There are thousands of free plugins available (48,629 plugins at the time of writing) that work to enhance your website and also streamline functions such as contact forms, booking forms, shopping carts, security plus just about anything you can think of 😉
You can view the full list at https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/ More are being added every day.
There is no need to download the plugins listed here because they will all be available on the Add Plugin page of the WordPress admin interface.
There may be an option to donate to the plugin authors, please do so, even if its just enough for a coffee.
There are also probably, just as many premium plugins available from other sources such as CodeCanyon https://codecanyon.net/category/wordpress These premium plugins usually offer more than you can get from some of the free ones. Some of the free plugins have an option where you can upgrade to a “Pro” version.
I will list a selection of the ones I use on this website, and on other websites.
[Normal_Box]Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customise the form and the mail content flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.
AddToAny Share Buttons
The AddToAny WordPress sharing plugin helps people share your posts and pages to any service, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Reddit, and over 100 more sharing and social media sites & apps.
All In One SEO Pack
All in One SEO Pack Optimises your WordPress blog for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). This is free but there is an option to upgrade to PRO.
I prefer this SEO plugin over the Yoast SEO plugin.
Cookie Law Info
A simple way to show how your website complies with the EU Cookie Law. Implied Consent. Style it to match your own website.
Jetpack by WordPress.com
Jetpack simplifies managing WordPress sites by giving you visitor stats, security services, speeding up images, and helping you get more traffic. Jetpack is a free plugin.
Mobile Redirect
Simple plugin that allows you to redirect mobile’s user to mobile site (with or without slug url). We use this plugin to redirect mobile browsers to our one page parallax fully mobile responsive home page.
Open external links in a new window
Opens external links (starting with http:// or https://) in a separate browser window (or tab). You can also specify certain URLs that should either be forced to open in a new window or ignored. The plugin produces XHTML Strict compliant code and is also search engine optimized (SEO). This is done using JavaScript’s window.open()-function.
Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions
This plugin is a ‘One Click’ WordPress Database Cleaner / Optimiser.
TablePress
TablePress allows you to easily create and manage beautiful tables. You can embed the tables into posts, pages, or text widgets with a simple Shortcode. Table data can be edited in a speadsheet-like interface, so no coding is necessary. Tables can contain any type of data, even formulas that will be evaluated.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a free eCommerce plugin that allows you to sell anything, beautifully. Built to integrate seamlessly with WordPress, WooCommerce is the world’s favorite eCommerce solution that gives both store owners and developers complete control. WooCommerce powers 40% of all online stores. Launch your store today.
WPS Hide Login
WPS Hide Login is a very light plugin that lets you easily and safely change the url of the login form page to anything you want. It doesn’t literally rename or change files in core, nor does it add rewrite rules. It simply intercepts page requests and works on any WordPress website. The wp-admin directory and wp-login.php page become inaccessible, so you should bookmark or remember the url. Deactivating this plugin brings your site back exactly to the state it was before.
We do use a multitude of other plugins too, too many to list in one go so I’ll update this post with more as time goes by.
