Best WordPress Plugins for Business

I’m breaking a rule, because I am a wild and crazy rebel. This month’s “Tool Tuesday” is going out on Friday. WHOOP. Do I know how to party or what? I just couldn’t help myself. Last night’s Blogging for Business Class at Pacific New Media was ridiculously awesome.  Another action-packed evening with great questions! The people who come to these classes are so amazing and its really an honor to teach and train at Pacific New Media. We just didn’t have enough time to cover some of the best WordPress Plugins for Business. As a follow-up, I promised to let me class know some of my favorites, and you, Akamai reader, get to benefit as well.

I’m an unabashed WordPress advocate. I think its the single best choice for business. I used to say small and medium sized businesses, but since NASA started using it, I think its clear that WordPress works for even the largest organizations. The reasons it works for large organizations is the same reason it works for small and medium size organizations: its flexible and empowering. WordPress is more than a blog today, its an entire website platform. Do what you want with it; WordPress can keep up with you.

During last night’s class, we discussed some plugins. We couldn’t get to them all, so I’m doing a short blog post on must-have WordPress plugins. Bookmark it, favorite it or just keep it in your email. You’ll be glad you did. Without further adieu:

5 Best WordPress PlugIns for Business

Akismet:
A highly effective spam filter.  In the 5 years I’ve been using Akismet, spam has never been a real issue for me.
Download: Directly from your Plugin Dashboard
Cost:  Free for personal use. $5/month for small business, single use site.
More Info: Akismet Website 

SEO By Yoast
The plugin for the rest of us. SEO as easy as pie. Regularly updated.
Download: Directly from Plugin Dashboard
Cost: Free, but accepts donations
More Info: SEO By Yoast 

Sexy Bookmarks by Sharaholic
Make it easy for your readers to share your content to almost any site they wish. All the major sites, Twitter, Facebook, etc., plus some you probably didn’t even know existed. There are also some basic analytics which you can connect to your Google Analytics account for a deeper dive.
Cost: Free
Download: Directly from Plugin Dashboard.
More Info: Sharaholic 

Contact Form 7
Sometimes you want more information  than just an email, when someone is inquiring about your services for example. Contact Form 7 lets you create a customizable form and delivers it directly to whatever email you choose.  This isn’t a mailing list builder, its more of an inquiry form. It can also be used in many different languages.
Cost: Free
Download: Directly from Plugin Dashboard.
More Info: Contact Form 7 

MaxInBound Landing Pages
Creating clean, effective landing pages can be a challenge within a template. This plugin solves that problem and makes landing pages incredibly easy to build. It will also connect with your email program (I use MailChimp) to keep your lists organized and you’re opt-ins clean.
Cost: $49 one site, unlimited landing pages and (great) support for 1 year.
Download From: The MaxInBound Website 

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