Must-Have WordPress Plugins

On Tuesday, August 13^th, WordPress expert Matt Medeiros highlighted “Must-Have WordPress Plugins” to the Newport Interactive Marketers audience at the International Yacht Restoration School.

To better understand the difference, Matt explained the relationship between a website, WordPress, and plugins in this analogy:

Website : iPhone

WordPress : iOs software

Plugins : Apps

Before installing, make sure that your web host can support a lot of bandwidth in the long run. Once your web host is set up, do thorough research on any plugins you are considering for your site: read reviews, check the number of installations and the dates of the most recent updates.  Staying up to date for safety’s sake avoids malware, site lag, and loss of data.

Free and Premium versions are available. Although free ones are great because they’re “accessible, fast and free,” Matt pointed out that there is a difference between Free and Premium—Premium is better.

Premium plugins have more features, better quality, great support, longer product cycle and higher compatibility. If you get what you pay for, it’s worth paying for premium plugins for contact forms and e-commerce.

In addition to explaining the basics, Matt also shared his favorite WordPress plugins:

• Ultimate Coming Soon Page
• Redirection– great for transitioning domain change to WordPress
• Yoast– WordPress SEO and Video SEO
• BackWPup-Wordpress backup plugin
• BackUp Buddy– premium version of BackWPup
• Gravity Forms– premium, very powerful; creates contact forms and can create users
• W3 Total Cache-“cache-ing” helps server, which ultimately helps drive the bottom line for business
• Paid Membership Pro– available in free version and premium version
• Responsive WordPress Slider by Soliloquy
• WooCommerce– E-commerce plugin, also provides extensions for shipping
• bbPress– “be all, end all” discussion platform for WordPress
• JetPack-“a single plugin that does a thousand things”; it has its own analytics and has the capability to cache images and speed up load time
• WPtouch– premium mobile version of WordPress site
• Powerpress– the only one for podcasts

**Can’t find a plugin you want? Matt advises to have a developer create it

Thanks to the International Yacht Restoration School and Bridge Liquors for hosting!