Plugins are an important part of building your WordPress website. Their role is to extend the functionality of your website to meet your specific needs. Plugins are not just part of building, but also a part of managing the website. If you are not well versed in the world of WordPress it can get quite difficult to choose the right plugins to get the job done. We get it, we’ve been there, and we are here to help! We listed out our top 5 favorite WordPress plugins that will have you up and running in no time if you need a calendar, custom contact form(s), SPAM protection, a custom slider solution, or an SEO solution.
We tested these WordPress plugins ourselves and the plugin creators we chose to list offer a great product and helpful support. In addition, the developers keep up to date with the latest security updates which lets you know they care about the security of your website.
Oh I forgot to mention, most of these plugins are FREE!
Does your business offer seminars, workshops, or hold networking meetings? Maybe you frequent trade-shows to show off your products? Well, then you want to tell people where to find you – you need a calendar on your website!
This calendar is very easy to manage. If you have an event that lasts all day, or one that repeats every month, All-in-one Calendar has the settings you need. With the ability to add custom HTML it is simple to add a Paypal button, or a sign up form to your event page; making it easy for visitors to RSVP and buy tickets.
On a more technical level, the plugin allows you to import events from other calendars, spear data automatically across multiple websites AND offers a subscribe feature that will allow your visitors to stay up to date with your latest events.
The LayerSlider plugin is beyond impressive. You can create custom slideshows, galleries and content sliders that can showcase, well, just about anything. It supports responsive mode and multiple layouts which means it will look beautiful across multiple device types; phones, tablets and desktop. The developer offers demo content that will eliminate trying to figure out how you utilize custom fonts, add video and so much more.
It is quite easy to design a stunning custom slider with this plugin. For each slide you create you can add elements like images, text, custom HTML, videos and so much more… and with more than 200 preset 2D and 3D slide transitions available, your slider will fade, spin, bounce or swing beautifully.
There are a ton of Anti-Spam plugins in the WordPress Repository, but not many quite like Anti-spam by webvitaly. This plugin offers protection from the flood of SPAM comments that come with having a comment section on your blog, or any other page. This plugin does all the anti-spam work for you by simply installing and activating it. Really, that simple!
To be completely honest with you, the whole Yoast line is pretty darn helpful in regards to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but to stay on track, let’s just focus on this particular plugin. What makes SEO by Yoast so great is it helps you take a lot of the guess work out of developing your on page SEO. Although WordPress itself has a pretty good platform for SEO, this plugin can take it a step further by helping you compose titles and meta descriptions for your search engine listings. This alone is considered a positive step towards increasing your ranking. In addition, they offer a “SEO Check” on every page, this allows you to see what your grade is along with suggestions to help you fix badly scored areas.
Contact Form 7 is highly popular because it can manage multiple contact forms, plus it allows you to customize the form and set separate mail recipients. You can create a simple contact form, a quote request form and a registration form, all in one place. Always up to date with security releases and super flexible. This plugin is on each one of our websites!
These plugins are currently being utilized on each of the websites we’ve built over the last 4 years. We are impressed by their functionality and support. Have you used any of these plugins and have something to add? Feel free to leave a comment below! If you have questions about a plugin, or anything WordPress related, give us a shout!