is a Page Builder.
- It has simple Drag-and-Drop feature.
- It has a lot of cool effects such as animations, background overlays etc.
- It is free plugin.
- It has a premium version also known as Elementor Pro.
Alternatives of ELEMENTOR: –
- DIVI Page Builder
- WP Bakery Page builder
WordPress Plugin for SEO:
RANKMATH: –
Rankmath is an SEO plugin used to optimize content. You will use RankMath for On-Page SEO and Technical SEO.
The main features of RankMath are: –
- It checks if the focus keyword is in the content’s title or not and if the related keywords are in the meta description or not.
- It is an excellent alternative to other SEO plugins because of its numerous features, which are not present in its competitors.
- It also helps in improving the content of your blog posts.
- It checks if the focus keyword is in the content’s title and if the related keywords are in the meta description.
- One of the most remarkable features of RankMath is that it replaces most other WordPress plugins due to its loaded features.
- RankMath (Free Version) allows content optimization for up to five focus keywords, which you won’t get in any SEO plugin. If you want to access this feature in any other plugins, you need to go for their premium version.
- It is one of the lightest SEO plugins out there in the market.
- It comes with a free as well as a premium version.
Alternatives of YOAST SEO: –
- Yoast SEO
- All in one SEO.
WordPress Plugin for Creating Forms:
WP FORMS: –
- It is a WordPress Form Builder.
- It helps to create a customized and flexible form in the WordPress website.
- It makes forms with a drag-and-drop builder.
- It also provides pre-built templates with the help of which you can create forms very quickly.
- It also helps in Optimizing queries to maximize the speed of your website.
- It comes with a free as well pro version.
- It allows you to collect all your leads in a single place to ease your workflow process.
- It also allows you to integrate all your e-mail marketing tools and software.
- If your forms are very long, you can split them into multiple pages for a better user experience.
Alternatives of WP Forms: –
- contact Form7
- Ninja Form
WordPress Plugin for E-Commerce:
Woo Commerce: –
- It is a popular E-commerce plugin for WordPress.
- It is built exclusively for WordPress, which means you can’t use Woo Commerce without WordPress.
- With the help of Woo Commerce, you can sell physical and digital products.
- It converts your website into an E-commerce website.
- With the help of product blocks, it customizes the pages quickly( in a very short time).
- It also creates beautiful storefronts.
- You can create and manage your online store in an effortless way with great flexibility.
- It has both free and paid versions.
It includes various features such as:
- Payment integrations
- Secure payments
- Tax management
- Inventory
- Shipping Integration
Alternative of Woo Commerce: –
- NO Alternatives.
WordPress Plugin for Backup & Migration:
All-in-one WP Migration: –
- This plugin is used for taking back up of your WordPress website.
- First of all, you have to install the free version of all-in-one WP migration on your WordPress website, and then you must install the paid version also in order to import all your files as the free version allows only a limited size only. Then you have to import all your files by clicking the import button. The next step is to install the same free as well as the paid version on your new WordPress website on your new hosting and click export to transfer all your data and files to your new WordPress website. The files that you will export need to be stored on your local machine as a downloadable file or on Google drive.
- With the help of this plugin, we can move websites from one hosting company to another hosting company with absolute ease.
- It comes with a free version.
- It has a paid version also.
Alternatives of All-in-one WP Migration: –
- Updraft Plus
- Jetpack
So, these are some of the important plugins one must install on one’s WordPress website.
There are many more plugins apart from these 9. They are both free as well as paid.
You can install at most 20 plugins on your website.
Let me know about other plugins that you use in the comments below.
If you want to learn how to create a WordPress website, I recommend you check out Mohit Rathi’s WordPress Course. This course is free of cost.
If you want to learn more about either marketing or digital marketing, please check my blogs.