<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=329273934338376&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">

5 WordPress Plugins You Should Be Using on Your Website

Posted by Markentum Team on Apr 26, 2019 9:00:00 AM
Markentum Team
| 4 minute read

Website Development_Markentum

Although WordPress has a lot of great features built right in to make websites easily manageable, there is still a lot of desired functionality missing from the core.

This is where developing or using plugins can fill those gaps. Markentum is sharing five must-have plugins that will help you customize your senior living website and take it to the next level!


1. ACF (Advanced Custom Fields)

WordPress icon_MarkentumThe Advanced Custom Fields plugin is a prevalent tool for WordPress developers when it comes to having more control of the user interface and custom field data. It provides a simple user interface and intuitive way for building web pages in WordPress. 

With ACF fields, you can eliminate the code and input only what is needed for each area, and it will display correctly on the frontend as it was developed on the backend. Although you can create custom fields without this plugin, it’s a great choice because it can eliminate the amount of time it takes to make custom fields. Some of the great options to create are galleries, text fields, images, true/false conditionals, date pickers, maps, videos, accordions, links, and many more.

 

2. Custom Post Type UI

In addition to Advanced Custom Fields, the Custom Post Type UI plugin goes hand-in-hand with the ACF plugin. Have you ever had to add team members to a website, or a list of events, or a portfolio? Wouldn’t it be easier to have a built-in post type in the admin menu bar where you add them in, and they show up on a specific web page? CPT UI is a tremendous plugin when creating menu options that are tied to custom fields.

CPT UI adds a nice and simple menu item in the WordPress sidebar, which is set conditionally to a specific field group (with custom fields). You can add a new item, edit the item, remove the item, add a featured image, add tags or categories, and more based on what custom fields were created in the field group. CPT UI is a simple way of adding features to websites with specific options.

 

3. Yoast

Yoast offers a slew of great SEO features for your senior living website! Some include meta-title and meta-description, readability check, one keyword, sitemap generator, social SEO, breadcrumbs, and more. If you upgrade to the premium version, you get more keywords and redirects.

It’s very powerful but also clear-cut and dry when it comes to setting it up and adding all the metadata. This is the best plugin for making sure your SEO is all around up to date and optimized to its fullest potential.

New call-to-action 

4. Catch IDs

A nice addition to WordPress is to quickly see the ID for your posts or pages on the main screen. When you are developing custom websites in WordPress, there are times where the ID of a page is needed to build dynamically with PHP. This is where Catch IDs becomes a very handy plugin.

For example, if you want to show something on a specific page and not the others, you would add the page or post ID within the "if" statement. This is also true with styling when your last resort is to reference the actual page ID. Most of the time you have a class to reference, but there are times where that class is being used for the other post or pages, and you don’t want to use it for a specific post or page. Starting with the page ID would make certain that the style only reflects that ID.

 

5. Custom Permalinks

WordPress Plugin Meme_MarkentumThe Custom Permalinks plugin is an easy way to change your permalink to a custom SEO link. If you don’t have folders (parent pages), categories or tags, and want to add a custom link this plugin will do just that. You can structure your site the way you want. This plugin will redirect old permalinks to the new address. This is a great plugin if you have a sitemap with custom SEO links for your site.

Although there are many plugins available, it’s not recommended to install one every time you need functionality that doesn’t exist. Make sure you research the plugin. It needs to be compatible with the current WordPress version, have good reviews, usually a lot of installs, and tested on a dev environment. This is to make sure it doesn’t conflict with any other plugins on the website.

With the assistance of these five plugins, you will be able to increase the functionality, efficiency, and effectiveness of any WordPress website you're working with! Markentum utilizes plugins, among other tools, to enhance the user experience and create websites that empower your brand.

If you're looking to create a stunning website for your senior living community that will revolutionize the way your customers interact with your brand, we'd be glad to help. Contact us for a free evaluation today!

 

Tags: Web Design & Development, Integrated Marketing