Note: This is a continuation of my last two posts, which focused on selecting a web hosting service and CMS and picking a WordPress theme. If you’re unsure of what these are, you may want to read those first!
Reminder: This is a beginner’s guide in the truest sense – it’s written not just for beginners but also by a beginner! You’ve been warned.
If you’ve read the first two installations of this series, you know that I’m not trying to provide detailed step-by-step instructions. Rather, I’m touching on some of the bigger decision points I experienced as I created my own website. This post moves even further away from step-by-step instructions because frankly, I don’t remember them!
Why should I use WordPress plugins?
Well, plugins let you add specific features or functions to your website. Your theme provides for some of this, but plugins can take this to a whole new level.
Though you can download plugins from a range of places, the only source I’ve used so far is the WordPress.org plugin Directory, which currently has 46,467 plugins available for download. Oh dear – at first glance this is as overwhelming as selecting a WordPress theme.
Given my beginner status, I have nowhere near a comprehensive understanding of all the things that these 46,467 plugins are capable of. However, what I can do is introduce you to three popular ones that proved very helpful as I was starting out with my site.
ADVICE FROM A BEGINNER: Don’t overthink WordPress plugins. They’re meant to be helpful, not to induce a panic attack. For now, only add plugins if you have identified something you need that only a plugin can provide.
Useful plugin #1: Contact Form 7
It does what it says – contact forms. I wanted my site to have a “Contact” page which visitors could use to get in touch with me, but didn’t want to put my email address or phone number on it. Contact Form 7 makes using and customizing contact forms a breeze. It also has over a million active installs which means I’m not the only one who thinks it’s useful.
ADVICE FROM A BEGINNER: If you’re a beginner, you’re probably not the first one to need a plugin for any particular function. Use other people’s experience as a guide (i.e. number of active installs and user ratings). Well-established plugins will have fewer issues and more online support.
After you’ve installed and activated Contact Form 7, you can go into its settings and create your first form. For me this is also my only form. It provides a template for a form but lets you add and remove boxes to/from the template (for instance you can choose to require the user to enter a name and email address before she can submit the message). You also have to set the email address you want the messages to forward to and what you want the email subject line to look like.
There’s a lot more Contact Form 7 can do but that covers the basics. If you want to add a contact form to your website but don’t know where to start, try Contact Form 7.
Useful plugin #2: MailChimp for WordPress
I also wanted to allow (encourage!) visitors to sign up for updates to my blog, and to be able to email the subscriber list with ease. For the second part, I needed an email service provider (ESP) and settled on MailChimp, mainly because that’s what a guy at work suggested. He’s done all this before so I had no reason to second-guess him.
MailChimp is not a WordPress plugin – it’s a completely separate service. But it lets you create contact lists and seamlessly use these lists in marketing and communications campaigns. It’s also got loads of other features but since I haven’t used those yet I’ll leave them to you to explore.
If you go with MailChimp, start by setting up an account and an initial list.
Once you’ve done this, it’s time to find a plugin that lets people subscribe to emails via a form on your site. MailChimp has an official plugin, MailChimp List Subscribe Form, which has over 100,000 active installs. BUT it just doesn’t seem that good – it only gets 2.8/5 stars in its WordPress.org ratings. Hmm…I think I’ll pass.
ADVICE FROM A BEGINNER: Even “brand name” plugins can be a let-down. Check the ratings and reviews before installing any plugins.
A bit more searching… and… MailChimp for WordPress it is! It has seven times as many active installs as MailChimp List Subscribe Form and has an astonishing 4.9/5 star rating on WordPress.org. MailChimp – it looks like you need to up your plugin game!
Again, install and activate the plugin, then adjust the settings. You’ll need to connect the plugin to your MailChimp account, but this is relatively straightforward. Then just use the settings to create your subscribe form(s) and add them to the desired locations on your site.
Useful plugin #3: Yoast SEO
First, a note on SEO. SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It’s hard to avoid stuff about SEO when you’re looking into anything related to website development. That’s cause it’s important – if your site has good SEO, it will show up higher in search engine rankings and have more traffic. If you have ads, good SEO also leads to more money, and since that’s probably why you have ads in the first place, you’ll likely be okay with that result.
There are plenty of sites devoted to SEO, and if you wanted you could spend weeks researching it. BUT WE’RE BEGINNERS. C’mon – it’s not worth our time…yet. Right now, as we create our sites from scratch, it’s far more important to get something on there, and to make sure that that something includes high-quality content. It’s just not efficient to hold off on that because you want to get the SEO just right. Plus, nobody knows for sure how to do that anyway because we laypeople don’t know the algorithms Google and Bing use.
ADVICE FROM A BEGINNER: Save your serious SEO for later. For now, just make sure you have the basics down, for instance by utilizing the Yoast SEO plugin.
That said, if you want a primer on SEO and a quick check of how your pages/posts are doing, get the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin (over one million active installs; 4/5 stars). It assesses the SEO and readability of each page/post on your site, and gives you tips on simple actions you can take to improve these (i.e. add more words to your text; add more headings; decrease page title, etc.). I think this should be plenty for us beginners for now.
The end
And with that, I conclude my beginner’s guide to making your own website. I know, I know – I’ve left A LOT of holes. Let me know if there’s anything else you’d like me to “explain.” I’ll do my best!
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