Yesterday, I wrote a blog post that discussed the harsh realities facing professionals coming from the non-technical marketing world when faced with the prospect of hiring contract web developers. The article painted a fairly bleak picture that involved the uphill climb of developing a basic technical proficiency to do it well, but what about folks who just have no interest or time to learn those fundamentals? If that describe you, then read on…
As you know, there are TONS of WordPress themes and plugins out there to choose from. Taking the time to sort out which are the right ones to use (and why) is important… and most folks have different standards for what makes a quality plugin or theme.
What I look for in a plugin or theme
Let me first say that while I’m very opinionated as to what is a solid plugin or theme to use, everybody has their own ideas… and typically for a good reason. Here are the major considerations I tend to factor:
An Appropriate Format – Plugin or Theme
I have no interest in using themes that by definition do things that I feel are better utilized in the context of a plugin. Let’s use landing pages and funnel optimization as an example. While there are a variety of solutions that handle landing pages for WordPress, two very popular options are OptimizePress and Premise. OptimizePress is a theme in and of itself, while Premise is a plugin, and I’ve had the opportunity to use both extensively. While I like OptimizePress and for the most part it does what it says it is supposed to do, I find it frustrating that if I were to choose to change my theme for whatever reason, I would instantly lose the ability to use all of my landing pages. It’s unnecessary and incongruent with the intent of what a theme is supposed to be. Conversely, because Premise is a plugin, I can change my theme to my heart’s content, but my landing pages will remain entirely unaffected when doing so. Philosophically, it’s just a better option. To me, the difference is what I consider to be display logic versus site logic. If the programming and functionality is required for something to be visually displayed in a certain way, than it can be considered display logic and is appropriate for that functionality to be bundled with a theme. If the programming is crucial to the proper functioning of the site regardless what the site looks like, then it is site logic and should be encapsulated within a plugin. Simple stuff, but extremely crucial to understand.
As a marketer, it’s useful to understand that often times lesser experienced developers will actually confuse themes and plugins, and will think that functionality should be added right into a theme. It can be done, but that doesn’t mean it should be done. That’s a big deal for a lot of reasons, and it’s a GREAT way for a developer who “kinda sorta” knows what they are doing to screw you and artificially hook you into them for a long time. If you are concerned about this and want to know more about it, feel free to contact me and we can talk about your particular situation… [shameless plug] there’s also a pretty reasonable discussion about this topic in the WordPress book I coauthored with Raena Jackson Armitage (The WordPress Anthology) from Sitepoint.com. And while we are at it, from a marketers’ perspective, you’ll find the first two chapters in particular very useful… but it’ll get a lot more technical after that. I would term the skill level required to read and understand that book as beginner to intermediate. [/shameless plug]
Thoughtful, responsive technical support
The caveat to this consideration is that you’ll rarely find excellent technical support in a non-premium plugin or theme solution, but if you if your WordPress site is integral to your business, I honestly can’t stress how important this is. The best plugins are almost always defined equally by the quality of their technical support as well as the actual user experience when using their software. Before you buy anything in particular, have a look at what the support offerings look like and even try Googling the theme or plugin along with “support” or “review” and see what you find… if things feel favorable, they probably are. Likewise, if things seem sketchy, they very well may be.
Fundamentally solid coding practices
Yeah, I know. This article is meant for the non-technical marketer, so how in the world are you supposed to make this kind of a determination on your own? It’s a fair question, and I suppose you aren’t… but these three considerations are MY considerations, and I’m really just being complete. 🙂 With that said, stick to any of the plugins below, and you’ll be looking great!
Recommended Plugins for Nontechnical Marketers
NOTE: I’ll be sticking to plugins in the list below… deciding which themes are best to use is more of a question of framework, and outside the context of this discussion.
These plugins represent my knee-jerk, no-nonsense, go-to list of WordPress plugins and plugin collections. In my opinion, any plugin you use in this list below (or in one of the plugin marketplaces below) will get the official Mick stamp of approval, and meet the requirements I listed above. Also, none of these links are affiliate links, so I don’t have any horse in this race… these are my honest recommendations. Proceed with confidence!
- Gravity Forms
I honestly don’t recall the last time I built a website without some sort of form functionality, and Gravity Forms is the platinum standard as far as I am concerned. Stacked with features out of the box including field presets, intuitive form building, database tracking, and conditional logic, you just can’t go wrong with this plugin. It also features many add-ons for third party services or plugins as well as an active developer community. Don’t think twice – buy it and use it. - Premise by CopyBlogger
I already mentioned Premise above, but I’m a big believer in it. There are a variety of different landing page plugins you can choose from, but I’m a self-admitted raving fan of CopyBlogger and StudioPress. Premise is intuitive and boasts a variety of different types of landing pages including video based pages, social media based pages, optin and thank you pages, and regular copy pages. It also includes functionality to manage your sales funnel as well as create simple membership sites. Pure goodness. - WordPress SEO by Yoast
One of the only free plugins on this list, WordPress SEO by Yoast does a lot of cool things for you. It’ll handles post title and meta description management for you, manages your robots meta config, XML sitemaps for search engine submittal, cleans up the head section within your source code, and a lot of other geeky stuff that you may not care about but is really important. - Pippin’s Plugins
While technically the #1 plugin marketplace on the Web and the #1 rated WordPress development firm on CodeCanyon, somehow Pippin’s Plugins still feels like they are flying under the radar for all but the most savvy of developers. Pippin makes some truly sick stuff, and I can’t recommend his plugins any higher. While I haven’t used every single one (he releases new stuff on a very regular basis), you can always feel really comfortable that anything that Pippin actually releases is going to work really well, and the documentation and support will be extremely solid too. - Modern Tribe
Probably one of the lesser known options on this list, I’ve found myself extremely impressed with Modern Tribe’s plugins. They initially came on the WordPress scene with a plugin called The Events Calendar which has the ability to interface with the popular Eventbrite ticketing service, but they have since introduced premium versions of that plugin as well as several others. All highly useful and well coded with really on-point support, you’d do well to pick up any Modern Tribe plugins if they have something you think you might need. - WPMU Dev
The plugin community that really started plugin communities… WPMU has been around for a long time, and while their plugins aren’t necessarily the very best you can find, they are all a solid A- / B+ for the most part, and their technical support is steady. Overall, it’s a good value, and you could do much worse by having this perennial Swiss Army Knife of WordPress tools in your back pocket.
That completes this roundup! Of course it’s not a comprehensive list, as there are plenty of really solid plugins out there suitable for nontechnical users. That said, any of the above plugins will be solid additions to your repertoire – give them a shot! And as always… any questions, comments or thoughts? Just drop me a line, a comment or whatever… I’m always happy to help!
