{"id":3923,"date":"2015-01-01T06:13:28","date_gmt":"2015-01-01T06:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lionssharedigital.com\/?p=3923"},"modified":"2020-08-22T00:59:42","modified_gmt":"2020-08-22T00:59:42","slug":"20-best-wordpress-plugins-for-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lionssharedigital.com\/news\/20-best-wordpress-plugins-for-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"20 Best WordPress Plugins for 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"[Update: This article is out of date. Please read our Top WordPress Plugins for 2020<\/a>]\n

We’re really excited about 2015. Lion’s Share has been growing steadily and our clients have been nothing but happy and great to work with. Every year, we try to curate a list of WordPress<\/a> plugins that we suggest people use on their sites. So here’s the 20 best WordPress Plugins for 2015.<\/p>\n

WordPress<\/a> is the most popular Content Management System(CMS)<\/a> for making websites. Over 20% of the world’s websites are made using WordPress.<\/p>\n

One very popular feature of WordPress is its plugin<\/a> architecture which allows users and developers to extend its abilities well beyond the core installation. WordPress has an enormous database of plugins, each of which offers custom functions and features enabling users to tailor their sites to their specific needs. These customizations range from SEO (Search Engine Optimization)<\/a>, social media sharing<\/a>, eCommerce stores<\/a>, email list sign up boxes<\/a>, and much more. That said, finding good plugins in a sea of<\/p>\n

Here are the Best 20 WordPress plugins for 2015<\/h2>\n

\"20<\/p>\n

1. WordPress SEO by Yoast<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Improve your WordPress SEO: Write better content and have a fully optimized WordPress site using the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast.<\/p>\n

\"20<\/p>\n

2. Contact Form 7<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.<\/p>\n

\"20<\/p>\n

3. NextGEN Gallery<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The most popular WordPress gallery plugin and one of the most popular plugins of all time with over 9 million downloads. By far, the best image gallery plugin in the market. We highly suggest purchasing the pro version for additional functionality and designs.<\/p>\n

\"20<\/p>\n

4. Google Analytics by Yoast<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

First of all, this plugin makes sure you’re using the latest Google Analytics tracking code. This way you’ll benefit from all Google Analytics offers and use the fastest method of embedding it on your site.<\/p>\n

5. W3 Total Cache<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Easy Web Performance Optimization (WPO) using caching: browser, page, object, database, minify and content delivery network support.<\/p>\n

6. WP Smush.it<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Reduce image file sizes and improve performance using the Smush.it API within WordPress. This is a great plugin for updating an existing site to make it run more quickly.<\/p>\n

7. Better WordPress Minify<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Allows you to minify your CSS and JS files for faster page loading for visitors. You have to be careful with this one though, make sure to test your site on all browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari and even Internet Explorer).<\/p>\n

\"20<\/p>\n

8. Disqus Comment System<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Disqus is truly revolutionizing the blog comment system, allowing you to instantly turn your blog into a social media community. Disqus allows you to create a much more interactive blog community that connects seamlessly with all of the top social media sites online. This is by far the best solution for adding comments to your blog and will help to keep spam out. There is also a few settings that can show related posts as well as some advertising to earn a little extra advertising revenue.<\/p>\n

\"20<\/p>\n

9. Better WP Security<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Attacks on blogs have become more and more prevalent these days. It\u2019s critical that you keep your blog safe with something like \u2018Better WP Security<\/a>\u2019. Which makes it super easy to secure your site in just a few seconds.<\/p>\n

10. Duplicate Posts<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Allows you to quickly and easily duplicate pages and posts. If you are building a site from scratch, this can really save you some time.<\/p>\n

11. Facebook Like Box Widget<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Facebook Like Box Widget is a social plugin that enables Facebook Page owners to attract and gain Likes from their own website. The Like Box enables you.<\/p>\n

\"20<\/p>\n

12. Floating Social Bar <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

For those of you who would prefer a horizontal share bar that scrolls down the page, this is the one for you. Maximize your social media<\/a> shares without slowing down your site. You can see this in action at www.wpbeginner.com.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"20<\/p>\n

13. HTML Sitemap<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

A simple plugin that allows you to create a page for your HTML Sitemap.<\/p>\n

14. WP Super Cache<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

A very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files. Careful with this though, you want to make sure you know what you are doing. We also recommend hosting with WP Engine<\/a> and using their ultrafast caching and CDN system.<\/p>\n

15. Redirection<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

If you are moving to a new theme or domain, you’ll want to install and use Redirection. It allows you to quickly setup 301 redirects for pages or posts that you are moving. It also keeps a log of how many times those pages are hit so you can see that it’s working.<\/p>\n

\"20<\/p>\n

16. Digg Digg<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Your all in one share buttons plugin. Add a floating bar with share buttons to your blog. Just like Mashable!<\/p>\n

17. bbPress<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

bbPress is the de facto WordPress forum plugin. It is an impressive forum solution that integrates seamlessly with WordPress. It may also be the only WordPress<\/a> forum plugin with its own book!<\/p>\n

18. Shareaholic<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is probably the best social media sharing system out there. It is a bit heavy in regards to load time but the options and design are the best we’ve found.<\/p>\n

19. Testimonails Widget<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Testimonials Widget lets you randomly slide or list selected portfolios, quotes, reviews, or text with images or videos on your WordPress<\/a> site. You can insert Testimonials content via shortcode, theme functions, or widgets with category and tag selections and having multiple display options such as random or specific ordering. Also, Review schema for improved search engine results is built-in.<\/p>\n

\"20<\/p>\n

20. WooCommerce \u2013 Excelling eCommerce<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

WooCommerce is a powerful, extendable eCommerce<\/a> plugin that helps you sell anything. Beautifully.<\/p>\n

We hope you enjoyed our list of 20 Best WordPress Plugins for 2015. Do you have a favorite WordPress plugin that you want us to know about? Leave a comment and we’ll add it to the list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Update: This article is out of date. Please read our Top WordPress Plugins for 2020] We’re really excited about 2015. Lion’s Share has been growing steadily and our clients have been nothing but happy and great to work with. Every year, we try to curate a list of WordPress plugins…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14,211],"tags":[46,55],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lionssharedigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3923"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lionssharedigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lionssharedigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lionssharedigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lionssharedigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lionssharedigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lionssharedigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lionssharedigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lionssharedigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lionssharedigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}