From http://www.meetup.com/Milwaukee-WordPress-MeetUp/events/228040925/ Geoff Myers, digital marketing consultant/strategist and president of SimDex LLC, will be presenting an overview of the best plugins that he – and many other WordPress developers – use regularly for client projects and highly recommend. Geoff will present and discuss some of the best plugins available in each of the following categories: • Analytics • Backups • Calendars/Events • Comments • Ecommerce • Email Marketing • Forms • Forums/Discussions • Galleries/Sliders • Import/Export • Migrations/Cloning • Performance • Security • SEO • Social Media • Tools/Utilities • Videos • More!

1. THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS
FOR EVERY PURPOSE
(RECOMMENDED BY DEVELOPERS)
GEOFF MYERS PRESENTS

2. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
BEFORE WE BEGIN…
ABOUT GEOFF MYERS
▸ Founded SimDex in 2004
▸ Web Solutions for Small + Medium Sized Businesses
▸ Digital Marketing Consultant + Strategist
▸ 10+ Years as Full Stack Web Designer + Developer
▸ 5+ Years of WordPress Development Experience
▸ 50+ WordPress Sites Built, Maintained + Marketed
▸ Formal Background in Computer Science
▸ Get In Touch: geoff@simdex.org or simdex.org or 414.455.6675

3. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
WHAT SHOULD I CONSIDER WHEN RESEARCHING A PLUGIN?
1. Features + Functionality
2. User Interface + Experience (UI/UX)
3. Customization + Flexibility
4. Responsive Design + Mobile Friendliness
5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
6. Performance + Speed
7. Security + Stability
8. Developer + Community Support

4. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
IMPORTANT QUESTIONS TO ASK FIRST
▸ What features and functionality do you need?
▸ What integrations do you want with other plugins?
▸ How compatible is your theme?
▸ How technologically savvy are you?
▸ What is your budget?
▸ How willing are you to learn?
▸ How much support do you need?

5. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
WHERE SHOULD I GO TO FIND A PLUGIN?
▸ WordPress Plugin Directory (wordpress.org/plugins)
▸ WooThemes (woothemes.com)
▸ Elegant Themes (elegantthemes.com)
▸ WPMU DEV (wpmudev.org)
▸ CodeCanyon (codecanyon.net)
▸ Plugin Developer Websites
(gravityforms.com, yoast.com…)

6. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
A SMALL SAMPLE OF PLUGIN CATEGORIES
▸ Analytics
▸ Backups
▸ Calendars/Events
▸ Comments
▸ Development
▸ Ecommerce
▸ Email Marketing
▸ Forms
▸ Forums/Discussions
▸ Images/Videos
▸ Import/Export
▸ Maps
▸ Migrations/Cloning
▸ Performance
▸ Security
▸ SEO
▸ Social Media
▸ Tools/Utilities
▸ More…

7. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR WEBSITE ANALYTICS + INSIGHTS
▸ Google Analyticator
▸ Google Analytics by Yoast
▸ Google Analytics Dashboard for WP

8. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR WEBSITE BACKUPS
▸ BackupBuddy
▸ BackUpWordPress
▸ UpdraftPlus
▸ WP-DB-Backup

9. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR CALENDARS + EVENTS
▸ Events Manager
▸ The Events Calendar

10. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR USER COMMENTS
▸ Akismet
▸ Disable Comments
▸ Disqus Comment System

11. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR DEVELOPERS
▸ Advanced Custom Fields (create create custom fields)
▸ Child Theme Configurator (create child themes)
▸ Custom Post Type UI (create custom post types
and taxonomies)
▸ Theme Check (check WordPress
theme best practices)
▸ Types (create custom post types,
taxonomies,and custom fields)
▸ What The File (identity templates)

12. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR ECOMMERCE + SHOPPING CARTS
▸ WooCommerce
▸ WooCommerce Premium Extensions
(many, many plugins with various features)
▸ Braintree (payment processor)
▸ PayPal Pro (payment processor)
▸ Stripe (payment processor)

13. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR EMAIL MARKETING INTEGRATION
▸ MailChimp for WordPress
▸ MailPoet Newsletters

14. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR CUSTOM FORMS
▸ Contact Form 7
▸ Fast Secure Contact Form
▸ Gravity Forms
▸ Ninja Forms

15. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR FORUMS + DISCUSSION BOARDS
▸ bbPress

16. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR IMAGE + VIDEO GALLERIES + SLIDERS
▸ Gallery
▸ Image Widget
▸ Meta Slider
▸ NextGEN Gallery
▸ Slider
▸ Slider Revolution

17. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR IMPORTING + EXPORTING DATA
▸ WordPress Importer
▸ WP All Import

18. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR EMBEDDING MAPS
▸ Google Maps Widget
▸ MapPress
▸ WP Google Maps

19. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR CLONING + MIGRATING WEBSITES
▸ All-in-One WP Migration
▸ Duplicator
▸ WP Migrate DB

20. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION (PART 1 OF 2)
▸ CloudFlare (content delivery network)
▸ EWWW Image Optimizer (image optimization)
▸ Imsanity (automatic image resizing)
▸ P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler)
(diagnostics + troubleshooting)
▸ Query Monitor
(diagnostics + troubleshooting)

21. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
▸ W3 Total Cache (caching + minification)
▸ WP-Optimize (database optimization)
▸ WP Smush (image optimization)
▸ WP Super Cache
(caching + minification)
BEST PLUGINS FOR PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION (PART 2 OF 2)

22. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR SECURITY + PRIVACY
▸ Advanced Automatic Updates (automatic WP updates)
▸ Easy Updates Manager (automatic WP updates)
▸ iThemes Security (security best practices)
▸ Login LockDown (login protection)
▸ Really Simple SSL (force HTTPS/SSL)
▸ Sucuri Security (malware scanner)
▸ Wordfence Security
(malware scanner)

23. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
▸ All in One SEO Pack
▸ Google XML Sitemaps
▸ Yoast SEO

24. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA SHARING + INTEGRATION
▸ AddThis
▸ AddToAny
▸ Custom Facebook Feed
▸ Shareaholic
▸ ShareThis
▸ Social Networks Auto-Poster

25. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR SOCIAL NETWORKS + COMMUNITY BUILDING
▸ BuddyPress

26. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR TOOLS + UTILITIES (PART 1 OF 2)
▸ Admin Columns (view, edit, filter, and sort posts and pages inline)
▸ Better Search Replace (find and replace in MySQL database)
▸ Broken Link Checker
(find and fix links + images with 404 errors)
▸ InfiniteWP
(manage multiple WordPress sites)
▸ ManageWP
(manage multiple WordPres sites)
▸ Multi Plugin Installer
(bulk install plugins automatically)

27. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR TOOLS + UTILITIES (PART 2 OF 2)
▸ Nav Menu Roles (control access to menus)
▸ Page Restrict (control access to content)
▸ Redirection (easily create 301 redirects)
▸ Regenerate Thumbnails
(recreate image thumbnails)
▸ Simple History (log user activity)
▸ User Role Editor
(edit user + group permissions)

28. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR MISCELLANEOUS (PART 1 OF 2)
▸ Display Widgets (conditionally show widgets)
▸ Duplicate Post (copy posts and pages)
▸ DuracellTomi's Google Tag Manager
▸ Jetpack (many, many features)
▸ Page Builder by Site Origin
(visual layout builder)
▸ Shortcodes Ultimate
(pre-formatted modules)

29. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THE BEST WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR EVERY PURPOSE
BEST PLUGINS FOR MISCELLANEOUS (PART 2 OF 2)
▸ TablePress (create and edit tables)
▸ TinyMCE Advanced (WYSIWYG editor)
▸ Visual Composer
(visual layout builder)
▸ WPtouch (mobile-friendliness)

30. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THAT’S IT FOR NOW…
THANK YOU!
Questions? Comments?
Get In Touch:
geoff@simdex.org
simdex.org
414.455.6675

31. GEOFF@SIMDEX.ORG | WWW.SIMDEX.ORG | 414.455.6675
THAT’S IT FOR NOW…
THIS PRESENTATION IS AVAILABLE ONLINE:
simdex.org/plugins
simdex.org/plugins.pdf
Get In Touch:
geoff@simdex.org
simdex.org
414.455.6675