WordPress is a great way of developing an online identity. Especially, if you are starting out on the digital platform, and just entering the market. Plugins are a great way of adding functionalities to your WordPress page, and improving user experience, besides making your life easier.
In one of my previous blogs, I discussed the essential plugins you need for your WordPress page. In this one, I will discuss the plugins that you should think about adding, if you want to go the extra mile. There are more than 59,000 WordPress plugins that you can choose from. But the following seven plugins will be a great addition in your page:
- WPML
- Nextiva
- Pretty Links Pro
- Shared Counts
- WP Mail SMTP
- Uncanny Automator
- SearchWP
WPML
WordPress does not give you the option of making a multilingual website. It is especially challenging for businesses that have their wings spread across various geographic locations. If you are facing this problem, then I recommend using WPML. It is a multilingual plugin which lets you create multi lingual web pages on WordPress. It is SEO friendly and lets you create content in several languages. The plugin offers an easy to use interface to manage translations.
The regular WPML plugin costs about USD 79 annually, with a renewal fee of USD 59.
Nextiva
The Nextiva’s official website claims that it is a business communications platform with super powers. The plugin is used for holding video conferences and sent text messages. It also lets people work through voice activation. The phone service comes with a number of features which are extremely easy to use. They issue a business phone number for your website. The number comes with advanced call routing, unlimited free domestic calling, online faxing and voice to email or text.
You do not need a new phone, or get your phone number changed. The calls can be directly received on your phone. If you do not like being disturbed after work, you can set business hours to avoid receiving any calls on your days off, or non-work hours.
Pretty Links Pro
Who doesn’t hate long URLs? I know I do! Especially when I have to share those with my friends and peers. Long URLs are a thing of the past, they are ancient history. Nowadays, if you pay attention, most businesses have opted for short URLs for their marketing campaigns. By default, WordPress does not allow you to create short URLs for your WordPress website. In that case, The Pretty Links plugin lets you implement short URL inside of WordPress. Thus, you can easily and quickly get short URLs for your social media and other digital marketing campaigns.
The best thing about Pretty Links is that it is a premium WordPress plugin that offers free basic services. You can download the free version: Pretty Links Lite rom the official WordPress plugin repository and use it on your site.
Shared Counts
The primary reason of having an online presence is to increase engagement and ultimately attract an audience to your website. The Shared Counts is a WordPress plugin that lets you add social media share buttons on your WordPress page. The buttons give you the option of sharing your page on
- Facebook button,
- Pinterest button
- Yummly button
- Twitter button
- Email Sharing button
- Share Count Total
- Print Button
- LinkedIn share button
The plugin is cent percent free, and quite user friendly. In Settings got to Shared Counts and select where the share buttons should appear automatically (Before Content, After Content, Before and After Content). When editing a post, you can also use the checkbox in the “Shared Counts” box in the right column to disable the automatic buttons on that specific post.
WP Mail SMTP
Email is a great way for establishing an intimate connection with your prospective customers. The WP Mail SMTP plugin is a powerful option to dramatically improve the deliverance of WordPress emails. It also solves the issue of your emails going into the Junk folder (spam in certain cases). You can also use the plugin to fine-tune your website’s email notifications and keep a record of all the emails that you have sent out.
The WP Mail SMTP plugin works with a wide variety of email providers such as Gmail, Office 36, Amazon SES and SMPT.com among many others.
You can also use it to block any unwanted alerts from your WordPress sites, such as getting notifications every time a user changes their password. Another great thing about the plugin is their amazing support team. They are always there to help you find answers and walk you through any step at your pace.
Uncanny Automator
The Uncanny Automator considers itself to be the number one WordPress automation plugin. And why should it not? It lets you connect your existing WordPress plugins to work together without the need of writing any code. The seamless integration with other WP plugins and other third party platforms let you to build easy automation solutions without hiring any developer.
They offer more than 90 triggers to create styles to suit your WordPress page. In other words, the Uncanny Automator lets plugins to talk to each other to build powerful and smooth workflows automatically.
SearchWP
The SEarchWP is one of the most advanced WP search plugin. You can improve the site search. Hence, the visitors can easily find what they are looking for on your website without wasting time. The default WP search functionality is a limited one, and therefore, you might not always get what you want. The SearchWP goes beyond the traditional content search. It indexes everything on your webpage including the ACF fields, custom fields, texts, PDF document content, custom tables, and custom post types, among many others.
You have the flexibility to create your own scale and adjust the algorithm without any background in web design, or the need of hiring a web developer.
Conclusion
WordPress offers advanced features at the fraction of a cost of a traditional website. Thanks to the plugins, WordPress can be customized as per your needs and business requirements, even if you don’t have any background in coding and web development.
These plugins are great if you want to take the load off your shoulders, and provide enhanced features to the visitors.
