Setting Up WordPress: 10 Best Plugins & Tools To Have From The Get-Go
One of the best things about WordPress is that its plethora of add-ons and plugins make it incredibly easy to set up. But this can also result in ambiguity as it can be difficult to choose from this wide range of extensions.
In this article, we’ll help you discover the best free and premium plugins and tools that we use here on DesignBombs to familiarize you with the ins and outs of getting the best out of your WordPress site. We will cover all of the tools and plugins we’re using in this article, from our hosting all the way on up to plugins to help you create pretty URLs.
Let’s get started.
01. Genesis Framework by StudioPress
Genesis Framework is a jack of all trades when it comes to building WordPress websites. You can be an expert and love the options that you get or you can be a novice WordPress’er and love the simplicity it provides – Genesis Framework has something to offer to everyone.
You can buy a single license for $59.95 or go for the pro-plus, all theme package for $499.95 with which you get lifetime access to all child themes that are made by StudioPress as well as any new themes they release in the future. Now that’s quite a bargain.
Whether you’re interested in design or optimizing your content for search engines, Genesis Framework has got you covered. It’s loaded with an extensive array of child themes and you get access to a lot of tutorials that are very helpful (especially if you’re new to WordPress).
Getting a lot of subscribers is a must-have for most websites and blogs and Thrive Leads?is a great way to make this task as smooth as possible. It is a marketing tool with a lot of great reviews. There are a lot of features that earn this plugin a place on this list, but here I will go through the most prominent of these.
First, it lets you create a variety of different opt-in types, including:
Popups
Notification bars
In-line forms
Slide-ins
Widgets
Scroll mats
You can use tons of trigger and targeting rules to control where and when your forms appear, and Thrive Leads also includes other helpful features like A/B testing and a drag-and-drop form builder.
Thrive Leads Alternatives: Another good option for list building on WordPress is OptinMonster. While it’s technically a standalone service, OptinMonster is super easy to integrate into WordPress thanks to its dedicated plugin.
03. Canva
Canva offers you a field of designs that you can use for creating visually stunning documents and templates and social media images.
“The easiest to use design program in the world” – The Webbys
It offers a range of layouts that you can use to create professional documents or presentations. It has everything from high-quality images to filters that you can leverage to give your site that extra zing.
You’ll also get a ton of fonts and icons to pick from so you can unleash the artist in you and build layouts that appeal to you, your site’s visitors, and, most importantly, your subscribers.
Canva Alternatives: Other good graphic design tools like this are Stencil and DesignBold.
04. Syntax Highlighter
If the content you provide requires code to be displayed alongside your content, then Syntax Highlighter is your go-to resource.
It can be a nightmare if the formatting gets messed up and you realize that after you’ve already uploaded the code. The solution is Syntax Highlighter. This plugin makes it relatively simple to post syntax highlighted code on to your WordPress site without the fear of messing up its formatting or having to edit the code manually. The readability is also enhanced due to the code being separate from the text.
05. Kinsta
Kinsta brings convenience to a whole new level for you. It is an all-in-one WordPress hosting service that manages your entire website’s infrastructure for you.
Bringing in play a wide array of features and functions that will leave almost no venue untouched, Kinsta offers free site migration, a premium tech support, and takes care of maintaining the speed of your website as well. It has 19 data centers across the globe and you can switch to the one where the majority of your visitors are in order to speed up load times of your website.
You get CDN network support from Kinsta and you are free to use any third party CDN if you prefer as well. It has free SSL and SPDY support and provides IPv4 addresses and for those of you with a passion for techy words, it uses Nginx, an event-based web server, and also the much more recent HHVM interpreter. Also, it has TLS support for all CDN setups and HTTPS stacks with the best performance. Basically, it’s really fast!
The most prominent feature is Dynamic load balancing which makes a network of three virtual machines and leaves very little chance of software or maintenance downtime, which is a really great thing.
WP Rocket is a WordPress caching and optimization plugin that makes it really easy to speed up your site’s load times.
Beyond caching, WP Rocket also implements lots of other techniques like minification, lazy loading, database optimization, GZIP compression, and a whole lot more.
WP Rocket Alternatives: There aren’t very many caching plugins that are as convenient as WP Rocket. But if you’re willing to get your hands dirty, you can approximate its functionality with free plugins like Cache Enabler and Autoptimize.
07. Mailchimp
Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing services out there. It’s easy to integrate and get used to with a simple drag-and-drop designer to build your own email designs.
It automates a lot of work and makes it easy for you to segment your customers according to their preferences and behavior. It is easy to integrate with most of the commonly used plugins because of its compatibility with numerous apps and services like Facebook, Google, and Twitter.
You can create a series of emails with a single click and it also provides you analytical data that you can access from anywhere. It also has mobile-ready templates and forms right out of the box.
No matter what your site is for, backups are essential to keep your site’s data safe. For easy backup, migration, and restoration of your WordPress site, we recommend BackupBuddy.
It is very easy to create backups with this plugin and you can schedule one of two backups to take place — full or routine. You can choose which files and tables to exclude from the backup. It lets you store your data on the BackupBuddy stash for a complete set of your backups or you can also use other offsite storage such as Dropbox or email. You can also create different profiles associated with their own backups and settings.
Most of us are familiar with the website Unsplash.com. It is a website that provides a staggering amount of free images for you to use and now you can upload images directly to your WordPress Media Library without having to leave your WordPress Dashboard by using the Unsplash WP Plugin. Do I hear extra marks for convenience?
Unsplash WP Alternatives:?You can find similar plugins for other free stock photo sites. Other good options are WP Pexels and Pixabay Images.
10. ThirstyAffiliates
We have all used lengthy and cluttered URLs and used bit.ly or tinyurl.com to create shortened links. A far more suitable alternative to that is ThirstyAffiliates. And guess what? With Thirsty Affiliates, you can use your own domain name to shorten the link while making it cleaner at the same time.
It allows for 307 and 301 redirects only and is a great tool for receiving detailed links of your URL such as hits per link and unique hits per link.
ThirstyAffiliates Alternatives: Another solid free option is Pretty Links Lite, though we prefer ThirstyAffiliates.
11. Embed Code
Embed Code is a free WordPress plugin that makes it super easy to add code snippets to your WordPress site’s header or footer.
As your site grows, you’re going to almost certainly need to do this. Common examples are adding:
Google Analytics
Facebook Pixel
Custom CSS stylesheets
Site verification snippets
Etc.
Rather than messing around with your child theme, Embed Code will save you a ton of time and make it easier to organize all your various code snippets.
To Sum It Up
Managing a website is a full-time job. It is like owning a farm. Not only do you have to take care of the farm but also market what the farm produces so you can profit from it. After getting all these plugins, taking care of your farm (website), will no longer be a hassle and you will be able to focus more on the production, which, in this case, would be content development.
Let us know what plugins you find essential to your WordPress site and why, in the comments section below, we love hearing from our readers!
Related Posts
About Rafay Ansari
Rafay is an entrepreneur, computer scientist, and professional ghost-writer for several high-traffic websites.
Reader Interactions
Droppin' design bombs every week! 5,751 subscriber so far!
Replace Pretty Link nonsense by “Wizard Cloak” … which is also FREE plus also better functionality than the Pretty Link Pro and Better Links Pro combined. Including GEO targeting and keyword tagging.
And OptinMonster (affiliate link hmm?) although awesome, has become extincts due to wBounce. Has the same functionality, supports all autoresponders, super easy css design, on-exit / exit-intent technology, animation effects, etc. Saves another $49-199/year.
BackupBuddy … seeing this recommend everywhere as well. Prefer using FREE email SQL backup service provided from within iTheme Security.
Syntax Highlighter is pretty awesome but prefer “Crayon Syntax Highlighter” myself.
MaxCDN is superawesome. However W3TC self-hosted CDN + CloudFlare gives me better results and again free (although does require some tech knowledge to set it all up).
On a positive note? ? Canva is indeed awesome. And didn’t know about Unsplash yet; been using “WP inject” (flicker searcher) + “Image Teleporter” myself.
Pretty Link — I have been using the lite version for last 1 year and it works smoothly. I didn’t needed the Geo targeting and keyword tagging, so Pretty Link it perfect. Though, it did take a look at Wizard Cloak, it looks nice (plus it is created by Soflyy, who also created WP All Import).
OptinMonster — yes, an affiliate link (which we disclose at the bottom of each post). Never tried wBounce, so thanks for the suggestion — I’ll take a look.
But I think I’d still prefer OM, because it does much more than popups / exit-intent, and gets regular updates.
BackupBuddy — nice to know about the free backup feature in iThemes security.
Crayon highlight looks nice but I think it really depends on the personal preference.
W3TC — not using it anymore, we are currently using WP Rocket + MaxCDN. Also, we ran a test comparing top caching plugins, you should check it out.
Glad you found some positive / useful info out of this post :).
Everything does indeed rely on personal preference, and then there are some things that are just better from every angle :-p and free. But thanks for the feedback. And did actually purchase WP Rocket base on your recommendation (and the half a dozen of other reviews I seen about it the past few months); too bad they don’t offer an affiliate program ? We would all become RICH! ?
Definitely, we could have made some nice side-income, seeing so many people use WP Rocket, plus it is one of those essential plugins that you can find in almost every best plugins list :).
On a side note, you purchased the plugin on right time. They recently updated their policy to make it easy for users to get refunds (source).
That again was no use: he but got another smile and a friendly look of the sort he no longer wanted. I said I thought I could gallop if Harry could, and in a few minutes we were up with the ambulance. It had stopped. There were several men about it, including Sergeant Jim and Kendall, which two had come from Quinn, and having just been in the ambulance, at Ferry's side, were now remounting, both of them openly in tears. "Hello, Kendall." We have this great advantage in dealing with Plato—that his philosophical writings have come down to us entire, while the thinkers who preceded him are known only through fragments and second-hand reports. Nor is the difference merely accidental. Plato was the creator of speculative literature, properly so called: he was the first and also the greatest artist that ever clothed abstract thought in language of appropriate majesty and splendour; and it is probably to their beauty of form that we owe the preservation of his writings. Rather unfortunately, however, along with the genuine works of the master, a certain number of pieces have been handed down to us under his name, of which some are almost universally admitted to be spurious, while the authenticity of others is a question on which the best scholars are still divided. In the absence of any very cogent external evidence, an immense amount of industry and learning has been expended on this subject, and the arguments employed on both sides sometimes make us doubt whether the reasoning powers of philologists are better developed than, according to Plato, were those of mathematicians in his time. The176 two extreme positions are occupied by Grote, who accepts the whole Alexandrian canon, and Krohn, who admits nothing but the Republic;115 while much more serious critics, such as Schaarschmidt, reject along with a mass of worthless compositions several Dialogues almost equal in interest and importance to those whose authenticity has never been doubted. The great historian of Greece seems to have been rather undiscriminating both in his scepticism and in his belief; and the exclusive importance which he attributed to contemporary testimony, or to what passed for such with him, may have unduly biassed his judgment in both directions. As it happens, the authority of the canon is much weaker than Grote imagined; but even granting his extreme contention, our view of Plato’s philosophy would not be seriously affected by it, for the pieces which are rejected by all other critics have no speculative importance whatever. The case would be far different were we to agree with those who impugn the genuineness of the Parmenides, the Sophist, the Statesman, the Philêbus, and the Laws; for these compositions mark a new departure in Platonism amounting to a complete transformation of its fundamental principles, which indeed is one of the reasons why their authenticity has been denied. Apart, however, from the numerous evidences of Platonic authorship furnished by the Dialogues themselves, as well as by the indirect references to them in Aristotle’s writings, it seems utterly incredible that a thinker scarcely, if at all, inferior to the master himself—as the supposed imitator must assuredly have been—should have consented to let his reasonings pass current under a false name, and that, too, the name of one whose teaching he in some respects controverted; while there is a further difficulty in assuming that his existence could pass unnoticed at a period marked by intense literary and philosophical activity. Readers who177 wish for fuller information on the subject will find in Zeller’s pages a careful and lucid digest of the whole controversy leading to a moderately conservative conclusion. Others will doubtless be content to accept Prof. Jowett’s verdict, that ‘on the whole not a sixteenth part of the writings which pass under the name of Plato, if we exclude the works rejected by the ancients themselves, can be fairly doubted by those who are willing to allow that a considerable change and growth may have taken place in his philosophy.’116 To which we may add that the Platonic dialogues, whether the work of one or more hands, and however widely differing among themselves, together represent a single phase of thought, and are appropriately studied as a connected series. Before entering on our task, one more difficulty remains to be noticed. Plato, although the greatest master of prose composition that ever lived, and for his time a remarkably voluminous author, cherished a strong dislike for books, and even affected to regret that the art of writing had ever been invented. A man, he said, might amuse himself by putting down his ideas on paper, and might even find written178 memoranda useful for private reference, but the only instruction worth speaking of was conveyed by oral communication, which made it possible for objections unforeseen by the teacher to be freely urged and answered.117 Such had been the method of Socrates, and such was doubtless the practice of Plato himself whenever it was possible for him to set forth his philosophy by word of mouth. It has been supposed, for this reason, that the great writer did not take his own books in earnest, and wished them to be regarded as no more than the elegant recreations of a leisure hour, while his deeper and more serious thoughts were reserved for lectures and conversations, of which, beyond a few allusions in Aristotle, every record has perished. That such, however, was not the case, may be easily shown. In the first place it is evident, from the extreme pains taken by Plato to throw his philosophical expositions into conversational form, that he did not despair of providing a literary substitute for spoken dialogue. Secondly, it is a strong confirmation of this theory that Aristotle, a personal friend and pupil of Plato during many years, should so frequently refer to the Dialogues as authoritative evidences of his master’s opinions on the most important topics. And, lastly, if it can be shown that the documents in question do actually embody a comprehensive and connected view of life and of the world, we shall feel satisfied that the oral teaching of Plato, had it been preserved, would not modify in any material degree the impression conveyed by his written compositions. breakfast in the kitchen by candle-light, and then drove the five The bargaining was interminable, something in this manner:— Then follows a long discussion in Hindi with the bystanders, who always escort a foreigner in a mob, ending in the question— There was a bright I. D. blanket spread on the ground a little way back from the fire, and she threw herself down upon it. All that was picturesque in his memories of history flashed back to Cairness, as he took his place beside Landor on the log and looked at her. Boadicea might have sat so in the depths of the Icenean forests, in the light of the torches of the Druids. So the Babylonian queen might have rested in the midst of her victorious armies, or she of Palmyra, after the lion hunt in the deserts of Syria. Her eyes, red lighted beneath the shadowing lashes, met his. Then she glanced away into the blackness of the pine forest, and calling her dog to lie down beside her, stroked its silky red head. The retreat was made, and the men found themselves again in the morning on the bleak, black heath of Drummossie, hungry and worn out, yet in expectation of a battle. There was yet time to do the only wise thing—retreat into the mountains, and depend upon a guerilla warfare, in which they would have the decided advantage. Lord George Murray now earnestly proposed this, but in vain. Sir Thomas Sheridan and other officers from France grew outrageous at that proposal, contending that they could easily beat the English, as they had done at Prestonpans and Falkirk—forgetting that the Highlanders then were full of vigour and spirit. Unfortunately, Charles listened to this foolish reasoning, and the fatal die was cast. "They said they were going for our breakfast," said Harry. "And I hope it's true, for I'm hungrier'n a rip-saw. But I could put off breakfast for awhile, if they'd only bring us our guns. I hope they'll be nice Springfield rifles that'll kill a man at a mile." "Dod durn it," blubbered Pete, "I ain't cryin' bekase Pm skeered. I'm cryin' bekase I'm afeared you'll lose me. I know durned well you'll lose me yit, with all this foolin' around." He came nearly every night. If she was not at the gate he would whistle a few bars of "Rio Bay," and she would steal out as soon as she could do so without rousing suspicion. Boarzell became theirs, their accomplice in some subtle, beautiful way. There was a little hollow on the western slope where they would crouch together and sniff the apricot scent of the gorse, which was ever afterwards to be the remembrancer of their love, and watch the farmhouse lights at Castweasel gleam and gutter beside Ramstile woods. "Yes, De Boteler," continued the lady, "I will write to him, and try to soothe his humour. You think it a humiliation—I would humble myself to the meanest serf that tills your land, could I learn the fate of my child. The abbot may have power to draw from this monk what he would conceal from us; I will at least make the experiment." The lady then, though much against De Boteler's wish, penned an epistle to the abbot, in which concession and apologies were made, and a strong invitation conveyed, that he would honour Sudley castle by his presence. The parchment was then folded, and dispatched to the abbot. "A very pretty method, truly! You know not the miners and forgers of Dean Forest!—why I would stake a noble to a silver-penny, that if you had discovered he was hidden there, and legally demanded him, he would be popped down in a bucket, to the bottom of some mine, where, even the art of Master Calverley could not have dragged him to the light of day until the Forest was clear of the pack:—but, however, to speak to the point," perceiving that the steward's patience was well nigh exhausted—"I saw Stephen Holgrave yesterday, in the Forest." HoME欧美一级 片a高清
ENTER NUMBET 0016www.kk8news.com.cn heychef.com.cn ichengad.com.cn www.gzyhncp.org.cn himokids.com.cn www.nqglgs.com.cn www.vvedu.com.cn www.ubdex.org.cn oncbur.com.cn www.mydiy21.org.cn
Replace Pretty Link nonsense by “Wizard Cloak” … which is also FREE plus also better functionality than the Pretty Link Pro and Better Links Pro combined. Including GEO targeting and keyword tagging.
And OptinMonster (affiliate link hmm?) although awesome, has become extincts due to wBounce. Has the same functionality, supports all autoresponders, super easy css design, on-exit / exit-intent technology, animation effects, etc. Saves another $49-199/year.
BackupBuddy … seeing this recommend everywhere as well. Prefer using FREE email SQL backup service provided from within iTheme Security.
Syntax Highlighter is pretty awesome but prefer “Crayon Syntax Highlighter” myself.
MaxCDN is superawesome. However W3TC self-hosted CDN + CloudFlare gives me better results and again free (although does require some tech knowledge to set it all up).
On a positive note? ? Canva is indeed awesome. And didn’t know about Unsplash yet; been using “WP inject” (flicker searcher) + “Image Teleporter” myself.
Hey Earnle,
Pretty Link — I have been using the lite version for last 1 year and it works smoothly. I didn’t needed the Geo targeting and keyword tagging, so Pretty Link it perfect. Though, it did take a look at Wizard Cloak, it looks nice (plus it is created by Soflyy, who also created WP All Import).
OptinMonster — yes, an affiliate link (which we disclose at the bottom of each post). Never tried wBounce, so thanks for the suggestion — I’ll take a look.
But I think I’d still prefer OM, because it does much more than popups / exit-intent, and gets regular updates.
BackupBuddy — nice to know about the free backup feature in iThemes security.
Crayon highlight looks nice but I think it really depends on the personal preference.
W3TC — not using it anymore, we are currently using WP Rocket + MaxCDN. Also, we ran a test comparing top caching plugins, you should check it out.
Glad you found some positive / useful info out of this post :).
Cheers!
Everything does indeed rely on personal preference, and then there are some things that are just better from every angle :-p and free. But thanks for the feedback. And did actually purchase WP Rocket base on your recommendation (and the half a dozen of other reviews I seen about it the past few months); too bad they don’t offer an affiliate program ? We would all become RICH! ?
No problem.
Definitely, we could have made some nice side-income, seeing so many people use WP Rocket, plus it is one of those essential plugins that you can find in almost every best plugins list :).
On a side note, you purchased the plugin on right time. They recently updated their policy to make it easy for users to get refunds (source).
Great!! Thx!!