As a photographer or photo blogger planning to launch an amazing website with high-quality photos, it is very important to ensure that your website has minimal loading time. There are various platforms using which wonderful website can be built, but most of the photographers choose WordPress. With a variety of plugins available in WordPress, it is much easier to manage and give an amazing look to your website compared to other platforms. You should add WordPress plugins based on the type of website you have and the way you wish to craft it otherwise adding more plugins can also result in high loading time.
Based on our experience and research, we have listed top ten effective and essential WordPress plugins which you can utilize to add an extra spark of attraction to your website. We have specifically chosen plugins which can enhance all aspects of your website.
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Envira Gallery
Currently, 60% of the web search is made from smart devices including mobiles and tablets. In such case, it becomes very important for you to ensure that the images on your website are visible to your customers in the proper format. Envira is one of the best in class responsive web gallery which enables you to seamlessly create fully responsive gallery which is compatible with all types of screen sizes and devices. With the help of this plugin, loading images or browsing images is much easier compared to any similar plugin. With the help of this plugin, you can easily get a boost on search engine also as it allows adding meta-data for various images. It is also compatible with other SEO plugins. Some of the photographers also use famous plugin ‘NextGen Gallery’ for managing their photographs. You can also use NextGen Plus or NextGen Pro if you are looking for advanced, paid and premium add-on plugins. There are several other choices to display the images as per your choice and manage the gallery which includes ‘Gravity Forms’ and ‘Shutter’ plugins.
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Slider Revolution
Gone are the days when users used to keep scrolling or clicking ‘Next’ again and again. Users look for ease of access and readily available material on a website specifically on photography websites. In order to provide higher level of navigation comfort to your users, using Slider Revolution will enhance their experience. It is a powerful slider plugin which is used by several other websites also. Though it needs some time to configure but the ultimate result is mind boggling. Slider Revolution gives an effect like the Adobe-Flash which makes it more favorite plugin of all photographers.
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W3 Total Cache
Users are more attracted to websites which have faster loading time. If you wish to optimize the performance of your website then use W3 Total Cache plugin. It is easy to configure and gives wonderful results in speeding up your website pages. Along with the W3 Total Cache, you can also enable MaxCDN to magically improve the performance and loading time of the website. Some of the users also combine W3 Total Cache with Cloudflare for better results. If you need an option for the cache plugin then you can also check out WP Super Cache.
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Click to Tweet
In order to be popular among your network, it is important to constantly keep engaging with your group. With the help of click to tweet plugin you can tweet images which has higher responses than regular tweet messages. The plugin enables you to have a button on the post or page, using which you can add the details of the images and photographs. It is an easy option to share your photographs and images with the network on social media. Similarly, you can also find plugins for Instagram like and other social media
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WordPress SEO by Yoast
Marketing the website is essential for gaining more traffic and response. With the help of WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin you can easily define meta-description and analyze the website using tools given in the plugin. It has several other features like SEO headline creator and much more. There are few more plugins for search engine optimization like ‘AddThis’ and ‘Ninja Forms’, but among all WordPress SEO is the most chosen plugin.
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Easy Watermark
The major challenge that most of the photographers deal with online is theft and image copying. In order to reduce the image theft and document your images, you can use the Easy Watermark plugin. It helps in adding watermark to all the photos you have uploaded on the WordPress website. You can update or edit the watermark manually as per your requirements.
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Booking Calendar
It is important to manage each and every appointment appropriately so that you don’t miss any photo shoot during your busy schedule. Instead of maintaining it manually, you can use the Booking Calendar which has all necessary features to provide you complete support to maintain the appointment calendar. Most of the photographers work on their own and do not have administrative staff. There are few other plugins like ‘BirchPress’ which also helps you in accepting online payments using the same plugin. With the help of these plugins, your basic administrative tasks can be reduced.
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WP Invoice
As a professional, it is important to provide accurate and documented invoices for the services rendered. If you wish to add a plugin for creating professional invoice that can be customized as per your requirement then the answer is WP Invoice. Apart from generating invoices, you can also use the plugin for accepting payments and appointments.
Conclusion
We hope that we have saved a lot of research, time and energy by cutting the waste out and listing the best plugins for your use. The best part about these plugins is that all these are available free of cost. It is easy to install but if you need any assistance with the installation or customizing your website then you can get in touch with us at info@ncodetechnologies.com. NCode Technologies is a leading website designing and development company in India with more than a decade years of experience. We hope that you must have got your favorite plugin by now, so keep us updated with your choice and experience. Keep us posted!