Introduction
As a business owner, you already know that your website is an important part of any online strategy. It’s where you can build and strengthen relationships with customers, showcase your products and services, and even sell directly to people who visit the site.
But if you’re looking to get more out of your site than just basic functionality, it might be time to consider adding some e-commerce plugins that will make it easier to manage everything from shipping to inventory. If this sounds like something you could benefit from right now, stay tuned as we are about to explore seven must-have plugins for WordPress.
What is a WordPress Plugin?
A WordPress plugin is an add-on that adds new features to your websites, such as contact forms, photo galleries, and email marketing tools. Plugins can be free or paid.
How to Install a WordPress Plugin?
To install a WordPress Plugin, you need to go to the ‘Plugins’ tab in your WordPress dashboard and then click on ‘Add New’. You will then need to search for your desired plugin and click on install now which will take you through a couple of simple steps before it’s up and running. It’s important though not to overload your site with too many plugins.
Why Should I Use WordPress Plugins?
WordPress plugins are small pieces of code that allow you to extend the functionality of your site. WordPress plugins can be used to do things like:
- Add contact forms
- Display a list of recent posts on the homepage
- Collect emails and build an email list so that you can promote your content directly in the sidebar or footer. They’re also easy to install and can be installed from the WordPress dashboard.
7 Top WordPress Plugins
WooCommerce
The most popular e-commerce plugin for WordPress is WooCommerce. It’s a free and open-source tool that allows you to create a fully functional online store in minutes. The plugin has over 34,000 active installs, making it the best choice for anyone who wants to sell physical products online.
WooCommerce can be used by individuals or small businesses looking to make money from their product line. It offers an easy way to set up an online shop and manage inventory, payments, and shipping costs. It’s user-friendly and easy to use, so you can set up your store and start selling quickly and easily.
Customizable
WooCommerce is a great option for e-commerce because it’s incredibly customizable and easy to use. It offers many features out of the box, including shopping carts, product pages with tabs and sliders, ratings and reviews, coupons and discounts. You can also add social media sharing buttons to any product page or blog post on your website.
Adds Ons
With WooCommerce, you can easily add products to your website, set up payment gateways, manage orders and shipments, and more. Plus, it integrates seamlessly with WordPress, so you can manage your e-commerce store and your website content from the same dashboard.
One of the best things about WooCommerce is the huge ecosystem of extensions and add-ons that are available. From plugins that help you manage your inventory, to those that help you create custom product pages, there’s an extension for just about everything. And many of these extensions are free, or available at very reasonable prices.
WPForms
WPForms is a form builder plugin for WordPress. You can use it to create contact forms, product orders, registration forms, and more. It has a drag-and-drop interface which makes it easy to create your own custom web forms in minutes.
This e-commerce plugin is compatible with any theme including WooCommerce as well!
It has many useful features such as:
Form Builder
Create contact forms, product orders, registration forms, and more. It has a drag-and-drop interface which makes it easy to build your own custom web forms within minutes!
Responsive
The form builder plugin is fully responsive and works on any device. No matter if you use a Mac, Chromebook, or tablet, you will be able to access and use all features of WPForms.
A/B Testing
You can create multiple forms and run A/B tests to see which one is more effective.
MailChimp Integration
It integrates seamlessly with popular email marketing and CRM tools, so you can easily manage your customer data and communication. It allows you to connect your MailChimp account with FormGet and import subscribers into it.
Integrations
You can connect your form builder plugin with Zapier and Google Drive to automate your work.
FormGet is one of the best form builders for WordPress. It has a drag-and-drop interface which makes it easy to create your own custom web forms within minutes! You can use it to create contact forms, product orders, registration forms, and more.
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is the most popular WordPress SEO plugin with over 5 million active installs. It’s also free, so it’s worth checking out if you have a WordPress site and want to optimize it for search engines. With Yoast, you can set up title tags, meta descriptions, and social media snippets easily.
Once you’ve got your e-commerce website up and running, the next step is to make sure that people can find it. And that’s where Yoast SEO comes in.
Range of Tools
This popular WordPress plugin helps you optimize your website for search engines so that it ranks higher in search results and gets more traffic. Yoast SEO provides a range of tools and features, including a keyword optimizer, a page analysis tool, and a sitemap generator.
User-Friendly Interface
It also comes with a user-friendly interface, and easy-to-follow instructions, so you can quickly and easily optimize your website for search engines. And because it integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce, you can use Yoast SEO to optimize your product pages, as well as your blog posts and other content.
Real-Time Analytics
It also lets you create sitemaps and gives you a real-time analysis of your SEO performance. You can install it from the WordPress plugin repository or get it from yoast.com.
Yoast is an SEO plugin that helps you optimize your WordPress site for search engines. It’s easy to use, has a ton of features, and is really the best all-in-one SEO solution for WordPress.
MonsterInsights
In order to grow your e-commerce business, it’s important to have a clear understanding of your website traffic and customer behavior. And with the MonsterInsights plugin, you can easily track and analyze your website data, so that you can make informed decisions about your business.
Integrates with Google Analytics
MonsterInsights integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics, so you can easily view and analyze your website data from within your WordPress dashboard. It comes with a range of customizable reports and graphs, so you can see how your website is performing, and identify areas for improvement.
As mentioned, MonsterInsights is an analytics plugin that helps you understand your customers, content, keywords, competitors, and more. The free version gives you access to all of this data in an easy-to-use reporting interface.
You can see which of your products are selling the best and what keywords they’re ranking for on Google. MonsterInsights also gives you insight into how many people visit your website each day and how long they stay there (among other data points).
Premium Version
The premium version has even more features like heat maps so that you can see where people click most often on a page or what sections get the most attention from readers. It also includes conversion tracking so that you can determine exactly why someone buys a product or service from your store before leaving without making a purchase at all!
Simple Interface
The site has a very clean and simple interface, which makes it easy to use. You can easily export the data you need into Excel or Google Sheets if you want to manipulate it further. The free version is also more than enough for most small businesses that just need basic analytics.
Akismet Anti-Spam
Akismet is a WordPress plugin that helps you to reduce comment spam on your blog. Akismet uses a unique combination of user-submitted data and machine learning to accurately identify spam, saving you the headache of having to moderate your comments by hand.
Akismet is a powerful tool that uses a unique combination of user-submitted data and machine learning to identify spam accurately. With this tool, you will be able to learn how much spam is blocked every day without lifting a finger.
The main benefits of using Akismet Anti-Spam for e-commerce are:
Filters Content
It automatically filters out spam comments and other unwanted content, so you don’t have to spend time manually moderating your website.
Machine Learning
The plugin uses advanced algorithms and machine learning techniques to accurately identify and block spam, so you can be confident that your website is protected.
Integrations
Akismet Anti-Spam integrates seamlessly with popular WordPress plugins and platforms, including WooCommerce and Jetpack, so you can easily add them to your e-commerce website.
Free for Personal Use
It’s free for personal use, so you can use it without incurring any upfront costs.
Jetpack
JetPack is a plugin that adds several features to your site. One of the biggest benefits of JetPack is that it comes with a built-in CDN (Content Delivery Network).
CDNs are used to speed up the delivery of your content, especially images and video clips, which tend to be the largest files on your page. The CDN takes these large files and distributes them across different servers around the world so they can be delivered faster than if they were all coming from one server in one country.
JetPack also comes with an SEO plugin built in which will help you optimize your website for search engines like Google and Bing by adding titles and descriptions to every post or page on your site automatically.
Here are some of the main advantages of using JetPack for e-commerce;
Security
It provides a suite of security and backup tools, so you can protect your website and your customer data from threats and data loss.
Performance Enhancements
JetPack offers performance enhancements, such as image optimization and lazy loading, which can help speed up your website and improve the user experience.
Marketing and Engagement Tools
The plugin provides access to a range of marketing and engagement tools, such as email subscriptions, related posts, and social media sharing buttons, which can help you promote your products and engage with your customers.
Integrations
JetPack integrates seamlessly with popular WordPress plugins, including WooCommerce, so you can easily add Jetpack’s features to your e-commerce website.
Free Trial
It’s free to use, with additional features available through paid plans. This means your team can get a taste of the plugin before fully committing to paying for it.
Constant Contact for WordPress
Email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with your customers. If you want to send emails from your site, Constant Contact for WordPress is a great option. It integrates with the popular email service provider Constant Contact and allows you to create and send newsletters, announcements, and more.
The plugin allows you to create a template for your email, which can be customized if needed. You can set the frequency with which you’d like your emails to be sent and choose which subscribers should receive them.
The main benefits of using Constant Contact for WordPress for e-commerce are:
Easily Manage Campaigns
It allows you to easily create and manage email marketing campaigns from within your WordPress dashboard.
Customizable Templates
It comes with a range of customizable templates and design tools, so you can create professional-looking emails that match your brand and your products.
Manage Segmentation
It provides tools for managing and segmenting your email list, so you can target your campaigns to specific groups of customers.
Seamlessly Integrated
It integrates seamlessly with popular WordPress plugins and services, including WooCommerce, so you can easily add email marketing capabilities to your e-commerce website.
Free Trial
It offers a free trial, so you can try it out before committing to a paid plan. This is great for organizations who are not sure if this plugin will meet their needs. With a free trial, you can simply play around with the features to get an understanding of the value they offer.
Overall, Constant Contact for WordPress is a valuable tool for any e-commerce business that uses WordPress and wants to leverage the power of email marketing. It provides a range of features and capabilities that can help you grow your customer list, engage with your audience, and boost your sales.
Conclusion
Running a successful e-commerce business requires a combination of great products, a well-designed website, and effective marketing and analysis tools. And with the seven must-have plugins we’ve covered in this blog post, you can easily add all of these capabilities to your WordPress website.
Whether you’re just starting out, or you’re an experienced e-commerce business owner, these plugins are essential for building and growing your online store. So why not give them a try today, and see how they can help you take your business to the next level!?
Now that you’ve read this blog post, you know the best WordPress plugins for e-commerce sites. These are just a few of the many plugins out there, but they should get you started on building a site that is easy to manage and has everything it needs to succeed.
Good luck!
Another interesting plugin for image optimization: https://wordpress.org/plugins/optipic/ Its automatic convert image to Webp (for webp-supported browsers) and compressed/optimized png/jpeg (for webp-unsupported browsers).