If you wish to create an awesome WordPress website, then you need not to be a coding expert. In the previous blog I have mentioned how to make a WordPress website without any reference and coding. You can simply make WordPress website by reading it. But to really make your WordPress website looks good, you need to use best WordPress plugins.
Now, what are the WordPress plugins?
A plugin is just a part of software which contains a group of functions that could be added to WordPress website. It can extend the functionality or add new features to the WordPress websites. These are called WordPress plugins. These plugins are written in the PHP language and can integrate with WordPress. It results that a user can add features to their website without even having knowledge of code.
With the help of plugins, you can make your website secured, fast and cool. The plugins I am going to mention are all free. You need to choose plugins very carefully. As some plugins are harmful to your website and a large amount of plugins may slow down your site speed. Keep your plugins up-to-date and choose it wisely.
Few Plugins tips:
- Finding good quality plugins:
Use those plugins which has great reviews and good number of installations.
- Updating plugins:
The plugins who has older version can also slow down your site, so keep your plugins up to date.
- Delete those plugins which you don’t need longer:
The plugins which you have already used and is no longer in use must be deleted. It will unnecessarily slow down the site speed.
- Research
Rather than only relying on ratings and installations, do research by yourself whether by checking support forums and reviews.
So, these are some tips which will help you to make your website fast and secured. Now let us dive into some best and free WordPress plugins 2017.
Top 5 Free WordPress plugins
- Contact Form7:
This is the most basic plugin in WordPress which will help you in contacting with user. With visitors you can develop relationship with this contact form. It creates a good user experience. This plugin is also free.
Features:
- Easy to install
- Customizable
So, you can use Contact Form7 plugin in your WordPress website as it is the easiest way for visitors to contact you.
- Floating Social Bar:
Floating Social Bar plugin can increase traffic and social shares. If you could increase these social shares then yes, there is a chance that you can gain more exposure, traffic and revenue.
You may have seen many social share plugins, they are so heavy and can make your site slow. But this Floating Social Bar is better as it provides only major social networking sites, i.e. Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. It shows replica image with every share count until a user scrolls over social share button.
Features:
- Customizable
- Ease of use
- Accuracy
So, this free WordPress plugin is enough to increase your website traffic and proves best in sharing the data.
- Broken Link Checker:
Broken links has a really bad impact on your website. There could be lower website traffic and creates a valueless user experience. With the help of this plugin, you can detect broken links and correct them before it’s too late.
Therefore, you can use Broken Link Checker plugin as it very rapidly finds out the broken links on your website and then you can fix them.
Features:
- Customization
- Easily accessible
- Sucuri
Security is really important in modern era to protect your important data. Your website can get into a great trouble if it doesn’t comprise of security. Sucuri plugin provides a great security.
How it will protect your site?
- Audit logging
It functions security related events within your WordPress website.
- Security Notifications
Whenever there is a security related event, you will get notifications.
- Remote virus scanning
You will get alerts if any malware detects in your code.
- Yoast SEO
You can get high traffic if you give priority to the SEO. You will appear higher in the search engines and get more traffic. Anyways, there are a lot of SEO strategies but are hard to follow. So, you can use Yeast SEO plugin to start practicing SEO.
Features:
- Analysis of Page:
It checks post length, Meta description as well as images tags.
- Meta and link keywords:
It will give you a live preview that ho pages will get show in Google search results.
- XML Sitemaps:
This plugins creates sitemaps and alerts Google of their existence.
Conclusion
The WordPress plugins have a magical and powerful effect on your website. WordPress plugins is for all the categories whether it is content, sharing, analytics, security and speed. It will leave a positive impact on your website and helps in gaining visitor’s experience.
There is definately a lot to learn about this subject.
I really like all the points you made.