You have a WordPress website, and a business to promote.
It doesn’t matter what service or product you are offering to the market, a website can generate business and goodwill by providing authentic information about your enterprises on the internet.
But to run and manage a WordPress website effectively, and to promote your business the best you can, you are going to need advanced features that WordPress doesn’t come bundled with out of the box. For that, you’ll need these 7 must have plugins for Business WordPress websites. Take a look:
1. Contact Form 7
Availability: WordPress Plugin Directory
Contact Form 7 is perhaps the simplest and most popular form builder plugin for WordPress. It’s so well loved and trusted that even premium themes come integrated with it or mention compatibility with this plugin. Contact Form 7 is a quality plugin which lets you create and manage infinite number of contact, registration or sign up, login, and any other forms for your WordPress website, each of them highly customizable and manageable. The forms thus created will also have splendid AJAX features (optional for inline validation), Akismet powered spam filters, Captcha, and more.
You absolutely need this plugin for your business WordPress website of any kind.
2. Local SEO for WordPress
Availability: Yoast
Everyone knows and loves Yoast SEO plugin, which is by far one of the best SEO suites for WordPress with amazing optimization features that almost guarantee great results with consistent application. However, this extension of Yoast is equally awesome, if not more so, specifically for businesses where location or territory are important (example: eCommerce stores, cafes and restaurants, events, other ‘real-world’ services etc.).
Local SEO by Yoast helps you improve your local businesses’ ranks and visibility on search engine results pages when people look up location based services where you are relevant. For instance, keyword like ‘home décor stores in Philadelphia’ or any such related search terms will yield your business name if you fit this bill, and Local SEO by Yoast helps make sure you appear on the top of such results.
You also get Google Maps integration, opening hours and contact info pages, store locators (great for franchises and chains), and more. The plugin extension is available for $69 (one time purchase) for a single site.
3. W3 Total Cache
Availability: WordPress Plugin Directory
This plugin is a must for all WordPress websites.
You website needs to load and it needs to load quickly. To help you achieve that kind of blazing fast performance that keeps users happy and your SEO ranks unblemished, W3C Total Cache is necessary.
The plugin comes with almost every performance optimization feature you’ll need (except images, but you have EWWW Image Optimizer for that). It lets you minify and compress scripts of code, enable browser caching and progressive loading modules, and easily integrate with a CDN (content delivery network) for even higher performance scores. The plugin itself is lightweight and compatible with all good plugins and themes on WordPress.
4. Social Share and Locker Pro
Availability: CodeCanyon
If you are creating great content that readers and visitors love, you need social share and locker pro to add value to your blog.
Social share and locker pro is a smart, premium plugin with amazing features like multiple placement options (across page and posts), customizable share counters, beautiful CSS animation and effects, and a Content Locker feature with which you can effectively ‘lock’ your content from being accessed until a user shares it. While it may sound bad for user experience conscious bloggers, it’s actually pretty effective combined with plugin features like time delays, registration access (to improve your site’s registered user count and to build a community), and other such triggers.
5. Google Analytics by MonsterInsights
Availability: WordPress Plugin Directory
If you can’t really work out the schematics and all the statistical jumble of information on Google Universal Analytics, then Google Analytics by MonsterInsights is your savior.
The plugin is powerful and essentially simplifies the data presentation interface of Google Analytics while adding it right within your WordPress admin dashboard for quick and easy access on the go. You can keep track of user activities and gather statistical insight from data like outbound links, number of downloads, search results, error pages, CTA clicks and more.
6. Inbound Now
Availability: inboundnow.com
Marketing automation at its best and simplest form – Inbound Now is a great plugin/ service for your business WordPress website. The free features are awesome, while premium ($10 a month) features are simply outstanding.
The plugin allows for extensive data collection as well as creation and complete management of landing pages and their CTAs. It also lets you send email newsletters to your subscribers (which you can build in half time with starter email templates available with the plugin), and effective lead generation tools make this a marketer’s dream.
7. Pure Chat
Availability: WordPress Plugin Directory
Interactivity can take your business to unimagined heights. Don’t underestimate its power.
Pure Chat is a live chat plugin for WordPress, which comes complete with online schedule, transcript saving, Multi chat feature, visitor device stats, Multilanguage and translation plugin compatibility, chat window CTAs, Native apps for iOS and Android, SSL security enabled chats, and many more features.
Essentially to help you provide assistance to your website visitors, the plugin can be used with a single agent for free or a starter plan for $15 a month.
Endnote
These may look like a motley crew, but these essential WordPress plugins can take your business to the next level if you invest in them early and use them as best as you can. Many of the top-notch WordPress plugin development companies use these WordPress plugins to create unique and overwhelming websites and applications.
Make sure to check out more features and similar plugins (live chat, local SEO, performance optimization, etc.) for types mentioned above to see your options and then pick the best.