11 MUST HAVE PLUGINS FOR YOUR WORDPRESS FILM WEBSITE
You decided to create a WordPress website for your film or simply to have a platform for your filmmaking ambitions. You went ahead and installed your theme and now you’re ready to start building it and you’re wondering, what’s next? Great question! What’s next is you need the following totally free plugins available from the WordPress repository for your website.
These 11 Must Have Plugins For Your WordPress Film Website range from plugins that will make your website more aesthetically appealing, to security, back up, restoration and much more.
Without further ado:
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TinyMCE Advanced
It’s a plugin built by Andrew Ozz that will let you add, remove, and arrange the buttons that are shown on the Visual Editor toolbar. It includes 15 plugins for TinyMCE that are automatically enabled or disabled depending on what buttons are chosen.
The most basic functionality of TinyMCE Advanced is that it will expand your text options (e.g., text, font, font size, etc). The text options that come with your WordPress installment are very limited.
UpDraftPlus – BackUp/Restore
This plugin backs up your website incase it crashes or is hacked so that you can easily restore it.
Woocommerce
Are you thinking about selling anything at all on your website? For example, films, film posters, t-shirts, anything? Then you need Woocommerce. It works for physical goods or downloads (music, films, seminars, etc).
Woocommerce is totally free but there’s also some highly effective paying options worth considering.
Wordfence Security
Plainly put! There are hackers looking to hack your website. You need to protect your website from them. By installing the Wordfence Security plugin you’re good to go.
WP Supercache
This plugin ultimately serves to speed up your website. It does so by caching images. It generates html files that are served directly by Apache without processing comparatively heavy PHP scripts.
For example, when a viewer visits your website for the first time it may take a little longer for a particular image to load up. However, the second time the visitor comes to your website the image will load up quicker because it has been cached.
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is a powerful tool that can help you make your site as search engine-friendly as possible.
With Yoast SEO you fill in certain information to let search engines, e.g., Google, know exactly what your website, post is about.
Akismet Anti-Spam
There’s spammers out there and your website is subject to them if you don’t take measures. The Akismet Anti-Spam plugin will keep spam out of your comments section.
Google Analytics Dashboard For WP
People will be visiting your website. With this plugin you can Know how many are, from where, when and much more.
WP-Optimize
When you’re working on a post, product page, etc., you will most likely make revisions. These revisions will remain stored on your database unless deleted, manually.
WP-Optimize is a simple, highly effective plugin that removes all kinds of old revisions, spam and trash with just a couple of clicks.
Contact Form 7
If you’re going to have a website then you need a contact form. People visiting your website may have questions and need to reach out to you. With this plugin you can build a contact form to make it easy for them to do so.
WP Maintenance Mode
This may be the first plugin you install. The reason is because you can customize it to alert any visitors to your website that it’s in maintenance or coming soon. There’s even an option for the visitor to leave an email address for you to reach out to them once your site goes live.
BONUS
MailChimp
When you launch your website you need to hit the ground running. You can do so by immidiatley beginning to collect emails addresses from visitors to your website. This can easily be done with the Mailchimp plugin. If there’s anything you don’t understand they incredibly detailed tutorials on how to navigate through your question.
CONCLUSION
These plugins are a must have for your film website, but truly they are must haves for any website. Also, don’t forget to configure the necessary plugins once you install them to your website. That is, some of these plugins require you fill out certain information before they can become active. For example, Updraft Plus – Back Up/Restore, Wordfence Security, Google Analytics Dashboard For WP, Akismet Anti-Spam and Mailchimp.
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Zandir Santos is contributing writer to MarilynFilms.com. In addition to filmmaking, Zandir is a website designer and editor.
