Websites are still a must if you’re hoping to make your billions online. Now there are many options to making websites and most people starting out will usually head towards a web design service or maybe use a basic design site like Wix or Weebly. But by far the most popular way to build a website online and having the most control over your creation, is definitely WordPress. WordPress is the top CMS (Content Management System) available and doesn’t look like it’s slowing down anytime soon however there’s a learning curve. Everyone is a “Newbie” or “Noob” in WordPress at some point, and here are my Top 5 plugins for all the Noobs.
1. Wordfence
Ok first and foremost, if you’re gonna be on the Internet, you gotta have some type of security. Think of your website as your home. Having security will help to prevent the criminals from getting your goods. Wordfence is my preferred security choice for two simple reasons: simple and powerful.
There are many security plugins and the two biggest are IThemes Security and Securi Security. IThemes has tons of powerful features, but they can be overwhelming and not as user friendly. Securi security is much easier to use, but not as feature rich. Wordfence has a combination of both plus it has a large community of users which comes in handy when you lock yourself out of your own site.
2. Coming Soon
When you’re building your site, especially if it’s for someone else, you might not want people to see your masterpiece until it’s finished. Using the Coming Soon plugin will allow you to place a message on your site when people visit. This can be anything as simple as a message or you can create an image.
3. Contact Form 7
It’s valuable to provide a way for your millions of visitors to communicate with you. And unless you enjoy programming a contact management system, it’s much easier to just use Contact Form 7. It’s a simple, flexible way to put an email system on your site that takes care of things like form setup and some basic spamming controls.
4. TinyMCE Advanced
If you’re using tools like Microsoft Word, you’re familiar with the toolbar on top that allows you to do things like change font colors or alignment. In WordPress, a basic toolbar is included as well, but it’s not flexible, powerful. With TinyMCE, it provides access to so many more formatting features that are familiar like bolding, font selection, but it also gives your WordPress specific features like inserting a divider.
5. Child Theme Configurator
Child Themes? Whao, but I don’t want kids! Well it’s not like that, but if you’re going to be using WordPress for the long term, you WILL learn about these precious Child Themes. Setting up Child Themes manually isn’t a process I recommend for Noobs as it requires logging into Cpanel and changing files on the hosting server. The Child Theme Configurator allows you to easily create, manage these themes all within WordPress.
So that’s my current Top 5 WordPress Plugins for Noobs. There are thousands of plugins available and more are being added every day so I’ll update this list when it makes sense. As you’re experimenting with tons of plugins, there might be times that they break something so one super important skill to learn is how to disable plugins manually through CPanel. This isn’t as complex as it sounds as it simply means you’re re-naming a folder.
-Geek Outside!
