{"id":1652,"date":"2016-04-16T01:01:30","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T15:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pixeld.com.au\/the-5-best-wordpress-plugins-every-site-should-have\/"},"modified":"2023-09-01T13:24:02","modified_gmt":"2023-09-01T03:24:02","slug":"the-5-best-wordpress-plugins-every-site-should-have","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pixeld.com.au\/the-5-best-wordpress-plugins-every-site-should-have\/","title":{"rendered":"The 5 best WordPress plugins every site should have"},"content":{"rendered":"
WordPress is without doubt\u00a0the most popular content management system available today. It’s become far more than a blogging platform with WooCommerce (an e-commerce plugin) now dominating small to medium sized e-commerce sites. We ourselves at Pixeld develop all kinds of custom web applications on top of WordPress, taking advantage of it’s easy to use admin interface.<\/p>\n
A big part of the success of WordPress is the community and plugins repository that gives you access to a world of custom functionality. The downside to this, is that perhaps there is too much choice and not every plugin is created equal. Some care needs to be taken to choose trustworthy, reliably coded plugins.<\/p>\n
With that in mind, the following are some plugins that we consider absolutely essential to running an effective website and install on every site.<\/p>\n
iThemes Security<\/strong><\/p>\n Security is imperative to any site. It would surprise you just how frequently your site is being checked for an unlocked door. The attacks are usually automated, but if you slip up, or let your software get out of date you will evenetually get caught out. iThemes security implements some best practice steps you can take to lock things down. If you are unclear on some of the settings just look for the settings they mark as recommended. My number one tip is to move your wordpress admin URL from \/wp-admin. That’s where any hacker would start. Move your admin address to something unique and possibly obscure.<\/p>\n https:\/\/wordpress.org\/plugins\/better-wp-security\/<\/a><\/p>\n Gravity Forms (premium)<\/strong><\/p>\n Most websites lead to some kind of enquiry. Gravity Forms makes it extremely easy to create forms with it’s click and drag interface. There’s a bunch of field types and you can even take payments when linked to a supported payment gateway. You can also setup automatic confirmation messages to your clients, a great way to let them know their enquiry has been received and some action is being taken (even though it may not have just yet). It’s also very extendable and can be incorporated into custom website applications, cutting down a lot of development cost. In the form settings, look for the ‘spam honeypot’ setting. We get next to no spam with this setting on.<\/p>\n