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The best WordPress plugins part II

Karolina Karolina • 26 Jun, 2024 6 min read • Blog• Marketing
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Welcome to part two of our series on the top WordPress plugins to boost your website. Today, we’re looking at Smush, WPForms, WooCommerce, MonsterInsights, and UpdraftPlus and their impressive features. If you haven’t read the first part yet, I encourage you to check it out. 

the-best-wordpress-plugins-part-II

These plugins have earned their place as must-have tools for WordPress users seeking to streamline their workflows. Moreover, these plugins boost their site’s functionality and gain valuable insights into their website’s performance. From analyzing website traffic to safeguarding valuable data, these plugins offer a comprehensive suite of features to address the diverse needs of website owners. Join us to learn about the great benefits and features of these five essential WordPress plugins. Let’s see how they can improve your website’s success and efficiency. 

 

UpdraftPlus 

UpdraftPlus presents an intuitive WordPress backup and restoration solution, ensuring website owners can easily safeguard their data. Its user-friendly interface simplifies the backup and restore processes, allowing users to protect their WordPress files, databases, plugins, and themes with just a click, all while tailoring backup schedules to their preferences. Whether opting for manual or scheduled backups, UpdraftPlus accommodates various intervals, ranging from every 2, 4, 8, or 12 hours to daily, weekly, fortnightly, or monthly occurrences, guaranteeing that website data remains secure and up-to-date. 

Moreover, UpdraftPlus facilitates seamless website migration or cloning. It empowers users to relocate or duplicate their WordPress sites effortlessly from the UpdraftPlus dashboard. 

Enhancing its utility, UpdraftPlus Premium offers an array of remote storage options, including Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace Cloud Files, and AWS S3, augmenting backup flexibility and security. Furthermore, the plugin’s compatibility with WordPress Multisite permits the migration or restoration of individual subsites as required, with dashboard access restricted to Network Administrators. 

Nonetheless, it’s important to acknowledge certain drawbacks of UpdraftPlus. While it provides robust backup and restoration functionalities, users may find the interface slightly overwhelming. Particularly if they lack experience in WordPress or website management.  

Additionally, the free version of UpdraftPlus may have limitations in terms of storage options and features compared to the premium version. It can potentially influence users with specific backup needs or preferences. Despite these considerations, UpdraftPlus remains a favored choice for WordPress backup and restoration solutions. It’s renowned for its reliability, flexibility, and user-friendly approach, catering to website owners of all proficiency levels. 

 

MonsterInsights 

MonsterInsights revolutionizes website analytics by seamlessly integrating Google Analytics tracking into WordPress websites, eliminating the need for complex coding.  

With just a few clicks, users can set up comprehensive website tracking across devices and campaigns. It ensures accurate measurement of their online performance. The Google Analytics dashboard, conveniently accessible from within the WordPress dashboard, provides users with actionable insights into their website’s performance, allowing for informed decision-making and optimization strategies. Real-time stats offer a dynamic view of visitor activity, revealing who is online and their actions. That empowers website owners to stay updated on their audience’s behavior.  

Furthermore, MonsterInsights offers detailed page-level analytics, enabling users to identify the most popular posts, pages, and sections of their site, facilitating targeted content strategies. 

Moreover, MonsterInsights excels in tracking affiliate and outbound links, providing accurate data on clicks, and helping users optimize their affiliate marketing efforts effectively. Additionally, form tracking functionality allows users to measure the performance of their WordPress forms instantly, enhancing visitor engagement and conversion rates. 

However, it’s important to consider some drawbacks of MonsterInsights. Despite its robust features, the cost of the plugin may be prohibitive for users, especially for those with tight budgets. Furthermore, over time, the accumulation of junk data in the database can pose challenges in data management and analysis.  

Another significant limitation is the restricted functionality of the free version. It lacks access to advanced features available only in the Pro version. This limitation may frustrate users seeking comprehensive analytics insights without the associated costs. 

Despite these drawbacks, MonsterInsights remains a powerful tool for website owners seeking to harness the full potential of Google Analytics within their WordPress sites.  

 

WooCommerce  

WooCommerce stands as a robust e-commerce platform, offering a plethora of features to facilitate online selling with ease. With its Stripe Connect integration, WooCommerce allows secure connections for swift payment processing, enhancing both conversions and average cart value. Instant Store Search ensures customers find what they’re looking for quickly, with customizable elastic search functionality and AI-powered product recommendations. It definitely enhances the overall shopping experience.  

Additionally, WooCommerce’s Global CDN, boasting over 200 data centers, ensures peak performance regardless of the user’s location. It contributes to faster page loading times and improved user satisfaction. EverCache for Woo further enhances speed by caching up to 90% more pages than default settings, ensuring a seamless buyer journey from start to finish. Live Cart enables concurrent selling to multiple shoppers without connectivity issues. As a result, it provides personalized shopping experiences while maintaining speed and reliability. 

However, we have to consider some drawbacks of WooCommerce. While it caters well to small and medium-sized businesses, its scalability may be limited for larger enterprises with high volumes of transactions and traffic. Moreover, the platform’s customization options may be insufficient for businesses requiring advanced features and functionality, potentially necessitating additional plugins, themes, or customization work. These additional costs can accumulate, impacting the overall budget for running an e-commerce store.  

 

WPForms 

WPForms empowers users to create stunning forms effortlessly with its intuitive drag-and-drop form builder. Within minutes, users can craft custom forms tailored to their specific needs, without any coding knowledge required. The availability of pre-built form templates further expedites the form creation process. It allows users to start with a solid foundation and customize as needed.   

WPForms’ smart conditional logic feature enables the creation of high-performance forms, dynamically adjusting form fields based on user responses for a seamless user experience. Instant notifications ensure timely responses to leads, keeping users informed and facilitating prompt follow-ups.  

Moreover, WPForms offers easy embedding options, allowing forms to be seamlessly integrated into various parts of a website, including blog posts, pages, sidebars, and footers. With built-in marketing and subscription capabilities, users can effortlessly create subscription forms and connect them with their email marketing service, streamlining lead generation and nurturing efforts. 

However, it’s important to consider some drawbacks of WPForms. While the free version of WPForms offers basic functionality, it may be too limited in features for some users. The Pro version of WPForms comes with a hefty price tag, making it one of the most expensive form plugins on the market. As a result, it may deter budget-conscious users.  

Additionally, some users have noted a lack of built-in instructions within the plugin, which can make it challenging for beginners to navigate. Furthermore, WPForms has limitations in certain functionalities. An example can be the inability to upload multiple files in forms at once or the occasional issues with entry notifications. Therefore, it may inconvenience users seeking more advanced features and seamless performance. 

 

 

Smush 

Smush stands as the ultimate image optimization plugin, leading the charge in optimizing, resizing, and compressing images to enhance website performance. With its array of features, Smush empowers users to effortlessly optimize their images without compromising quality. The plugin offers lossless compression with its Basic Smush feature, stripping unused data and compressing images while maintaining their original quality.  

For even greater optimization, Super Smush provides cutting-edge, multi-pass lossy compression, optimizing images up to 2x more than lossless compression. Users can take performance to the next level with Ultra Smush, available in the Pro version. It offers 5x image compressing power while preserving remarkable image quality. 

Smush simplifies image loading with built-in lazy loading, deferring the loading of offscreen images with a simple switch. Pro users can leverage the Local WebP feature to automatically convert and serve images in the next-gen WebP format. Consequently, they enhance website speed. The plugin also offers bulk smushing capabilities, background optimization, and directory smushing for comprehensive image optimization. 

Despite its many strengths, it’s important to consider some drawbacks of Smush. The Free version imposes a maximum file size limit of 1MB, which may be insufficient for certain websites. On the other hand, the Pro version allows files up to 32MB. Furthermore, the Free version of Smush does not retain original images after compression. It’s also limited to 50 images per instance, potentially necessitating more time for users with extensive image libraries. Users should also be prepared for occasional advertisements prompting upgrades to the Pro version within the admin dashboard. 

 

Conlusion 

In conclusion, Smush, WPForms, WooCommerce, MonsterInsights, and UpdraftPlus represent a formidable arsenal of plugins for WordPress users aiming to enhance their websites’ functionality, performance, and analytics. Smush streamlines image optimization, WPForms simplifies form creation, WooCommerce facilitates e-commerce endeavors, MonsterInsights provides invaluable insights into website analytics, and UpdraftPlus ensures robust backup solutions.  

Together, these plugins provide complete solutions for different aspects of website management, from optimizing images and capturing leads to analyzing traffic and safeguarding data. By using these powerful tools, WordPress users can enhance their websites, engage visitors, drive conversions, and meet their online goals efficiently and easily. If you haven’t read the first part of this article, I encourage you to do so to get a full understanding of how different plugins can benefit you.