The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Plugins for Businesses

The most widely used content management system in the world, WordPress is open-source and used for a very diverse range of websites.

It's simple for a beginner to set up a website rather quickly because of the variety of themes, page builders, plugins, and hosting options available. Additionally, it enables the creation of unique themes, the integration and use of unique code, as well as some rather complex applications.

There are several common plugins that work well for both inexperienced and seasoned WordPress administrators and developers, despite the enormous variety in how it is designed and deployed. When it comes to plugins and codebases created by others, trust is a crucial component in an open-source ecosystem. I strongly advise attempting to reduce the number of plugins you can use.

The more plugins you have, the more frequently you should update them to minimize security threats and the amount of effort testing after each update to ensure nothing broke. Additionally, you can avoid some unforeseen consequences of plugin conflicts.

Although perspectives and techniques will differ and this list isn't exhaustive, I have compiled my list of essential plugins that I advise for WordPress websites with a variety of goals, from blogs to business-oriented sites.

1. Advanced Custom Fields

Different people have different ideas on how to use page builders and themes to create WordPress websites. I won't get into it here because my goal is to talk about certain plugins that my team uses and trusts and has had great success with.

The one thing I will say is that we highly advise Advanced Custom Fields if you decide to use a custom theme. It complements our own page builder and offers a nice balance between being strong with choices and not being overkill or information overload for users, making it a core plugin for us. ACF is extensively supported and made to be as flexible as possible in terms of being able to basically add fields and alter taxonomies.

2. Better Search Replace

This plugin is essential if you've ever had to complete a project or update that calls for migration. It closes gaps and automates the kind of labor that would be time-consuming and laborious. It can help you on all fronts, whether you're trying to swiftly locate every link that broke during a migration, perform a find and replace, or move a database.

This plugin is extremely strong, but it also needs human logic to apply to what has to be migrated, updated, and fixed. As a result, it needs your input and comprehension. However, it does save a lot of time and hard labor. Based on the functionality required, Better Search Replace offers basic and pro packages at various price ranges.

image source: Pixabay

3. WP Rocket

A plugin called WP Rocket mostly offers caching services. Your site can load more quickly by using content caching, improving both user experience and SEO performance.

It goes beyond WordPress' default settings and gives you more power to find the ideal ratio between caching and content loading for your objectives and requirements. There is a small annual subscription fee for this plugin, which varies depending on how many sites you want to use it on and how many or what kind of updates you want to get throughout the year.

4. Better Search Replace

This plugin is essential if you've ever had to complete a project or update that calls for migration. It closes gaps and automates the kind of labor that would be time-consuming and laborious.

It can help you on all fronts, whether you're trying to swiftly locate every link that broke during a migration, perform a find and replace, or move a database.

This plugin is extremely strong, but it also needs human logic to apply to what has to be migrated, updated, and fixed. As a result, it needs your input and comprehension. However, it does save a lot of time and hard labor. Based on the functionality required, Better Search Replace offers basic and pro packages at various price ranges.

image source: Pixabay

5. Gravity Forms

For WordPress, there are many widely used form builder plugins. Gravity Forms is probably the most well-liked and is undoubtedly very strong and simple to use. It's crucial that users can quickly and simply create forms to insert into any page.

In addition, the plugin's dependability, the numerous ways you can integrate it with CRMs and email marketing platforms, and the capability to receive notifications make it my preferred form builder plugin.  Like many other form builders, Gravity Forms has price and licensing tiers based on the feature set required or desired. For paid features, it provides a free trial, which aids in the evaluation process.\

6. Redirection

Even if you aren't in the process of shifting to a new website or migrating, you probably require 301 redirects on occasion.

You'll want to be able to swiftly and easily redirect the old URL to the new one when a page is deleted, moved, or when content is refreshed and republished. Through the use of the straightforward WordPress tool redirection, a user can enter the old and new URLs for content and then click save.

The redirect takes effect immediately and doesn't require a developer, IT, or deal with any 301 vs. 302 difficulties, etc. You can perform conditional redirects in addition to standard 301s. John Godley's Redirection plugin is supported by donations.

7. Yoast

Without revealing all of Yoast's SEO-related power, there isn't much I can say about it in this article. Yoast gives you control over a variety of SEO-relevant criteria, from individual on-page elements to indexing files. Due to Yoast's powerful nature, there can occasionally be a learning curve and potential conflicts with other programs.

Due to security flaws or problems that took awhile to be disclosed, some SEOs have abandoned their efforts and switched to alternatives. Despite this, it continues to be the go-to WordPress SEO plugin. Yoast has both free and paid versions available. The list of plugins presented here is not exhaustive, as has been made clear. There are probably a lot of high-quality alternatives to those I've mentioned.

However, I did want to offer some of the resources that my team has access to due to our extensive expertise creating both custom WordPress sites and using pre-built themes.

We have faith in these plugins, their creators, and their history of reliability, security, and updates. Exceptions do occur, but we still use these in our regular selection of essential plugins for the WordPress sites we create and maintain.