Best WordPress Plugins For Small Business Websites

October 29, 2012 By Aaron 1 Comment

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One of the many reasons we believe WordPress is the best CMS for small business website owners and online marketers alike is the platform’s nearly limitless library of available plugins.  These days, if you can think of a need or functionality you’d like to incorporate into your site, chances are someone’s made a plugin for it (and if not, call me and let’s create one together!).  The following is our (not-so) short list of

awesome WordPress plugins, covering every function from SEO, video and security, through e-commerce site speed and the end-all of most webstes; conversions.

Anti-Spam and Security Plugins

• Asismet - Akismet is quite possibly the best way in the world to protect your blog from comment and trackback spam. It keeps your site protected from spam even while you sleep.

Content Marketing Plugins

• Onlywire – Syndicates content on top 50 social bookmarking sites
• Zemanta - This is a ninja plugin that provides legal (creative commons) images, related articles and even suggested tags to your blog posts.

Conversion: Opt-in and Lead Generation Plugins

• Hello Bar - Opt-in bar on top or bottom, increases conversion
• Optin Skin - Create great looking and high converting opt-in forms and banners that you can place virtually anywhere on your WordPress site.
• Formidable Forms - Easily customize forms with various fields in a matter of minutes.
• Math Captcha -Avoid spam by adding math captcha to your Formidable forms in a few easy steps.

E-commerce and Product-related Plugins

• Price Table - Creates a price table custom post type with a drag and drop builder. Based on the dashing price table.

Genesis Framework Plugins

• Genesis Custom Backgrounds – The first generation of this plugin will set a default image for post thumbnails for the Genesis framework.
• Genesis Footer Widgets - This plugin adds 3 footer widgets to Genesis 1.6 and higher.
• Genesis Layout Extras – This plugin for Genesis Theme Framework allows modifying of default layouts for homepage, singular, archive, attachment, search, 404 and even bbPress 2.x pages via Genesis theme settings.
• Genesis Simple Sidebars – Genesis Simple Sidebars allows you to easily create and use new sidebar widget areas.
• Genesis Slider – A featured slider for the Genesis Framework.
• Genesis Tabs - Genesis Simple Tabs extends the Featured Post widget to create a simple tabbed area.

Social Media Plugins

• AA’s Digg Digg Alternative- A floating share bar for sharing content. We used to use Digg Digg but it slows down pages and causes conflicts with other plugins. Use this instead.
• Facebook Like Box Widget – Show how many like your Facebook page in a simple widget. 
• Social Media Widget - Adds links to all of your social media and sharing site profiles. Tons of icons come in 3 sizes, 4 icon styles, and 4 animations.

SEO Plugins

• Yoast SEO - The best SEO plugin.
• Google Analytics for WordPress (Yoast)
• SEO Smartlinks - Adds in-text links to content.
• 404 Redirection - Permanently redirect all 404′s to the main blog URL. The primary purpose is to salvage Google PageRank (TM) from missing pages.

User Experience and Engagement Plugins

• Yet Another Related Posts – Provides a “related posts” footer on blog posts (based on categories).
• Lightbox Plus - Lightbox Plus implements ColorBox as a lightbox image overlay tool for WordPress. ColorBox was created by Jack Moore of Color Powered and is licensed under the MIT License.
• LessThanWeb - Testimonials- Display client testimonials on your blog. Easily manage client testimonials for different products on a single blog by separating them into groups.

Video: Online Video Marketing and YouTube Plugins

• Video Thumbnails - Automatically retrieve video thumbnails for your posts and display them in your theme. Currently supports YouTube, Vimeo, Blip.tv, Justin.tv, Dailymotion and Metacafe.
• TubePress - Displays gorgeous YouTube and Vimeo galleries in your posts, pages, and/or sidebar. Upgrade to TubePress Pro for more features!

Website Performance Plugins

• Use Google Libraries – For speed, uses Google’s cafes files instead of WP.
• WP Super Cache - Speeds up caching, A very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files.
• WP Minify – Condenses css and javascript into one file.

Related articles

• 5 Handy WordPress Tips for Content Marketing
• Are You Setting Up WordPress For SEO Success?
• Some very cool WordPress plugins
• 4 Essential WordPress Plugins for Business Blogs
• Essential WordPress Plugins to Keep Visitors on Your Blog Longer
• 3 Awesome WordPress Plugins that Will ROCK Your Web World

Related posts:

1. The Top 10 Small Business Web Design Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
2. Infographic: Top 10 Super-Avoidable Small Business Web Design Mistakes
3. How to Set Up a Facebook Timeline Small Business Page
4. Top 7 Mistakes Small Business Bloggers Make
5. The Small Business Online Marketing Funnel: Reach, Engage and Convert

Filed Under: Build a Great Website, WordPress Tagged With: WordPress, WordPress Plugin Directory,WordPress Plugins

About Aaron

I am a perpetual student of marketing, published author, speaker and blogger. I love to help business owners discover and implement simple but powerful online marketing strategies. I'm also an avid family guy, musician, jiu jitsu practitioner and mountain biker. Let's connect and collaborate!