Alex Wit

WordPress is known as the very popular content management system for websites. You can easily create a website with it without needing knowledge of computer languages ​​such as HTML or PHP. Moreover, keeping track of the content of your website (content management) is simple and user-friendly. Still, it can be done even better: with plugins. Plug-ins can be seen as tools in the form of software. They add all kinds of extra possibilities to your website that you can do with the regular editor (editor) of WordPress.
There are tens of thousands of plugins that offer everything. First you will read how to find and install plugins, then you will get acquainted in random order with a number of plugins that are very useful and popular.

FIND AND INSTALL PLUGINS
The safe way to add a plugin to WordPress is through the Plugins page on the WordPress dashboard. By default, WordPress already has one or more plugins ready to use with your site. You can see it via Plugins and Installed Plugins.
To find a new plugin, click New plugin. You can search for plugins in different categories at the top or with the keywords (tags) at the bottom. You can search directly via the search box. Type the plugin name or plugin type in the search box. Always search for English terms.
You install a plugin by clicking Install now and after that Activate. With some plugins, an additional option will appear in the main menu on the left. This allows you to specify settings and find help information, among other things. Settings and help info for a plug-in can also be found in the window Plugins.
Do you find a plugin not interesting enough on closer inspection? Then you simply switch it off via the link Deactivate and then delete it with remove.
As mentioned, we now move on to a number of plugins that are very useful and popular.

Yoast SEO helps step by step to make your site easier to find

YOAST SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, in other words: search engine optimization. In plain Dutch, that means making sure that your website is found better by search engines. And that helps attract more audience to your website. SEO is an art in itself, so a plugin that gives you a helping hand is a plus. Yoast SEO takes a critical look at every page on your website and indicates where you can increase its findability. The plugin looks at various aspects, such as the presence of good keywords and the description of your page.

Smush your images to make your website faster

SMUSH
Photos and other images make your website a lot more lively and interesting. Unfortunately, they also make your site a lot slower. Pictures often take up too many kilobytes, so that an internet browser has a lot of work to load and display them all. Smush rushes to your aid with this. This plugin is specialized in optimizing the images on your website. Smush compresses the images by removing all unnecessary information in the file, without reducing the quality. The plugin also detects erroneous sizes of your images so that they all look good on your page. With the help of these functions and more, Smush ensures that your website appears as smoothly and properly as possible.

ASKIMET ANTI-SPAM
As soon as you give visitors the opportunity to comment on your WordPress website, you also run the risk of spam. When you think of spam you usually think of unwanted advertising junk in your mailbox, but websites are also a grateful target for spammers. Standalone spam software scours the internet day and night, looking for unprotected forms and other response options on websites. Before you know it, you’ll have dozens of comments with links to questionable gambling and other sites on your WordPress website. Askimet acts as a gatekeeper for your site. Using an extensive database, spam messages are blocked and their origin is displayed. The plugin is so effective that it often comes pre-installed with your WordPress site. To fully use the plugin, you need to get an activation key from Askimet. It’s free for non-commercial sites.

With Elementor you build a professional website

ELEMENTOR
Plugins are usually intended to add additional capabilities to the WordPress editor. Elementor is a plugin that completely replaces the editor. With this page builder you can quickly, easily and neatly create complete web pages. Even with the free basic version, you already have more than enough options to create a web page without a line of code. Elementor is particularly notable for its user-friendliness and professional possibilities. A disadvantage is that with Elementor you cannot adjust websites that were previously created with the regular WordPress editor.

If you feel more at home with the native WordPress, use the Classic Editor.

CLASSIC EDITOR
WordPress 5.0 Bebo brought with it a completely revamped version of the original WordPress editor. Blocks play the leading role in this: different types of building blocks for a web page. Although intended as an improvement, of course, not all WordPress users were equally enthusiastic. And even now, almost three years later, there are still plenty of WordPressers who prefer the original editor they were used to. Since the Bebo editor is the default from WordPress 5.0, you will need the Classic Editor plugin to revert to the original editor.

WOOCOMMERCE
If you want to use your website as an online store, WooCommerce is the plugin you are looking for. WooCommerce is almost a world in itself, with thousands of custom themes that allow you to build all possible online stores. It does not matter whether you have only one product to offer or thousands. WooCommerce is so extensive that as a plugin it even has its own plugins again. These vary from supporting all possible payment systems to advertising your products and services.

WPFORMS
You can of course let visitors to your website contact you via your email address. The disadvantage of this is that you cannot determine which information is sent. That is why a separate page with a contact form is indispensable on a website. That looks good and you determine exactly which data the visitor must or may send.

Get in touch with your visitors via a contact form from WPForms

WPForms is a popular contact form for WordPress. You can easily create a basic form with data such as first name, last name and e-mail address. But also building more extensive forms is no problem with the templates and the drag-and-drop function.

MC4WP – MAILCHIMP FOR WORDPRESS
People who want to communicate with customers, members and other visitors don’t just use their website. You receive an important part of your website traffic via e-mail, whether you want to introduce your customers to new products or regularly send out an association newsletter to the members. The MC4WP plugin helps you with that by linking your site to the MailChimp newsletter service (mailchimp.com). Email addresses sent via a contact form on your website are automatically added to your own MailChimp mailing list. You then use this list to easily send your emails or newsletters to all interested parties. In the free version of MailChimp you can register a limited number of email addresses. In the paid version you don’t have that limitation.

Smart Slider 3 gets your site moving

SMART SLIDER 3
Is there a way to make a neatly built website with good texts and images look even better? Secure! With one or more sliders on your page. A slider is a kind of short interactive slideshow, popular among other things as a moving title bar. With Smart Slider 3 you can easily create these moving elements on your page. In the user-friendly editor you can add your own images, texts and formatting. Or you use the templates and images with the plugin. Your website will look a lot better, but keep in mind that it will also be a bit slower.

Add the desired plugin to your site from the Plugin page

MONSTER INSIGHTS
How many visitors does your website get? Where do they come from? Which pages are popular? Just some questions from a website administrator who likes to stay informed about the traffic to his site. A very popular tool for this is Google Analytics, but it has the disadvantage that you have to add it to your site as code. The Monster Insights analytics plugin takes that problem off your hands. Monster Insights uses Google Analytics, but eliminates the need for code tinkering. Just install, activate and configure the plugin for your situation and you are ready to start examining your website traffic.