As you know, we love WordPress here at Snoack Studios. One of the big reasons we love it is because of how customizable it is and the many different uses it has. Plugins are a way of customizing your site and adding additional functionality, and there are tons of plugins that are available for many, many different uses. Plugins can help you add contact forms, photo galleries, or extra SEO tools. If you need to add some extra functionality to your site, search through the plugin directory on the WordPress site and you’ll find tons of options at your fingertips. Most are free in the plugin directory, but there are also many paid plugins out there if you need a more premium solution. Here are our favorites:

Gravity Forms

This form building tool is our favorite way to add a form of any kind to a WordPress site. You can do anything from a simple contact form to a full donation form that connects with PayPal to collect donations. It uses a simple drag and drop interface that allows you to make great forms quickly. It is a paid plugin but it’s well worth the money!

Check it out

BackupBuddy

Our go-to backup plugin is installed on every site we build. Keeping up with WordPress updates is very important, and it’s also important to backup your site completely before you complete those updates. BackupBuddy is the easiest and best way to make that happen. You can either do it manually or schedule it and it will be completed regularly without you having to think about it. This plugin is also a paid plugin, and is worth every penny!

Check it out

Wordfence Security

WordPress is set up well for security, but you can definitely do more to make your site extra safe, and that’s where Wordfence comes in. Wordfence regularly scans your site for malware and malicious content, as well as any unsafe activity. It also sets up some great security measures to keep intruders out like locking users out if they try incorrect passwords too many times. There are free and paid versions of this plugin.

Check it out

ShareThis

Easy-to-use social media sharing buttons are very important for any blog, and ShareThis makes it easy to set up and easy for your users to use. You can add tons of different sharing options, customized to your needs, and place it in the position you want on your site. This free plugin is a great choice!

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Simple Social Icons

It’s also important to link to your own social profiles in a way that makes it simple and easy for your users to see. These attractive and easy-to-set-up buttons allow you to connect to your own profiles so your users can find them easily.

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Yoast SEO

WordPress is also set up well for search engines, but there is always more you can do! Yoast SEO allows you to add more custom SEO features to your site so you have more options and more control. This plugin has both free and paid versions depending on what you need.

Check it out

NextGen Gallery

This gallery plugin allows you to display photos in an attractive way on your site, and has an easy-to-use admin interface that allows you to add unlimited galleries and albums. They have a bunch of different options for displaying your photos allowing you to choose how your photos are displayed. This plugin is also available for free, but has a premium version that you can pay for if you want additional options and functionality.

Check it out

WordPress is a powerful content management system and adding plugins is a great way to extend what you can do with it. Let us know your favorite plugins in the comments below!