Our Recommended Plugins For Every WordPress Website
Are you building a website in WordPress? Whilst it might not always be best to turn to plugins to add every functionality imaginable, these are some of our favourite plugins which feature on the majority of websites we build.
Advanced Custom Fields Pro
Advanced Custom Fields Pro (ACF) is a plugin which allows you to easily add custom fields to different pages, which can then be displayed in the themes templates. There is a free version of ACF, however ACF Pro is a premium plugin.
Why We Recommend It
The way in which ACF works means that we can build websites which can easily be customised, whilst being hard for content editors to break. As it’s more structured compared to website builders it also means that a lot of the bloat which the website builders create can be avoided. This leads to a much cleaner coding.
GDPR Cookie Consent
GDPR Cookie Consent adds all the necessary functions to your website in order for it to be compliant with GDPR laws which are required if people within the EU (It will become UK law too) are using your website. It effectively asks for permission to add cookies to your device before doing so.
Why We Recommend It
There are many GDPR plugins out there, after testing a few we found that this one works the best and is easy to use.
Ninja Forms
Ninja Forms allows you to easily create and add custom forms to your website. This makes it easier for people to get in touch with you via your website.
Why We Recommend It
Ninja Forms is an easy to use form builder which provides all the form functionality required for most websites. It makes it quick and easy to add forms. Another thing we like about Ninja Forms is that it’s easy to add event tracking for Google Analytics, allowing you to easily monitor where people are using your forms and how they got there.
SG Optimizer
SG Optimizer is a performance plugin which handles things such as caching, minify file sizes as well as file compression amongst other things. The plugin was created by SiteGround and can only be used alongside their hosting which it is integrated with.
Why We Recommend It
Fast loading times are important for your website and can make a huge difference to whether people stay on your website to become customers or not. SG Optimiser takes care of this, all within one plugin. For websites not being hosted with SiteGround we find that multiple plugins are required for the same effect.
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO adds some SEO functionality to your website and has become known as the go to plugin for SEO. Some of the key features include allowing you to easily edit metadata as well as adding things behind the scenes such as self referencing canonical tags and adding sitemaps.
Why We Recommend It
Whilst some SEO professionals might scorn at the words “we’ve added Yoast”, usually followed by a declaration that SEO is complete, we still believe that it is a value plugin to add to your website. It does a lot of the basics for you allowing you to focus on more meaningful areas of SEO. It also allows you to turn off different features such as the “SEO Analysis” and “Readability Analysis” which we personally don’t like and think could lead people in the wrong direction.