Reality Check: The Most Important WordPress Plugins Behind Noupe

Plugins are an important topic for every WordPress user. Before, we have presented new plugins every now and then. But we have never shown what our own installation runs with. Today, we want to catch up on that. In the following article, you'll find the most important plugins behind Noupe. No web worker magazine works without plugins. The opposite is the case, as people that need to create a lot of good content need a certain basic equipment of useful helpers for the job.

Noupe's Most Important WordPress Plugins

1 - Code-Highlighting

Let's start with the presentation of code snippets. Without proper core highlighting, the presentation of code snippets is not professional. We chose my plugin AH Code Highlighter, as it is very easy to use, comes with seven themes, and has a very low weight. My article »My Personal Must-Have WordPress Plugins of 2017« goes more into detail on that.

2 - Performance

Performance is becoming more and more important. Here, you need plugins that synergize perfectly. There's not a whole lot to choose from, as many other variants don't work sufficiently well. We chose Autoptimize and Cache Enabler, as the combination of the two gets the best results.

3 - Social Media Posting

Every publisher needs to use social media to generate range. Nobody really want to manually write and publish every post to the respective media. Thus, an automatic, well adjustable solution is needed. We trust the Blog2Social solution by Adenion in the pro version. Licenses start at 69 Euro a year. We've already released a more detailed introduction to the plugin here.

4 - Search Engine Optimization

Here, you're probably just expecting us to mention the Yoast SEO plugin. I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you. After a lot of consideration, we decided to use DELUCKS SEO by Severin Lucks, as especially its premium version comes with a ton of truly useful advantages. For example, you can not only SEO optimize an article, but also analyze your competition for this specific post. The other plugins don't provide this feature. The premium version costs 60 USD and can be purchased at codecanyon.net (Envato). We've also introduced this plugin before.

5 - The Share Buttons

Share buttons are indispensable for the range of your articles. Nobody can afford to forgo social networks. Thus, it takes a fast and appealing solution that can also be adjusted via shortcodes and template tags. Here, we confidently trust the Mashshare buttons by René Hermenau. This solution becomes really good in combination with the modules that can be purchased in addition to the free solution. We use the modules Social Networks Add-On and LikeAfterShare. As a bundle with other useful modules, it will cost you 39€ a years.

6 - Image Optimization

Images are a delicate topic, as they are one of the biggest bottlenecks when it comes to performance. If you really want your website to have fast loading times, you need to pay a lot of attention to the optimization of your images. We chose the current best solution, the Optimus HQ Plugin by KeyCDN. Also, for creating an image gallery, we use Modula WordPress plugin. Optimus HQ is a premium solution, for only 29€ per year, which is also capable of generating WebP graphics, which result in much smaller file sizes than regular formats.

7 - Comfortably Using Own Shortcodes

Shortcodes can be a lot of things. An example would be the HTML element <code>, if you need to highlight a single line of code. You won't find it in the editor, so you'd normally need to enter the element in the text view. The solution to this problem is provided by the plugin Post Snippets, which not only lets you create but also use own shortcodes in a comfortable way. Find more useful information on the plugin here.

8 - Don't Accidentally Release Posts

This happened to most of us. A single wrong click and your post draft is online. To prevent this, we're using the Pre-Publish Post Checklist. You can only publish a post after you went through a custom checklist and met all the requirements you defined. By the way, it has been three years since the plugin's last update, but it still works fine with the newest WordPress version.

9 - Efficiency Review: Receiving Statistics on Social Networks

When writing professionally, an efficiency review is recommended every now and then. Which posts were shared how often, and in which network? Where did you get the most comments? These are important questions that you need answers for in order to judge the success of your articles. For that task, we're using the Social Metrics Tracker. [caption id="attachment_87274" align="alignnone" width="1100"] Here's an excerpt from the results of the Social Metrics Tracker.[/caption] The information helps you identify the evergreen content among your stock, and also tell you if you should go more into detail on some topics. This kind of analysis will make your (business-) blog more successful.

10 - Contact Forms

After years of using Contact Form 7, we have finally found a really good plugin for the job. It's modular, easy to configure via drag and drop, and comes with the unbeatable advantage that it only integrates its CSS and JavaScript files where they're needed. I'm talking about WPForms Lite Plugin. [caption id="attachment_87278" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Easily create forms with the generator of WPForms Lite.[/caption] You can find more information on the plugin in this article. Personally, I have just bought the premium version for 39,20 USD, which comes with a few more very interesting features.

11 - Performance: Cleaning Up the Database

Noupe's database has a size of 2,5GB. Not long ago, we would have been happy to have a hard drive of that capacity. In order to limit the database size, maintenance is required. For that, we use the plugin WP-Sweep. According to its creator, WP-Sweep does the following:

WP-Sweep allows you to clean up unused, orphaned, and duplicate files in WordPress. It cleans up revisions, auto drafts, deleted comments, unapproved comments, spam comments, orphaned post meta, orphaned comment meta, orphaned user meta, orphaned term meta, unused terms, duplicated post meta, duplicated comment meta, duplicated user meta, and transient options. It also optimizes your database tables.

12 - The Development Page With WP Staging

Every website should have an exact copy of the own website for the development of new functions, and for the testing of plugin compatibilities. We're using the wonderful solution WP Staging by René Hermenau, which we have already presented in this article.

13 - The Shop: WooCommerce & Co.

Of course, our shop is powered by WooCommerce. German legal security is provided - after significant issues with German Market - by the really good plugin WooCommerce Germanized with the important addon WooCommerce Germanized Pro. A license costs 69,95€ per year.

Users of WooCommerce Germanized Pro profit from many extensive features, like PDF calculations, sample text generator for SBT and cancellation policy, a multi-step checkout, premium support, and a lot more!

14 - Data Visualization - Charts and so Forth

From time to time, we need to neatly display our data. Interactive diagrams and graphics just look better than simply lining up the respective facts. Additionally, this makes it easier to conceive the data. WordPress Charts and Graphs Lite is our plugin of choice. Did you know all the plugins already? Which ones do you use, and why do or don't you use them? Let us know. Featured image by AzamKamolov on Pixabay