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)
- Google Analytics Dashboard for WP by ExactMetrics: Recommend
- Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights $PRO: Recommend
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.
- All-in-One SEO Pack $PRO : Highly Recommended
- Yoast SEO $PRO: Highly Recommended
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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