Plugins / Components

15 Must-Have (And Free) WordPress Plugins

November 10, 2017 By Scott Fichter Leave a Comment

In this post, I’m going to reveal my 15 Must-Have (And Free) WordPress Plugins. The plugins that I’m going to review are ones that I install on EVERY WordPress website I build as a default. This list comes from over seven years of experimentation. I will break down the plugins into categories so you can find what you need fast. Here goes.

Security Plugins

All In One Security (over 600,000 installs) – This plugin is fantastic because setup is fast and easy. The software allows you to export your settings to a flat file which will enable you to import them to a new site. Work efficiency is crucial, so this plugin is a win. My settings are just tight enough to make the site secure but not so tight that it impedes day to day work efficiency. Download my import settings here.

Get All In One Security

Email Address Encoder (90,000 installs) – For those who don’t know, there are malicious programs called email-harvesting robots that scan websites for email addresses? The email addresses are collected and sold on the dark web for spammers. Email Address Encoder uses code to hide your email from these programs. This plugin is a must-have.
Get Email Address Encoder

Advanced Automatic Updates (100,000 installs) – This WordPress plugin is new as of this year. It automatically updates your WordPress theme and plugins. Now I have to suggest that if you do use this software that you use Robot Uptime to monitor the status of your site. There’s a chance that plugin updates crash the site so make sure that Robot Uptime (free) is watching your site.

Get Advanced Automatic Updates

WordPress Zero Spam (20,000 installs) – This plugin stops folks from spamming you via your online forms including post comments. It also removes the need for captchas for your sendmail forms. HEADS UP! If you’re using Gravity Forms (like me) make sure you replace this plugin with Gravity Forms Zero Spam. It uses the same technology, but it’s reconfigured to work more efficiently with Gravity Form’s code base.

Get Zero Spam
Get Zero Spam for Gravity Forms

WordPress Speed

LiteSpeed Cache – If you’ve read my posts you know that I rave about MDD hosting. LiteSpeed Cache is a big reason why. This caching plugin connects your site to the LiteSpeed web hosting operating system in such a way that caching is fast and easy.

If your an MDD customer install this plugin immediately.

Get The Litespeed Cache Plugin

Comet Cache (60,000 installs) – If your not an MDD customer consider the Comet Cache WordPress plugin. It’s easy to set up. Cache plugins are inherently tricky to configure, and this is where Comet Cache beats the competition. If you wish to have more control, and you don’t care about endless parameters, download W3 Total Cache and tweak till your hearts content.

Get The Comet Cache Plugin

Speed Booster Pack (40,000 installs and growing fast) – This software is my all time favorite. Ever run your site against the Pingdom Speed test and wonder how to fix all the issues that it raises? This plug is the solution. It compresses and moves your site’s script calls so that pages print much faster. Run this thing with caution. Junky bells and whistles themes won’t like it. Run a backup before allowing it to make changes. If your using Genesis themes like me, you won’t have problems. RUN A BACKUP FIRST!

Get The Speed Booster Pack Plugin

Plugin Performance Profiler (100,000 installs) This plugin was developed by Godaddy, and it’s beneficial. Its sole purpose is to analyze what plugins are negatively impacting load time on your site. I suggest that you install the plugin run the test, remove the bad plugins and uninstall or deactivate the plugin.

always uninstall plugins that are not being used.

Get The Plugin Performance Profiler Plugin

SEO Traffic Building

Yoast (5,000,000 installs) This plugin provides feedback on the effectiveness of your keyword usage from the search engines perspective. It teaches you how to boost traffic on your site. If you have a blog, this plugin is a must.

Get The Yoast Plugin

Now if you’re an SEO professional your probably rolling your eyes right now because you consider this plugin “chump software”. Well, that may be true, but it works, and it’s educating folks on how to get better rank. It’s got my vote. Reply below if you If you have a better alternative. I want to know about it.

WordPress Ping Optimizer (100,000 installs) Oh! This one is awesome. Did you know that WordPress allows you to automatically submit your blog posts to a list of websites that will link back to your posts? Go to Settings > Writing > Update Services and enter this list of domains into that field.

Now here’s the kicker. Every time you resave your newly created blog post, it is automatically resubmitted to the list. This constant resubmission to the sites could get you listed as a Blog Spammer. WordPress Ping Optimizer reduces the announcements to a defined time limit protecting your domain from being listed.

Get The WordPress Ping Optimizer Plugin

Full Website Backups – Database and Site Files

Duplicator (over 1,000,000 installs) This software was initially designed for website migration from one web server to another, but it’s great for backups too. The only downside is it can run for long periods of time which taxes server process time. Some web servers (Godaddy!!!!!) don’t let it run. Ease of use is fantastic. Also, DesktopServer uses it as a way to set up local instances of websites which makes things so easy for WordPress development at the office.

Get The Duplicator Plugin

Backup Guard (90,000 installs) If you can’t get Duplicator to execute a backup due to your server’s process limitations Backup Guard is your best bet. Creating backup are super simple. It’s easier than Duplicator. The software is free to run a backup but reinstalling from the archive will cost you money. It’s worth the cost.

Get The Backup Guard Plugin

Miscellaneous

Search Meter (30,000 installs) Ever wonder what words are being searched on your site? This plugin provides a report so you can see who’s looking for what. If folks are looking for a keyword and you don’t have a page to support it get one built right away. This plugin helps you see what users want.

Get The Search Meter Plugin

Magic Date (100 Installs) This little gem is what makes WordPress awesome. It satisfies a tiny need that I come across so often. Ever have a client call you and ask you to update the “Years in Business” date? This plugin keeps that number up to date for you automatically. It’s versatile, and it works by using a shortcode. It can be used for the copyright date as well.

Get The Magic Date Plugin

Advanced Responsive Video Embedder (ARVE) (60,000 installs) – This plugin makes YouTube video embeds easy. Check out the benefits below:

Disable Related Videos
Embeds are Responsive
Autoplay
video alignment
accepts almost all video site embed codes
SEO friendly

Get The ARVE Plugin

Do You Agree with My 15 Must-Have (And Free) WordPress Plugins?

If you have a plugin that completes the same tasks and does it better let me know. I just found a better map plugin that fast powerful fast loading and free. Stay tuned I’ll post it here real soon.

The Genesis Responsive Header Plugin

September 13, 2017 By Tom Collins Leave a Comment

Affiliate Marketing Freedom

If you’re a fan of the Genesis framework, you’re most likely going to modify your logo for your masthead. There’s also a very good chance your new logo will be wider than what is best for cell phone screens. If you test the page in a responsivetest.net you’ll notice that the logo is cut off. Fixing it is a bit of a pain and it seems to be easier to look for a plugin solution. Nick the Geek developed a fantastic plugin called the Genesis Responsive Header. Before downloading it please read the following.

Finding The Genesis Responsive Header Plugin In The WordPress Admin Panel

Did you install it? Did you find it after the install? It took me so long to find it I almost gave up. Nick the Geek’s instructions on one of his posts states when you install the Genesis Responsive Header plugin, the plugin’s settings button can be found as a sub choice under the Genesis link in the administration panel.

UPDATE:

It’s simply not true. The plugin can be found in Appearance > Themes > Custom. Then click “Responsive Header.”

Is it Safe?

If you’re thinking that this plugin is dangerous because its not listed in the WordPress Plugin Directory, don’t worry. Nick the Geek is respected in the industry. His blog posts have so many comments it’ll take you 15 minutes to read them. Also if you read the forums at Studiopress.com and you do a search for “logo is not responsive” you’ll notice that the senior programmers refer to this plugin constantly.

That’s it. I hope you gain from this info.

Have a great rest of the day, fellow designer person.

🙂

UPDATE:

I just learned that the plugin does not work with HTML5 Themes.

This simple task is turning out to be a rabbit hole. I’m going attack this tutorial to see how it goes.

THE FINAL SOLUTION – updated 10/31/17

The reason why this plugin has not been updated and the reason why nobody cares about it is because there no need to use it. Take the following steps and you will learn how to modify your logo.

Create you logo in photoshop. Make a note of how tall and wide it is in pixels.
Make sure the background has been removed and save it as a PNG24
visit tinypng.com and compress you newly created logo file
Save the logo to your downloads file. Name it logo.png
Log into your WordPress admin panel
go to Appearance > Editor
Open up the functions.php file
Look for the code under this note // Add support for custom header
Change the width and height to match your new logo file
Hit save
Now click appearance > Customize
Click header image
Select your image or upload it in the next screen
It will ask you to crop the image make sure the crop includes entire image and hit save.
Check the logo on the front end. If the logo is not in the right position you’ll have to modify the CSS.

Shortcodes Ultimate Responsive Columns Code

September 19, 2016 By Tom Collins Leave a Comment

It’s not uncommon for new WordPress users to get tricked into the bells and whistles of plugins that allow for drag and drop website development. There are so many plugins out there that its difficult to keep up. I’m going to highlight why it’s not a great idea to invest your energy developing with them.

Reason One: They Slow Web Page Load Time

As you can imagine the most appealing plugins allow you to accomplish a wide variety of layout tricks. Maps, carousels, columns, animated css, full width backgrounds, full browser width video, and the list goes on and on and on. When a new developer sees these carrots on a stick it seems at first that buying the plugin is a no brainer but BEWARE. In order to power all these functionalities a super massive CSS style sheet is needed. There’s also a need for added php files as well. This can create a excess of files that are needed to load before your pages load.

The bottom line is these plugins slow load time which is detrimental to your users happiness. Remember, your information and ease of use is THE most important aspect of your site. It’s what keeps the user reading.

Reason Two: They Are Not Simple – Don’t Fool Yourself

Reason Three: Expensive:

This page is for WordPress users who have installed the Shortcodes Ultimate plugin. One of the capabilities of this plugin is to provide a way to provide mobile ready columns for your posts or pages content. Below provides code examples for several layouts. If you need a layout that’s not listed below, email Scott and he’ll generate it for you.

[su_row]
[su_column size=”1/2″]

Two Columns

Shortcodes Ultimate - 2 columns
View Two Columns Code
[/su_column]
[su_column size=”1/2″]

Three Columns

Shortcodes Ultimate - three columns
View Three Columns Code

[/su_column]
[/su_row]

[su_row]
[su_column size=”1/2″]

Four Columns

Shortcodes Ultimate - three columns
View Four Columns Code

[/su_column]
[su_column size=”1/2″]

Five Columns

Shortcodes Ultimate - three columns
View Five Columns Code

[/su_column]
[/su_row]

[su_row]
[su_column size=”1/2″]

Six Columns

Shortcodes Ultimate - three columns
View six Columns Code

[/su_column]
[su_column size=”1/2″]

Column Left Wide Right

Shortcodes Ultimate - three columns
View Narrow Column Left Code

[/su_column]
[/su_row]

[su_row]
[su_column size=”1/2″]

Narrow Column Right Wide Left

Shortcodes Ultimate - three columns
View Narrow Column Right Code

[/su_column]
[su_column size=”1/2″]

[/su_column]
[/su_row]

The Duplicator Site Scan Result Page With Warnings

September 19, 2016 By Tom Collins Leave a Comment

Warning

Fixing Missing Rankie Keywords In The Dashboard

December 1, 2014 By Tom Collins Leave a Comment

Rankie Keywords

So your looking to fix the missing Rankie keywords in the dashboard, eh? You only see five rows, right? You’re probably thinking there’s a conflict with the WordPress 4.0 release. WRONG! The plugin is working fine. The list scrolls! Go back and give it a shot.

Here’s what’s really interesting. This post is just over 120 words. Rankie is only repeated twice in this post. If you found this page, it means that the value of content trumped the lack of page optimization.

Wrap your brain round that one!

Two Things You have Learned From The Missing Rankie Keywords Problem

The Rankie keyword list was never broken. The designers had to allow for space for the report when you click the keyword. It’s a interface design flaw.
Content value trumps SEO post tweaks. You found this post because you needed it not because the page was balanced for SEO. Needed content trumps SEO. 🙂

Also, I would also like to report that I ran a Pingdom Speed Test on the site after installing Rankie and there was no noticeable impact.

I wish you good fortune and success.

Peace.

Embed Columns With Visual Composer

July 13, 2014 By Tom Collins Leave a Comment

Nest or Embed Columns in Visual Composer

Visual Composer is a versatile plugin allowing you to create website content layouts that work on all screen sizes. Nesting content containers is easy but not overly obvious. Here’s how it’s done.

Step One: Start by clicking the plus sign under the words “Visual Composer.” You’ll immediately be shown a list of elements. Click the “Row” selection in the upper right area of the window. The elements menu vanishes and you’re left with a grey (empty) container. Let’s assume this new container will contain two columns. Simply click the second tab on the left with the horizontal lines. Now select the double column icon (two sets of horizontal lines). Your page should now show a grey container with two columns.

Step Two: Click the plus sign on the left side column. You will be shown the elements menu once again. Click “Row” in the upper left again. BOOM! Now you have nested one container inside a single column! Now you can create complex layouts that still work in mobile view.

Now the next question that I’ve been asked is: “Can you keep nesting?” The simple answer is Nope! Visual Composer is famous because it automatically scaffolds content in cell phones. If you were to go beyond three nested containers you’d need more computing power than the Titan super computer. But seriously, where there’s a will I’m sure there is a way. If you know how it’s done contact me. I’d love to learn how you figured it out.

nested container visual composer

Visual Composer is one of many WordPress plugins that are fantastic. The provided design flexibility combined with the many extensions and great support makes this software a game changer in the WordPress space. It’s one of the many reasons why WordPress is the best content management software on planet Earth.

Earth