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Recommended Plug-ins

WordPress does really well out of the box but adding plug-ins can make your life easier and give your site a unique feel and function.

Typically I use all the Admin plug-ins listed and 1 SEO plug-in.  Other plug-ins are used as needed.

  • Plug-ins marked with $$$ next to their name denote a paid to use.
  • Plug-ins marked with $Pro next to their name have a paid pro version for added support and/or functions

Admin Plug-ins

  • iThemes Security Pro $$$ : Highly recommended
    It adds several security functions to your site.  Two features that should be used on all sites is 2FA authentication and Google’s ReCAPTCHA
  • iThemes BackupBuddy $$$ : Highly recommended.
    I’ve used several other backup and restore solutions but this is the only one that worked 100% when restoring a site.
  • Insert Header / Footer: Highly Recommended
    Allows inserting of HTML code both in the header section and footer section of your theme.  I’ll use this over other plug-ins to insert Google and Facebook tracking codes.

Google Suite Plug-ins (Analytics, Tags, Optimize)

ExactMetrics was bought and rebranded by MonsterInsights May 11th 2018.  For the full details read the ExactMetrics post.

Either of the analytic plug-ins allow access to your Google Analytic data from your website and can insert the tracking code.  Typically I just use the Insert Header/footer plug-in and the use the Chrome Extension for GA.  You can get most functions of these plug-ins by using Google’s own Extensions for Chrome. The three Chrome Extensions I use are:

  • Page Analytics by Google (depreciated but still works as of 2018-08-01)
  • Tag Assistant by Google
  • Optimize by Google

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Typically you only need one plug-in from this section.  There are several other plug-ins that do SEO but I mostly use these.  Both have a paid version but the basic free plug-in works just as well when starting out.

Integration Plug-ins

The complete list can be found on this page {Add link}.  These plug-in hook into other platforms like Facebook, Salesforce, Constant Contact, Mailchimp, Twitter,

New and Updated Function Plug-ins

The complete list can be found on this page {add link}. Each of these plug-in extends the functions of WordPress. for example WordPress doesn’t do eCommerce out-of-the-box but you can add WooCommerce for a complete store front. Some of these plug-ins require you to have a compatible theme.

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