Top 5 Free WordPress Plugins

Free WordPress plugins are tools used to complement the features and functionality of a blog or website. The goal is to boost search engine positioning and improve the user experience.

From here we are going to show you the best WordPress plugins for your digital marketing strategy , so that you keep them in mind and can include them when you need them. If you want to increase the functionality of your WordPress platform, these are some essentials that will be of great help to you.

WHAT IS A WORDPRESS PLUGIN?

WordPress plugins are actually snippets of code that connect to your website to enhance it. These are extensions that, properly installed, will enhance the common functions that are part of WordPress.

You don't need to be computer savvy or edit complicated code, all you have to do is install and use it to enhance the capabilities of your site. Not everyone is able to customize and implement long codes and tags, so the easiest thing to do is to download plugins and use them for your own benefit.

WHAT ARE WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR?

If you wonder what you can do with a plugin, from here we tell you that they can modify your blog to make it a more functional and practical place according to your needs. You just have to follow a few simple steps and in return they will transform your site into what you want. For example, if you are considering making an online store, you can rely on WooCommerce , and if you want to improve the web positioning of your blog, take a look at Yoast SEO .

Some plugins are capable of completely transforming your website, while others make adjustments to optimize the performance of your website. Be that as it may, you will be able to take advantage of them and improve the performance of your WordPress, increase the security of the site or customize your publications.

WHERE TO FIND GOOD AND RELIABLE WORDPRESS PLUGINS?

As for where to find WordPress plugins, there are several places to get them. Now, you should pay attention to the platforms where you download published plugins because some developers are not reliable and can affect your website.

The WordPress directory is the best option when looking for the best plugins. There are thousands of them published, so you will not have any problem when searching for a specific one. It is also possible to invest money and buy premium plugins, although with the free ones you will get great results.

To install them, all you have to do is go to the WordPress directory, go to the "Plugins" category and click "Add New" from your dashboard. It is also possible to install them by uploading plugin.sip files to your website or uploading them via FTP, although the first option is the easiest.

PAID WORDPRESS PLUGINS VS. FREE PLUGINS

If you're wondering what paid plugins have that free ones don't, read on. And it is that, in reality, that you have to pay does not necessarily mean that you have a plugin of superior quality. In fact, you can always find a free alternative, although certain features may only be available in its paid version. 

Before choosing to pay for a premium plugin, you should first ask yourself what different features it has compared to free plugins, and if you really need them.

  • One of the advantages of premium plugins is that they have a very comprehensive support and you can get help whenever you need it.
  • In the case of free plugins you will have to investigate and read the files or manuals they come with to configure their functions and adjust them for further optimization .

Be that as it may, before installing any plugin, you should know what your website will need to avoid inefficient installations that do not serve you at all.

If you know the plugin you need, it will be easier for you to access the most suitable ones to achieve your goals. Also, it is important to check the plugin compatibility with your WordPress theme and version. Some of them may not be compatible with the older or later version of your WordPress and installing it before checking it could cause you some problems.

You should also pay attention to the two versions of WordPress that exist. The Wordpress.org version will allow you to use any plugin you want, something that will not happen in the case of Wordpress.com.

Also, you should know that the number of plugins you install will not affect the performance of your website. Now, poorly coded plugins can slow down your site or cause some errors. Another thing to keep in mind is that anything added to the website will use disk space and to avoid problems and conflicts between your plugins, it is best to keep an adequate number.

The good and the bad at the same time is that there are thousands of WordPress plugins available to improve workflow, functionality, and user experience.

For that reason we have made a list of the 5 best free plugins for WordPress, which we will analyze below. In this way you will not have to break your head and you will be able to access the most used and recommended ones.

WHAT PLUGINS ARE THE MOST USED IN WORDPRESS?

There is a large community of developers responsible for creating WordPress extensions. In fact, whether a plugin is paid or free will depend on what is established by the developer.

As a rule, you will find two different versions of the same plugin. In this way, in the free version you will find some limitations that you can access if you pay to download the full plugin.

Some plugins are key, while others are more optional. From here we are going to recommend some of the most used to enhance the functionality of your WordPress site. They are totally free, although they have great potential to make the most of them. Take note of them!

YOAST SEO

If you plan to create a project in WordPress, we advise you to install an SEO plugin . In order to increase the number of visitors and make it easier for users to find your website in search engines, you need to improve your ranking in results thanks to powerful tools like Yoast SEO . Without a doubt, it is one of the essential Wordpress plugins that cannot be missing in a digital marketing strategy.

This extension has its free edition, enough to optimize any more or less ambitious project and check the readability of the content automatically. Although with Yoast SEO Premium you will have a greater number of SEO strategies, its basic edition is enough to start including keywords in your texts.

One of its main advantages lies in its ability to perform legibility analysis , so that you facilitate the reading and understanding of your writings, taking into account various aspects such as visual design, typography and the degree of difficulty of the words used. Another of its benefits refers to the many automatic SEO optimizations that it is capable of providing, whether they are meta tags or canonical URLs.

Perhaps one of its biggest disadvantages lies in its lack of customer service resources, something that is only available in the premium version, but it is a very intuitive tool and there are many tutorials on the internet to be able to use it correctly.

This plugin currently has more than 5 million active downloads. It is logical if we take into account that it will help you to correct the parts of your website that are weakened, empowering them to gain positions in the search results in Google .  

Without a doubt, they are a great resource for small and medium-sized websites, which are usually used on a regular basis. If we are talking about larger projects, whose success largely depends on SEO, it is more convenient to use its paid version.

ELEMENTOR

It is one of the most popular plugins that exist when creating pages. Its main functionality is drag and drop, and in that very simple way it allows you to customize WordPress pages and posts .    

This plugin provides a multitude of different page templates and numerous widget options that will allow you to add various features, such as a progress bar, without the need to add additional plugins.

At first, there is no reason to pay for this type of plugin, as Elementor will be of great help to create functional, personalized and aesthetically attractive websites. Either way, you have to pay attention to WordPress themes and choose the right one to avoid a problem.

As you may already know, WordPress themes are pre-designed templates that you can install on your site to avoid designing pages from scratch. The idea is to install them easily and configure or customize them according to your tastes and interests. When using Elementor, the choice of theme becomes important so that there are no conflicts between the two.

The good thing about Elementor is that it works pretty much with most WordPress themes, but if you prefer not to mess around, you can use the Hello Elementor WordPress theme, which has been designed by the plugin developers themselves.

Something crucial: remember to choose responsive themes so that they adapt visually to different devices, and consider the updates and technical support they offer. Some of them are not updated, which can cause us a big problem, hence you should look at the number of updates that the theme in question has.

WOOCOMMERCE

Woocommerce is a plugin dedicated to e-commerce and its use will lead you to obtain e-commerce features , such as creating an online store or managing orders. This plugin also accepts the main forms of payment and integrates with most payment gateways. 

It offers a very practical configuration assistant that will guide you in a simple and precise way. All you have to do is answer a few questions, giving details about the store in question.

WooCommerce makes it easy to manage an online store. Its control panel is integrated with WordPress and in the administration panel it has a sidebar in order to manage reports, orders or products.

DUPLICATE PAGES, PLUGIN

Duplicate pages is an attractive tool with which you will save time and effort when copying the previous content automatically. The user, in the end, will dedicate himself to adding or deleting elements and transforming the text to his liking.

One of the most used plugins in this regard is Duplicate Post . Once installed, the first option it will allow you to do is precisely duplicate or clone a page or post, as well as the date it was published.

Its second functionality is to copy the state of the original input. This means that if the entry was in draft, the duplicate will be in the same situation. In the same way, if the publication was published.

SCHEMA - ALL IN ONE SCHEMA RICH SNIPPETS

The function of Schema is to display rich snippets , which are used to offer users eye-catching descriptions when adding photos or stars in reviews. It is a very useful tool to better position your products or your website in search engines.

What Schema does is combine your review system with images or other similar options. In this way, as we said, you can get stars in your rating system, add images referring to your content or even use short versions of a recipe to appear in the Google description.

This is one of the best review plugins you will find. It is completely free for users and has no updates to worry about. Additionally, it supports several different schemes associated with reviews, people, events, and recipes.

If you want to improve your reviews through rich snippets, this is the plugin to install. With it you will be able to improve search engine ranking, display rich snippets if your WordPress theme does not have the ability to display them or if you want to add unique snippet content in the form of recipes or videos.

Últimos artículos