The WordPress Theme and Plugins I Use on Every Business Website

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I build a lot of WordPress websites for small businesses that use digital marketing best practices over at my agency, WP SiteKit. Most business website are very similar in regards to wanting more traffic and converting more visitors to leads. So here are the core set of WordPress theme and plugins I use at the start of every project.

Hosting

Hands down WP Engine has been my favorite WordPress specific hosting provider. I’ve tried quite a few hosting providers through my different client’s websites and WP Engine is still my favorite. I’ve been using them solely for 5 years for my sites and always suggest them for my clients who mean business online.

Favorite WordPress Theme

My favorite WordPress theme in 2018 and 2019 has been Astra. This is because I can customize most of the layout without writing code, it’s made for page builders (I use Beaver Builder) and it has a very fast load time.

Favorite WordPress Plugins

  • Akismet Anti-Spam – Remove most spam from your comments automatically.
  • Beaver Builder – This is my favorite page builder for designing the more important sales and marketing web pages.
  • UABB – Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder is a large set of additional Beaver Builder components made by the same company that created the Astra theme.
  • Gravity Forms – This has been a solid chose for form builders for over a decade. It’s easy to build a form and can integrate with almost any other marketing tool.
  • Insert Headers and Footers – Use this to insert scripts into your header or footer. It’s a good idea to use a plugin, in case your change themes your scripts will remain.
  • MaxButtons – For marketing and business websites there are typically many call-to-action buttons throughout the site. This will help you create and manage them all.
  • ShortPixel Image Optimizer – This is a great plugin and service that compresses your image automatically in the background.
  • Social Icons Widget by WPZOOM – Simple and customizable social media profile buttons.
  • Social Warfare – Great social media sharing tool. It includes share counts to help with social proof.
  • Yoast SEO – This is the king of SEO plugins and a must have. It has dozens of SEO benefits. It will optimize site wide and help you target each page individually on focus keywords.
  • Convert Pro– This is a great popup lead generation tool. You can easily customize the look and behavior of the popups. It also integrates with most major marketing tools.
  • Schema Pro – Another SEO related plugin that’s easy to configure and should improve your search ranking.

Other Services and Apps

  • Google Analytics – This is the free website tracking service that everyone uses to learn about their website visitors.
  • Google Search Console – This free tool lets you see how Google sees your website in regards to search engine optimization.
  • CoSchedule – I use this tool for serious content marketing focused website. It automatically publishes to most social media marketing channels and provides a great WordPress publishing calendar.
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