Creating a great WordPress website for your side hustle or small business, is almost like cooking. You’ll need to add some extra ingredients to make it a tasty dish, meaning a great website that attracts visitors and converts them into customers. Which ingredients will elevate your WordPress dish is what we’ll discuss in this article.
If you don’t add ingredients like herbs and spices to your cooking, you’ll end up with a bland dish. The same with your WordPress website. You start with a solid base (your theme), but plugins are the secret ingredients that make your site stand out. Plugins are software that you can add to your WordPress site via the plugin store, similar to adding an app to your phone via the app store, offering a wide selection of free and paid apps.
Cooking like a MasterChef on WordPress.com
“But my website runs on WordPress.com so I can’t install plugins or themes” is one of the first things people might say when we mention elevating your WordPress dish. No worries, it seems like you may have missed the news so here is the good news, in big bold letters for the people in the back:
All paid WordPress.com plans now support plugins and themes!
WordPress.com is the easiest way to get your website online as solopreneur or small business.
Advantages of hosting your website on WordPress.com
Let’s briefly go over the advantages of hosting on WordPress.com before we move on to the cooking with plugins part of this blog post.
- Ease of use: you don’t have to be a techie to use it. WordPress.com handles hosting, security, and updates automatically. You don’t need to manage servers or worry about downtime.
- Affordable: they offer low-cost plans, making it accessible for solopreneurs and small businesses with limited budgets.
- Design it like a pro: choose from hundreds of professionally designed themes tailored for various industries. No design skills are required.
- Feature-rich: it includes basic SEO features to help your site rank better in search engines. Install plugins to take it all to the next level.
- E-commerce ready: with plugins like WooCommerce, you can set up an online store quickly.
- Security and reliability: every plan includes robust security, ensuring your site stays safe and protected 24/7.
- Community and support: there are heaps of tutorials and forums available to troubleshoot issues or learn new skills. And there’s of course, customer service.
- Plugins: add functionality like contact forms, social media integration or email marketing tools with ease.
With WordPress.com you don’t have to deal with the technical stuff, you can focus on creating content, engaging with customers and growing your business. Easy as.
Must-have plugins for your WordPress.com website
Let’s start cooking. It is time to add some additional ingredients to your WordPress website dish. Just keep in mind that just like in cooking, the ingredients you want to add all depend on taste and the desired end-result. Personally, I like my dishes to pack a punch so I’ll always add extra garlic and chilli peppers but that doesn’t mean that you should cook in the same way. The following ingredients are suggestions…
WooCommerce: eCommerce plugin for WordPress.com website
This is the must-have plugin if you plan to sell products or services online aka planning to create an eCommerce website. We’ve covered how to set up and use WooCommerce in this article so we’ll keep it brief here.
With WooCommerce you can create & manage your online shop:
- Product listings and inventory management.
- Secure payment gateways
- Shipping and tax calculations
- And there are extensions for subscriptions, memberships and even extensions to add a powerful booking engine to your site.
- Installs on WordPress.com: YES!
Explore the powerful features of WooCommerce and discover how effortlessly it integrates with your WordPress.com website.
Jetpack – Swiss Army knife for WordPress.com sites
One of the basics of a good website is making sure it is secure, is fast, ranks well and has back-ups in case something gets messed up and you want to switch back to a previous version. Spotlight on Jetpack, the plugin that can do all of this.
- Security: Brute force protection, downtime monitoring and spam filtering.
- Performance: Image and static file CDN, lazy loading and site acceleration.
- Backups: Automated real-time backups and easy restores (available on paid plans).
- SEO Tools: Basic SEO features and social media sharing.
- Analytics: Site stats and traffic insights.
- Installs on WordPress.com: YES!
Unlock the full potential of Jetpack, learn about its features and enjoy a seamless setup on your WordPress.com website.
Akismet Anti-Spam plugin for your WordPress.com website
Spam comments and form submissions can be a nuisance. Akismet automatically filters out spam, saving you time and keeping your site clean. It’s pre-installed on WordPress.com but may require activation.
Read more about Akismet.
WP Forms to create contact forms on your WordPress site
- Quick & Easy setup: Like adding salt to a dish, WP Forms makes it easy to create contact forms, no coding required.
- Improves communication: Just as seasoning enhances flavour, WP Forms ensures visitors can easily reach you, boosting engagement and conversions.
- Versatile: Works for contact forms, surveys, and payment forms, like a spice that fits multiple recipes.
- Installs on WordPress.com: YES!
Dive into the capabilities of WP Forms and see just how simple it is to configure on your WordPress.com website.
ShortPixel Image Optimiser to reduce the size of images without reducing quality
When you add a lot of big-sized photo files to your website, it will have a negative impact on performance and thus SEO. The ShortPixel plugin makes the file size smaller without you seeing any impact on the quality of your photos. This will lead to:
- Faster load times: optimising images without losing quality is like trimming fat from a dish. It keeps your site lean and fast.
- Better SEO: smaller images improve page speed, helping your site rank higher, like presentation that makes a dish more appealing.
- Saves space: reduces storage use, so your site runs smoothly, like using ingredients efficiently to avoid waste.
- Installs on WordPress.com: YES!
Discover the unique features of ShortPixel and enjoy a quick & easy set-up on your WordPress.com website.
Brevo for email marketing
Email marketing is a key ingredient to keeping your customers entertained and in the loop. It is an easy way to inspire customers to make a repeat purchase. It is the secret sauce that makes your business more profitable.
There are many email marketing tools out there but Brevo is by far my favourite – and yes I have tested a lot of these email marketing tools.
- Generous free tier: Brevo offers a free plan for up to 300 emails/day which is ideal for startups and solopreneurs.
- No limits on contacts: when your business grows you only pay for emails sent, not for contacts stored. Other tools look at your contact list and base their limits on that, which means getting punished for growing your audience.
- Easy as automation: Brevo’s automation workflows are easy to set up and flexible. It’s like a slow cooker that does the work for you.
- Transactional emails for better deliverability: in Brevo you can also set it up so it sends your transactional emails (order confirmations, password resets). In tech speak: Brevo becomes your SMTP email provider which leads to a much better deliverability so no more confirmation emails going to the spam folder of your customers. This is included in all plans.
- Installs on WordPress.com: YES!
Check out everything Brevo has to offer and experience its hassle-free installation on your WordPress.com website.
The pantry is packed with ingredients, you just have to select them
When you host your website on WordPress.com the pantry is packed with plugins. There are 1000s of them so the ones mentioned above are just the tip of the iceberg, some of my go-to plugins. Just as the right ingredients elevate a dish, plugins enhance your website’s functionality, user experience and growth potential, without overwhelming you.
So which ones are you most excited to try? If you want to know more about these plugins, feel free to post your questions or comment.
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