In this episode, we share our top 5 suggested plugins every website should include.
- SEO – Yoast SEO
- Cache – WP Rocket
- Usability – Duplicate Page
- Image Optimization – Smush Pro
- Spam Protection – Antispam Bee
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Keegan 0:00
In today’s episode of the podcast we’re talking about the top five PlugIns for every WordPress site. Welcome to the Divi addicts podcast, a podcast by Keegan Lanier Media, where we deliver news tips tricks on web design to education hungry entrepreneurs who are looking to change their life by starting full fledged business with web design.
Keegan 0:28
What’s up Divi addicts? Welcome back to another episode of the podcast and in this one, you know, we told you in the intro, we’re talking about top our top five plugins that we use on every WordPress site and this list is forever changing. So we’ve got episodes in the past where we did share our top five plugins and and just know that these things are going to live and breathe and grow organically as time goes on. And as our businesses evolve, so without further ado, let’s jump into the very first one. And that’s SEO. I mean, regardless of what you use, regardless of what your favorite is, you need an SEO plugin.
Keegan 1:01
You know the king of the jungle is Yoast, Yoast SEO is great. Everyone is used to it everybody knows how to work around it. And it’s on our list here at number one or not number one and rank but the very first one that we’re going to cover. And to be frank like to be completely honest, the Yoast is not my favorite of all the SEO plugins. I really like smart crawl pro from WPMU DEV. There’s some other ones out there, you know, all in one, SEO, there’s a bunch of them. But I put Yoast here. Because Yoast is the most accessible it’s one everyone knows about. And it is easy to use. The only downside is that on the free version, you can only use one keyword. That’s not the end of the you know the end of the world. It’s not so bad. And everything that you would need to do on an average site is very, very possible with the free version of Yoast so it’s it’s up here under SEO at number one.
Keegan 1:56
And number two is some sort of caching plugin. There’s a lot of people that use WP rocket. Personally I use that on my site. There’s also Hummingbird from WPMU DEV. And there are so many other there’s a tremendous amount of caching plugins there’s Divi rocket specifically for Divi from our friends over at Divi space. And then there’s so many that are just in the WordPress repository. But we’ve got WP rocket, right here at number two on the caching plug in for this list, because we just signed up for it. And after really looking at the setup, it’s one that simply just absolutely easy to use.
Keegan 2:40
And in that case, you know it doesn’t it doesn’t leave a lot to be to be messed up. in it. There’s a lot it’s a great interface, it sets up a lot of what you would need in a general environment right off the bat as soon as you activate it. So it’s dead simple to eat to use and highly highly recommended here. Especially, you know, we make it no secret like we use Flywheel as our host, like a preferred partner for hosting and for Flywheel specific setup, they highly recommend WP rocket which is another reason why we’ve made the transition on Keegan Lanier Media.com from using Hummingbird from WPMU DEV to go in with WP rocket.
Keegan 3:21
So the third one is going to be something that I threw in here more of a user experience a usability type of plugin. And it’s Duplicate Page. And this is something where you can duplicate a post, you can duplicate a page, you can do all these things. I think in the WordPress back end, this is something that should be native should just be built into WordPress, but it isn’t. So we’ve got to rely on plugins to do that. I know in Divi, you know in Divi that whenever you go to open the Visual Builder on a new page for the first time, you can copy a page from a different URL from a different page. This is a little bit different. This literally duplicates everything from the back end, when you’re in your page list like where you see all of your different pages inside of WordPress in that table. You can just hover over the name, hit duplicate page, and it will create a copy of it within seconds. So it’s it’s a very quick way to do that. And it’s something that again, I feel should just be built into WordPress, but it isn’t so hence the reason why this plugin is on the list.
Keegan 4:23
Mood into number four, we’re going to talk specifically about Image Optimization there is again a bunch of options. There’s ew www. I just like to call it you like Jimmy Fallon L. Anyway, there’s that one. It is not the one that is at the top of my list though. I prefer to use Smush from WPMU DEV because of the interface is super simple, really, really easy to set up. And it just it just does its job. They did recently just pull Smush out of the WPMU DEV membership So you don’t have to just get the membership to everything to use Smush you can buy it on its own, you can pay an annual fee or a monthly fee and get Smush Pro.
Keegan 5:10
The biggest benefit between using Smush, the regular one in the WordPress repository and smush Pro is that for the pro version, all of the work is offloaded onto WPMU DEV servers, it takes the strain off your site, especially if you’re using like cheaper hosting or not as beefy hosting, you would like you would do very good to get all of the processing for those images off of your website and away from the resources of your shared server, if that’s what you’re using. If you have a dedicated server and maybe a different situation, and you can weigh those options, but I would highly recommend the pro version of Smush or something like I got reSmush.it, there’s short pixels, there’s a bunch of other ones out there, use your your best judgment, again, we’re gonna go with Smush here, it’s a favorite, because it’s just dead simple to set up.
Keegan 6:06
And then the last one on this list is spam protection. And we particularly pick anti spam be for the fact that you can get it for free. It’s very easy to use. The setup is simple. And it’s not like a Kismet where you have to create an account or, you know, donate to the cause if you’re using a commercial, you know, where you got to put $1 a month or whatever, you know, I’ve done that before, because I want to be on the up and up. And if I’m using it for a commercial thing, that’s not a not a personal site, I want to make sure I follow the rules of engagement with those guys. So in this case, anti spam be super easy to use, very effective.
Keegan 6:49
And it’s just one of those like, it’s not a sexy plugin, it’s not something that gets a lot of flash and any of that, but it’s something that you’ll need, it’s something that you’ll use and something that will really make an impact on your site. Because if you get hit with a bunch of spam, that will add more rows into your tables on your database, and it will make your site ultimately eventually slow down.
Keegan 7:10
So you want to make sure that you have something in place to block that. And you have a process in place to clean up your site. And that is where I’m going to throw it into the pitch of this episode. And that really the pitch for me, but just the pitch in general, in that, you know, Keegan Lanier Media, we’ve got safety plans, a lot of other places called a maintenance agreements, you know, maintenance plans, support plans, whatever you want to call them, where you where you pay somebody for services that they go into your site every month or twice a month to clean up the spam, to optimize your database to manage your revisions on your pages to update themes and plugins. And WordPress itself.
Keegan 7:52
That is a crucial I can’t say that enough crucial part of running a very effective successful website load times have to be low. sites have to be built well, that will that will ultimately lead to you being found by Google and other search engines. So you want to make sure that your site is clean is running fast, it’s optimized, and that maintenance agreement, almost if anybody’s doing it, right, it comes with nightly backups, hours, definitely do. And that is your insurance.
Keegan 8:24
Think of those plans not as an expense. But as insurance. You’d never drive your car around without insurance. You would never own a home without insurance. Your website if it’s built right, it drives sales, you need to protect those sales. And that’s what the service agreements, the maintenance plans, the safety plans, whatever you want to call them. That’s what those are for. So even if you don’t use Keegan Lanier media for that, go find someone who does that and does it well. someone you trust. Go get that for your website.