There are literally thousands of themes and plugins available to help you customize your WordPress website to do almost anything you need it to do. However, navigating this sea of plugins can often be a daunting task. During this session, we’ll go over the best practices for finding the right plugin for your needs, and talk about the 7 WordPress plugins I believe are essential to every WordPress-powered site.

1. @brentjacobsen
#WCSLC

2. WITH MORE THAN 30,000 PLUGINS IN WORDPRESS DIRECTORY
LUCK ISN’T ENOUGH

3. WP 4.0: A Huge Help

5. 7 RULES OF THUMB

6. 7 RULES OF THUMB
1. Star Rating 4+

7. 7 RULES OF THUMB
1. Star Rating 4+
2. # of Ratings (100+)

8. 7 RULES OF THUMB
1. Star Rating 4+
2. # of Ratings (100+)
3. # of Downloads (10k+)

9. 7 RULES OF THUMB
1. Star Rating 4+
2. # of Ratings (100+)
3. # of Downloads (10k+)
4. Last Updated (recent)

10. 7 RULES OF THUMB
1. Star Rating 4+
2. # of Ratings (100+)
3. # of Downloads (10k+)
4. Last Updated (recent)
5. Compatible?

11. 7 RULES OF THUMB
1. Star Rating 4+
2. # of Ratings (100+)
3. # of Downloads (10k+)
4. Last Updated (recent)
5. Compatible?
6. Staging

12. 7 RULES OF THUMB
1. Star Rating 4+
2. # of Ratings (100+)
3. # of Downloads (10k+)
4. Last Updated (recent)
5. Compatible?
6. Staging 7. Test!

13. 7 ESSENTIAL PLUGIN TYPES

14. 1

15. 1
COMING
SOON

16. Coming Soon & Maintenance
Mode Plugins
Ø Seedprod (paid)
– www.seedprod.com
– $49 developer license
Ø Easy Coming Soon (free)

17. 2

18. 2
DESIGN &
DEVELOPMENT

19. Site Development Plugins
Ø Beginner
– Duplicate Post (free)
– Template Overide (free)
– Page Scroll to ID (free)
– Visual Composer (paid - CodeCanyon)
Ø Advanced
– Post Snippets (free)
– Advanced Custom Fields (free)

20. 3

21. 3
LEAD
CAPTURE

22. Plugins for Capturing Leads
Ø Basic Lead Gen
– Contact Form 7 (free)
– Gravity Forms (paid - $39-$199)
Ø Intermediate Lead Gen
– Email Before Download & Download Monitor (both free)
– SumoMe (sumome.com - free with paid upgrades)
Ø Advanced Lead Gen
– OptinMonster (paid - $49-$399)
– LeadPages (paid - $37-$97 per month)

23. 4

24. 4
SHARING & SOCIAL

25. Sharing & Social Plugins
Ø Sharing
– Simple Share Buttons Adder (free)
Ø Displaying Social Feeds
– Juiz Last Tweet (free)
– Facebook Widget (free)
– Instagram Feed (free)

26. 5

27. 5
P
E
R
F
O
R
M
A
N
C
E

28. Plugins for Performance
Ø Use Google Libraries (free)
Ø W3 Total Cache (free)
Ø Scripts to Footer (free)
Ø Better Wordpress Minify (free)
Ø Wordpress SEO by Yoast (free)
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

29. 6

30. SECURITY6

31. Backup & Security Plugins
Ø Security
– Wordfence (free with paid upgrade)
Ø Backup
– UpdraftPlus Backup and Restoration for
Wordpress (free with paid upgrades)
– Vaultpress (paid)
– BackupBuddy (paid)

32. A note on Performance and Security
3 BIGGEST FACTORS:
1. Get high-quality hosting
2. Use a well-coded theme
3. Use only reputable, well-developed
plugins (and uninstall ones you
aren’t using)

33. A note on Performance and Security
3 BIGGEST FACTORS:
1. Get high-quality hosting
2. Use a well-coded theme
3. Use only reputable, well-developed
plugins (and uninstall ones you
aren’t using)

34. A note on Performance and Security
3 BIGGEST FACTORS:
1. Get high-quality hosting
2. Use a well-coded theme
3. Use only reputable, well-developed
plugins (and uninstall ones you
aren’t using)

35. A note on Performance and Security
3 BIGGEST FACTORS:
1. Get high-quality hosting
2. Use a well-coded theme
3. Use only reputable, well-developed
plugins (and uninstall ones you
aren’t using)

36. 7

37. 7
PAYMENTS

38. eCommerce & Payment Plugins
Ø eCommerce
– WooCommerce (free)
– Striper – Stripe Integration for WooCommerce (free)
– Easy Digital Downloads (free)
Ø Payments
– WP Stripe (free, but limited)
– WP Full Stripe (paid - CodeCanyon)
– Simple Stipe Checkout (paid)

39. BRENT’S ESSENTIAL 7

41. Brent’s Essential 7
Ø Contact Form 7
Ø Template Overide
Ø SumoMe
Ø Duplicate Post
Ø W3 Total Cache (varies by host)
Ø Visual Composer
Ø Stripe
– WooCommerce & Striper –or-
– WP Full Stripe –or-
– Simple Stripe Checkout

42. Brent Jacobsen
Partner – FDEV.com
Founder - WPUtah.org
!
@brentjacobsen
@wputah
@fdev
!
FDEV
is
Hiring!
Email
brent@fdev.com
for
details