1. Yoast SEO
Yoast is a fantastic plugin for WordPress which allows you to easily edit & change meta descriptions, site titles, and much more on your WordPress website. They have a free version – which we would recommend to anyone – a premium version, and a local SEO version.
Benefits
- Easily edit & change titles en masse.
- Makes on-page SEO easy.
- Analyses your copy and gives you suggestions based on keyword use.
- The basic plugin is free to use.
2. WP Rocket
WP Rocket is a plugin that speeds up your website by implementing clever and ingenious solutions such as combining scripts, lazy loading, and creating page cache for your website among a range of other awesome features. WP Rocket is a premium plugin but well worth the investment if you run multiple websites. Google now takes your speed into account when ranking websites, don’t ignore it!
Benefits
- Can significantly increase your site speed.
- Can indirectly increase SERP Rankings.
- Makes what sometimes can be techy and complicated, into a plugin that is extremely easy to use.
3. Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms is an incredible plugin with lots of support and a plethora of options that we use on every project. Gravity Forms is a plugin that allows you to have interactive forms on your website, that can take payments, bookings, and a whole range of things. We’ve used it for a skip booking form which has generated £10,000’s in revenue as well as using it for large E-Commerce projects where people can customise their curtains.
Below are a few 3rd party plugins for Gravity Forms that can extend its functionality further:
- Gravity Wiz – an awesome set of plugins that add a wide range of features to your form, such as conditional logic, and helps you to connect two forms.
- Gravity View – allows you to build things such as a membership directory, we’ve used it in the past to create check-in apps and membership directories for a charity we support.
- Gravity Forms + WooCommerce – a great plugin that allows you to add GravityForms to your WooCommerce products to create really in-depth forms.
4. WooCommerce
WooCommerce turns any WordPress website into an E-Commerce store that allows you to sell products and services online. WooCommerce is also now managed by Automattic, the people who make the WordPress CMS.
Benefits
- Allows you to turn your website into an E-Commerce machine
- Takes care of a lot of the E-Commerce functionality you will need, postage, delivery, orders, taxes, etc…
- It’s 100% free, although some premium add ons exist for extra functionality.
5. Advanced Custom Fields
ACF or Advanced Custom Fields is an amazing plugin and integral to our workflow at Unbranded Digital. It allows us to make php templates editable for clients. It allows all the websites we create to be completely customisable for clients while being lightweight and super fast.
Benefits
- Edit page templates and make rich content editable.
- Clients can edit templates without destroying their website.
- Less bloat than many conventional drag & drop builders.
- Has a free version and a pro version which are excellent value for money.
