Wordfence – for its security functions. A website projects your image to the world, so taking measures to prevent intrusion and potential modification of your content is essential. This is especially important for an online store. Wordfence has a good reputation in this realm, so I reactivated it.
Accessibility by UserWay – to improve site accessibility. This plugin makes it easy to add accessibility features, potentially exposing the site to a larger audience.
UpDraft Plus – for automatic backups. A lot of work goes into the development of a website, so automatic backup is essential to preserve that work. I like how easy it is to connect the backup to DropBox.
Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights – An easy way to receive reports about site traffic and bounce rate, to provide feedback on how the site’s content is received by users.
W3 Total Cache – for performance. The site is small, so it tends to be fairly fast at this stage, but a site with more content needs a way to stay fast. This plugin offers an easy way to speed things up.
Simple Social Buttons – Provides an easy way to automatically add links to social media accounts on the site’s pages. These links expand the potential audience for the site’s content with minimal additional effort.
Akismet – for comment and SPAM management. This seems to be a standard addition needed to manage the SPAM content that a blog attracts. Its function is related to the security function in maintaining the desired image of the site.
Blubrry PowerPress – for posting podcasts. This plugin heavily pushes the upsell, but it works well for adding podcast media to the site.
Master Slider – for adding slider content to the site. Having rotating content to present new products and announcements enhances the business value of the site, and this plugin works well.
WooCommerce – for e-commerce. This is the de facto standard for e-commerce with a WordPress site, with themes written to accommodate it and an enormous library of plugins written to work with it. This was not a difficult decision.
Really Simple SSL – for security. This plugin scans the site and makes suggestions to improve site security. I found it to be a very useful security plugin.
Otter – Page Builder Blocks & Extensions for Gutenberg – The plugins and widgets added by this plugin improve drag-and-drop layout and allow Gutenberg to compete well with third-party page builders.
