WordPress powers 35% of all websites on the internet.
This impressive statistic not only showcases WordPress’s popularity but also hints at the powerful tools available for building and managing websites. WordPress allows developers to extend its capabilities using plugins—from bolstering security to customising content management.
With WordPress running a third of the internet, a thriving ecosystem of plugins has emerged, each designed to improve functionality for site owners and developers alike. Here are the top plugins serious WordPress developers rely on to enhance content management and elevate site functionality.
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1. WooCommerce
A must for creating online stores, WooCommerce is popular for its flexibility and extensive customisation options. With over 5 million active installations, it offers a wide array of hooks, filters, and built-in REST API endpoints that allow developers to build custom e-commerce solutions tailored to each client’s needs.
WooCommerce provides features such as structured data markup, inventory management, and AJAX-powered front-end cart updates, all of which enhance user experience and SEO.
This gives you an intuitive, user-friendly shopping experience, greater visibility on search engines, and full scalability to accommodate business growth. Developers can further customise WooCommerce through hooks, theme integration, and custom endpoints, providing virtually limitless possibilities for scaling a business’s e-commerce offerings.
Our e-commerce projects utilise WooCommerce, finding it robust and adaptable for clients across industries.
2. Advanced Custom Fields (ACF)
For developers needing custom fields beyond WordPress’s native setup, Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) is a game-changer. ACF enables the creation of custom fields, flexible content layouts, and relational data structures—perfect for tailoring the backend to match specific data requirements.
With support for flexible content fields, repeaters, and relationship fields, ACF simplifies complex data organisation. Developers can also use PHP functions like get_field() and the_field() to display field data seamlessly in custom templates.
This results in a tailored backend experience, making updating and managing content straightforward and intuitive, regardless of the complexity of the content structure.
David Foreman
Managing Director
Using the right plugins is crucial for the success of your bespoke WordPress site.
With so many free plugins around, it can be easy to add too many to your site. We can guide you through the best plugins to achieve what you need, or we often replace plugins with some bespoke code to achieve the same result in a more straightforward way.
Get Started3. Yoast SEO
For SEO-focused websites, Yoast SEO is indispensable. It goes beyond basic SEO settings by adding structured data markup, Open Graph metadata, and integration with Google Search Console for tracking analytics directly from the dashboard.
Yoast’s REST API and the ability to set custom XML sitemaps per post type make it ideal for developers managing complex SEO requirements. It integrates seamlessly with custom post types and ACF, enabling developers to optimise content directly within the WordPress editor while keeping control over the technical SEO aspects, such as canonical URLs and meta robots.
This boosts your search engine visibility, click-through rates, and understanding of your website’s SEO performance—all driving more traffic and conversions.
4. WP Rocket
Performance is critical, and WP Rocket is a top-tier caching plugin for improving load times and site speed, featuring page caching, cache preloading, and GZIP compression. It optimises database queries and handles critical performance functions like minification, deferring JavaScript loading, and lazy loading of images and videos to reduce server load.
WP Rocket is compatible with major themes and plugins, including WooCommerce, and offers fine-tuned control over caching for logged-in users. Developers appreciate its ease of integration with CDNs, custom caching options for specific URLs, and compatibility with dynamic content sites that benefit from caching flexibility.
Faster page load times mean better user satisfaction, higher search engine rankings, and more conversions, as visitors are less likely to abandon fast-loading sites.
5. WP Smush
Image optimisation is crucial for load times, and WP Smush is a trusted plugin for compressing images without quality loss. WP Smush uses lossless compression to reduce file sizes and includes features like bulk compression and automatic resizing for uploaded images.
The plugin integrates with WP’s media library, processing images on the fly, and offers a powerful API for developers looking to automate image optimisation across custom image sources. It also supports lazy loading, a crucial feature for image-heavy sites that want to maintain speed without compromising visual appeal.
This allows you to keep a visually rich website without sacrificing performance, ensuring visitors have a smooth browsing experience while protecting your SEO rankings.
6. Internal Link Juicer
Internal linking strengthens SEO, and Internal Link Juicer automates the process by recommending and adding internal links based on keyword strategies. It intelligently scans content to suggest relevant links, helping create a more interconnected site structure that aids search engines in indexing pages.
With ACF integration and support for multiple languages, Internal Link Juicer is valuable for developers managing large sites or multilingual projects. Advanced filters allow control over which pages receive internal links, so developers can focus on strategically linking high-priority content.
This creates a more engaging website that encourages users to stay longer and benefits your SEO with a well-organised internal link structure.
The Benefits of WordPress for Customisation
WordPress’s plugin ecosystem offers vast flexibility, yet it’s essential to choose quality plugins to avoid performance issues. Each of these plugins enhances specific aspects of content management and site performance, allowing developers to build efficient, custom websites that deliver high-quality user experiences without compromising on speed or SEO.
By balancing plugins with clean code practices, developers can fully leverage WordPress’s capabilities, creating sites that offer robust functionality and ease of use while delivering a superior browsing experience to you and your visitors alike.
David Foreman
Dave is the MD at Toast and has been building bespoke WordPress sites for over 15 years. He currently gets involved in the scoping and planning of new sites together with content and SEO strategy to get sites ranking.
