WordPress is a widely used CMS platform that has become almost synonymous to blogging and website development. Catering to a wide range of users, this e-commerce website builder powers almost half the web pages, blogs and stores online and is a force to be reckoned with. As of now, WordPress has over 45000 plug-ins that you can install and utilize for enhancing your content. These third-party extensions allow greater flexibility and functionality, giving you a chance to expand your website and manage it better.

Here are some of the best free WP plugins of 2019 that you cannot afford to miss.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce plugin for WordPress users is one of the best and most useful third-party applications that are available for entrepreneurs in the market. It is a great solution for anyone who is looking for a way to sell physical or digital goods online and reach international markets. The online shop creator comes with all the standard and advanced store building tools and gives you complete control over the reach and performance of the store. And once you have created a store with the product catalogs and descriptions, you can manage shopping carts, integrate payment gateways, add SSL security options and more. WooCommerce also takes care of the shipping and calculates the shipping costs in real-time.

WPForms Lite

WPForms Lite is a simple, effective and lightweight plugin that comes with drag and drop interface for building contact forms. Contact forms help you collect valuable client information and then send out offers to potential leads. Contact forms allow for greater scope for promotion, giving you the information if a visitor is interested in your store or not. WPForms Lite comes with a wide range of readymade templates that are customizable and compatible with mobile devices. Also, it is optimized for SEO and is one of the fastest form builders in the market available for free.

MonsterInsights Lite

MonsterInsights Lite as the name suggests is a plugin that allows you massive and in-depth insights into the reach and performance data of your web page. For this, the plugin connects your page to your Google Analytics account, notifying you with regular updates about the number of visitors and sales you have made. With this data, you are better equipped to capitalize on customer preferences and convert promising leads to sales. It gives you real-time stats and reports via a universal tracking system that can be accessed from any device and platform. The Pro (paid) version offers a few more advanced tools for generating more traffic.

Google XML Sitemaps

The Google XML Sitemaps plugin offers you an opportunity to create quick and easy sitemaps for popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. It is a good way to boost your online presence and also tracking the store’s performance by checking how it fares on the top search platforms. After all, you cannot make any sales if the customer doesn’t find you online, right? Google XML Sitemaps is hence, great for increasing your store’s SEO ranking making your content more organized and marketable.

JetPack

Jetpack is a multipurpose plugin that is useful to almost everyone irrespective of the size and scalability of their web page. Here you can do everything from designing the site to marketing it online. A responsive interface, a wide range of templates, a dashboard full of tools, and an unlimited CDN gallery- it all helps you create a functional website in a matter of minutes. The marketing features include social media tools, site stats, and analytical solutions, PayPal button, and security, options for blocking viruses and spams. With JetPack, you can develop your store, publish it, promote it and even monitor its performance afterward. What more do you need!

W3 Total Cache

Caches and cookies are a way for websites to get valuable customer data by prying into their online activity. With the W3 Total Cache plugin, you can improve the site’s performance, boost the loading time, and generate more traffic using the impressive set of SEO solutions you get here. The caching platform allows you to present compressed files to site visitors and thereby enhance the overall speed of the store tenfold. Plus, it saves on the bandwidth, reduces HTML, JavaScript and CSS feed considerably.

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a popular plugin for WordPress that is currently active on over 5 million websites. It is the default SEO solution for most WordPress platforms. Here, you can handle all the on-page SEO functionalities to enhance the visibility of your store and reach more clients. And no, this doesn’t just involve having access to the top keywords. With Yoast, you can tweak the meta tags, the titles, and descriptions of the page, the HTML codes and CSS stylesheets. You can even create XML sitemaps for your page, to track the performance and optimize the content as you please.

Sucuri Security

Sucuri Security is a powerful WordPress e-commerce plugin that allows users a secure and protected space to carry forward their transactions. It takes care of the website’s security, including scanning the page for viruses, keeping malware and hackers away, and ensuring safe monetary transactions. You can manage audit reports, create a blacklist section for keeping the blocked users away, get security notifications, and other post-hack security features to prevent the risk of future attacks. And the best part is that this free plugin is lightweight and hence doesn’t affect your site’s resources and loading time.

MailChimp

Building an e-commerce website is a piece of cake, the tough part is to actually catch the eye of the visitors and compel them to invest in your product. MailChimp is a plugin that helps you with the after-sales marketing campaigns. It is the ideal platform for users who want to monetize on their email listings and reach out to potential buyers. It is one of the biggest email marketing services out there that comes free of cost. All you have to do is set up a newsletter and MailChimp would then help you create email lists, create standardized emails and senders list.

Redirection

Redirection is the best plugin for users who want to change the link or URL of their store. admit it, we have all considered tweaking the name and address of the store at some point. However, changing the URL doesn’t involve simply changing the meta tags and customizing it, it also requires you to redirect your traffic from the old post to the new post. Redirection with its graphical and intuitive interface allows you to manage all your site’s 301 redirects. You can add further functionality by conditionally redirecting users who are logged in and barring those who aren’t. User-friendly and convenient, Redirection is perfect for beginners and professionals alike.

The Bottom Line

Finding the best plugin to suit your website is no easy task. There are just so many options to choose from! E-commerce platforms especially, require a more customizable and competent plugin that not only helps you organize the store better but also promote it globally. Lucky for you, we have compiled a list of the top plugins which will help you manage and market your content better.

About the author: this is the guest article by Alex Levitov
Title illustration from Marginalia style pack on Ouch

Read the tips on security for your WordPress website, check the set of WordPress plugins to enhance a website design and learn how UX design builds trust for your website.