{"id":1819,"date":"2018-06-04T09:00:56","date_gmt":"2018-06-04T13:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/themodernconnection.com\/?p=1819"},"modified":"2018-06-04T09:00:56","modified_gmt":"2018-06-04T13:00:56","slug":"essential-wordpress-plugins-for-your-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/targetmarket.com\/essential-wordpress-plugins-for-your-website\/","title":{"rendered":"Essential WordPress Plugins for Your Website"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We have a vast array of clients from all sorts of different industries. So one of the most fun parts of my job as our website designer (just one part of my Digital Marketing Manager title!) is that I get to create websites with alllll different aspects, features, and needs they have to serve.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve created a basic one-page website for a construction company, our own agency website as well as the membership subscription site for our TMC Academy, an eCommerce website with both retail and wholesale capabilities, and regular informational websites that don\u2019t need any extra bells and whistles.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I\u2019ve done all of these on WordPress. (Which, if you\u2019ve ever worked with us, you know we recommend tenfold over every other CMS.)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But WordPress isn\u2019t really a one-size-fits-all kind of site. Instead, it\u2019s a CMS (content management system — basically the thing that gives you a dashboard and accessible back end to making edits and adding content to your site) that allows you to shape it however you need.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we can do this through various themes and plugins.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, themes are a topic for another day. Right now we want to focus on plugins.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know that old \u201cThere\u2019s an app for that\u201d jingle. WordPress plugins are pretty much the same way. Pretty much whatever you need, you can get through a plugin. (This is certainly not a blanket statement, though. Some things just can\u2019t be done.)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I\u2019ve used all sorts of different plugins with the websites I\u2019ve built, there are a few constants that I put on every single one of them.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And whether you\u2019re trying to figure out what plugins you need on your site, thinking about working with us and curious what security measurements and more that we put on your site, or just someone who likes to read digital marketing content online (no? Just me?), I wanted to share these plugins with you.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Yoast SEO<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Yoast SEO<\/a> is hands down the easiest way to get started with your website\u2019s SEO (search engine optimization). This plugin gives you easy access to your focus keyword, SEO title, and meta description for each page and blog post so that you don\u2019t have to try figuring all of this out in the code of your site.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although there\u2019s <\/span>a lot more that goes into SEO<\/span><\/a> than just plugging in keywords, Yoast SEO is a great start.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Gravity Forms<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Every website needs a contact form, and our preference is Gravity Forms<\/a>. We\u2019ve used several different types before (with Contact Form 7 being a close second favorite due to its visual appeal), but Gravity Forms has everything we need.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I love most about Gravity Forms is that it houses your form submissions on the dashboard of your WordPress website. So if there\u2019s ever an issue — you\u2019re not receiving submissions, your email inbox is unexpectedly full, or the send-to email somehow got typed in wrong — you can still access every form submission ever sent (unless you delete them) right from the back end of your WordPress website.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Insert Headers and Footers<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As a full-service digital marketing agency, there are a lot of things we need to utilize your website for. And one of those is as a landing page for your digital ads. Implementing proper tracking is essential for understanding exactly how many conversions your ads are driving, what\u2019s causing things not to work\/convert, and how much you\u2019re spending for new leads and customers.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Insert Headers and Footers plugin<\/a> is my favorite for plugging in the global tracking codes so that we\u2019re able to keep an eye on our client ads in real-time.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Akismet<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Akismet<\/a> is a plugin that automatically comes on WordPress websites and is great for helping weed out spam comments, messages, and form submissions. Although depending on your blog, website, or industry, you may have comments turned off (we personally prefer for our readers to <\/span>tweet us<\/span><\/a> with any comments rather than leave them on the blog post!), you may not feel like you need spam detection, but you\u2019d be surprised!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Jetpack<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jetpack<\/a> is another great plugin that typically comes on any WordPress website as well. You\u2019ll need to create a WordPress.com account to connect it to, but it has tons of features and functionality to help you manage your site.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although we also ensure every website we work on is connected to Google Analytics, one of my favorite quick-view features of Jetpack is its analytics and showing how many people have visited your site each day. It\u2019s much more comprehensive than Google Analytics at first glance and helps a lot of our clients be able to understand their web stats more effectively.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Shareaholic<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are a million and twelve social sharing plugins out there, but throughout my searches, none are as seamless, customizable, and visually appealing as Shareaholic. If we need to implement social sharing on any website\/blog, we always do so with Shareaholic<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is important because you want an easy way for readers who land on your blog posts or other informational pages to share your content so that others can potentially find it and find your business.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If your business is in need of a new look online, let us know! We\u2019d love to work with you on what your website needs to serve your customers, and how we can create it in a streamlined, easy-to-use way! <\/span>Give us a call at (888) 632-4499 or fill out our free consultation form online.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have a vast array of clients from all sorts of different industries. So one of the most fun parts of my job as our website designer (just one part of my Digital Marketing Manager title!) is that I get to create websites with alllll different aspects, features, and needs they have to serve. I\u2019ve created a basic one-page website…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1823,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[191,40,41,192],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/targetmarket.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/targetmarket.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/targetmarket.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/targetmarket.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/targetmarket.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/targetmarket.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/targetmarket.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/targetmarket.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/targetmarket.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/targetmarket.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}