November 8, 2017

10 Free WordPress plugins for small businesses

Content marketing Influencer marketing wordpress

WordPress is a lot more than just a blogging platform. It is a fully customizable Content Management System (CMS) that can power anything from a basic business blog to a full-fledged e-commerce site. You just need to use the right plugins.

So, if you’re using WordPress for a small e-commerce business, here are 10 free WordPress plugins that could be extremely helpful for your platform.

WPForms Lite 

Giving your customers a way to contact you, or to purchase items directly through your site is one of the keys to a great user experience. This is what WPForms help you achieve. A drag-and-drop interface is available to create forms easily that integrate seamlessly with your site. A premium version of this plugin is available, but the “Lite” version may be all you need. These forms can be styled to match your site’s design and custom fields help you cater to your unique requirements.

 

W3 Total Cache 

“Caching” implies that a version of your site is saved in a place that is quicker for your customers to access than your server. W3 Total Cache plugin caches your site using Amazon’s “S3” content delivery network. This reduces the load time of your site, sometimes even by 10 times. This in-turn decreases the load on your server. Not only is the user experience improved substantially, but you also gain SEO benefits because Google uses page load time as a factor to decide the positioning of websites in its search results.

 

Sucuri 

If burglaries in your area were on the rise, you’d probably get an alarm. In the same way, a security system is a crucial WordPress plugin for small businesses, given how common digital crimes are nowadays. Sucuri is a popular and effective firewall that gives you the first line of defense against the most common types of web attacks, including brute force attacks, DDoS attacks, malware threats, and XSS attacks. If you don’t know what any of these means, install Sucuri today!

 

BackupBuddy 

Even big-name brands who spend millions on security get hacked, and historically, WordPress sites have often been the targets of hackers. So, while you must take all possible precautions, you should also make contingency plans in case the worst happen. BackupBuddy is that contingency plan. It lets you restore a full backup of your site in just a few clicks, keeping your site, your database and your customer information secure.

 

OptinMonster 

You have already seen OptinMonster in action in many situations. Remember how when your moves away from a website, you get a pop-up that says “Hey, do you want to sign up to our email list before you go?” That’s what OptinMonster does; it’s a highly effective way of generating leads. OptinMonster offers a plethora of form types, customizable templates, and split testing functionality, so you can test different messages and designs. If you’re not already running email marketing campaigns, you need to get on the case — and OptinMonster is a good way to get started.

 

Quick and Easy FAQs 

This plugin helps you set up an FAQ section on your website. By putting all the commonly asked questions in one place, you can significantly reduce the time spent on dealing with individual customer queries. Quick and Easy FAQs also makes it easy (and quick) to maintain, update and expand your FAQ section over time. So, this is something that can grow with your business, as you expand your line of products and services.

 

IFTTT 

“If This Then That” isn’t a WordPress plugin in the traditional sense, rather a third-party service that integrates seamlessly with WordPress. It allows you to set up automatic actions across your sites and social media channels. For example, you could set your social media sites to automatically publish any new posts that appear on your blog. IFTTT, when used correctly, can save you a lot of time and human effort.

 

Buffer 

Social media is a superb way to engage with your audience and build brand awareness. However, you do need to stay active on it, which can be difficult when you have a million and one other things to do. Buffer helps you manage your social media accounts and schedule posts ahead of time. You can use this to schedule reminders of your upcoming promotions, re-publish older blog content, or just spread out your many thoughts and ideas over time.

 

Yoast SEO 

Yoast SEO is a great WordPress plugin for small business owners who are new to SEO. This plugin will guide you through the whole process, telling you what exactly to do on each of your webpages. The free version of the plugin does not have access to all features. For example, it only helps you optimize each page for a single keyword (the paid version allows five). However, it does give you a lot of SEO powers, and it’s a good place to start.

 

CSS Hero 

When you’re running a small business, you have so much to do; planning your marketing, dealing with customers, managing staff. So, you can be forgiven for not being a coding pro!

But what if you want to make a quick change to your website without paying an exorbitant one-off amount to a developer? That’s where CSS Hero comes to your rescue. It lets you customize the appearance of your site without learning to program, which saves you some very precious time and money.

 

Installing WordPress Plugins 

All of these free WordPress plugins for small businesses can be installed following the same process (besides IFTTT).

  • Just go to “Plugins” from your WordPress admin area.
  • Then click on “Add New”.
  • Simply search for the plugin you want, click “Install,” and then click “Activate.”

 

While not every plugin is needed for every website, there will be some in this list that will help make your business more efficient and easier to manage. Try a few of these out today and let us know how they work for you in the comments below.