No matter what type of website you have and what your eventual purpose is, that is whether you are running an informative blog or an ecommerce site, you will need some WordPress API plugins. Now, there are hundreds of WordPress API plugins that you can get online and you possibly cannot try a few dozen before deciding on one or a few that you would eventually use.

One way of making a shortlist of WordPress API plugins is to make a note of the number of active downloads which will tell you how many are using the plugins currently or have used. Another way is to decide the kind of features you need. You may consider the problems you have at the moment which need to be resolved and then look for plugins accordingly. Here are some useful WordPress API plugins that you may consider to test run.

1. WP REST API (WP API)

This plugin is particularly useful to manage the data on your site. Whether it is managing and keeping the data sorted or exporting it conveniently, this plugin can get it done impeccably. WP API is an easy interface to work on WP Query, the posts API, post meta API, users API, revisions API and many more.

2. Eventbrite API

Eventbrite is a very utilitarian plugin if you need a sync of your events on any site or classified and the listing on your WordPress site. You can sync all events including the details of the particular events such as ticket information. All such details would be sorted according to the categories so filtering is a cakewalk. This is a very simple pclugin and is compatible

3. JSON API User

This plugin can help you generate a cookie for user authentication, validation of that authorization cookie, RESTful user registration, Facebook Login/Registration with valid access token and you can manage all such log-ins, authentications, profiles and data from within the plugin. These features are available in the free version but the pro version has more.

4. Postman Gmail API Extension

Are you unable to use Gmail on your webhost accounts? It could be due to your webhost as many have a tendency to block such access. You may not have the access to remote SMTP servers which will allow you to use your Gmail. Using Postman Gmail API Extension, you would not only resolve the problem but you would also be able to sync the mails for your convenience. The Gmail that you send from your WordPress website is secured over HTTPS. The plugin is presently available in English, Italian and French.

Managing your site is a constant task, but it is impossible to accomplish without the ability to accurately measure. The only way to keep your website most current and organized in a way that optimizes potential, is to measure the real data most integral to your website. WordPress analytical plugins are specifically designed to allow data analysis to not only take place, but to be simplified. This is the only way to determine if your online marketing efforts are effective or if you are wasting your advertising cash on the wrong marketing techniques. Getting a closer look at how exactly you are managing your efforts is possible through measuring tools attainable through WordPress analytic plugins.

What Factors Matter Most?

When you are managing your website there are a variety of factors to consider. Some of the factors that you can take a closer look at with the help of WordPress analytics plugins include traffic, bounce rates, unique visitors, conversion rates and social signals. There really is no limit to the type of data that you can get access to and the ability this data gives you to make informed decisions regarding the management of your site.

Narrowing Down the Best

Since measuring your website based on performance factors is becoming the norm, more and more WordPress analytics plugins are being developed constantly. However, not all WordPress analytics plugins are created equally. Some are better than others and have measuring tools that are more meaningful to your site. Here is a look at some of the very best WordPress analytics plugins you should bee using to better manage your website.

1. Analytics 360

This WordPress analytics plugin for your site is designed to help you better understand the traffic you are receiving. You will be able to clearly visualize traffic trends for your site that are the most meaningful. This means that you can evaluate the effectiveness of blogs or email campaigns. There is even a feature to this plugin that allows you to isolate traffic that is driven to your site through various online marketing campaigns.

With this analytics plugin, you will have the ability to actually keep track of how your mailing list has grown over time and how multiple lists stack up against one another. If you are simply looking to gain a better understanding of how specific traffic is driven to your site, this plugin is essential. If you have implemented an email marketing campaign or are looking to in the future, the Analytics 360 plugin is a must-have for your site.

2. All in One Webmaster

If you are looking for a WordPress analytics plugin that is specifically designed to help you rank higher within search engines, you don’t have to look further than the All I One Webmaster plugin. This plugin works by allowing access to a blog sitemap. This means that when you create new content or posts, that they are indexed quickly and recognized by the most relevant search engines including Google, Yahoo and Bing. All of these WordPress Analytics plugins offer unlimited benefits for your site management capabilities.

3. Easy Google Analytics for WordPress

This WordPress analytics plugin is one of the most popular and the easiest to use. It is specifically designed to be simple and give you access to data that is easy to analyze. You do not have to look to some secret formula to determine what is most effective on your site. A few features of the Easy Google Analytics WordPress are that it embeds into your WordPress site. All of the Google analytics features that can be found in the WordPress dashboard are included with this plugin. There is not only a sitemap submission option to Google and other search engines, but a manual HTML header and footer is also present. You can even get automatic Google updates uploaded.

The best WordPress community plugins aren’t those that only cater to the basic requisites. The purpose of having such features is to facilitate conversations, to allow people to come together, get engaged in discussions and to facilitate the growth and retention of the community. There are far too many generic forums and discussion platforms that don’t have much relevance. As you pick some WordPress community plugins to engage with your target audience and to keep them hooked, do work on some content and ideas that would keep the community enticed. Here are some of the finest WordPress community plugins.

1. Users Ultra

Users Ultra is for every website that needs social media integration. And any community, blog, forum or discussion platform is incomplete today without real time sync with social media platforms. Users Ultra can connect blogs and forums with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and Yahoo among others. There is a free version which comes with sufficient features but if you want a whole spectrum of goodies then you may consider the premium version of Users Ultra.

2. BadgeOS Community Add-on

The primary purpose of this plug-in or add-on is simple. You reward community members with badges in due recognition of their activity or contribution to the community. It could be due to some unprecedented contribution or just some regular activity. How you choose to reward your community members is your prerogative but having a way to show appreciation or to recognize is always going to be effective. This plugin can record all kinds of activities from activating an account, to tracking profile updates or change of avatar, social actions which would include everything from initiating a share to sending a friendship request and the plugin caters to all the basics of a community plugin, from creating a group to managing it through administrators and moderators.

3. Vanilla Forums

This plugin is used presently by more than a hundred thousand websites and thus it has a thing or two that other WordPress community plugins don’t have. At the onset, you would find this plugin good enough for embedded forums, blog comments, single sign-in feature and a few widgets. As you continue to use this plugin, you would be amazed with the blog commenting system, the integration of commenting tools including livefyre and disqus, compatibility with diverse themes, forum widgets, managing of the forum from within WordPress panel and many more features.

Location is playing an increasingly influential role in the virtual world. From obviously establishing a degree of familiarity or awareness as to where a company or store is based to having a phenomenal impact on search engine optimization and thus the rank of the website on search engine result pages, the importance of location cannot be understated. You can use some WordPress location plugins to not just notify the location but to use it for much more. Here are the top 3 WordPress location plugins for you to consider.

1. Store Locator Plus

This plugin is most useful for websites that have some kind of directories. If there is a list of certain businesses or there is a need to showcase multiple locations, then Store Locator Plus would work wonders. It integrates Google Business Maps and then syncs the location provided on the site in real time. The plugin has an active support forum, the documentation available online is regularly updated, you can use it for or in any country where Google Maps has a presence or offers support, you can have unique markers on the map for specific locations and the map type can be changed too, from terrain to satellite to street among others. From zoom level to tracking distance, this tool is all you would need if you are looking for some WordPress location plugins. There are many premium add-ons which you may or may not opt for. It would be worthwhile to check them out.

2. WordPress Store Locator

This plugin gets you store locator, store finder and gives you exact locations on maps. The real differentiator for this app is the set of add-ons. You can customize the add-ons or have the basic ones and that can truly make a difference of how you would design, put up, use and manage your location widgets or features. From zip code search to finding stores by their names or street names, this plugin is truly handy. You get the luxury to have select add-ons as you need them. The plugin is light and compatible with all WordPress themes and works from within the WordPress panel or account.

3. SimpleMap Store Locator

SimpleMap is an international store locator using Google Maps. The plugin allows you to manage all locations from every country that Google Maps has a presence in, there is no capping on how many locations you can put up, you can have every page or just a few select pages having the location popped up, you can provide all the location details and the visitors to the site can use one or many elements of the location.

When you choose a WordPress plugin, you shouldn’t just look at what it is supposed to do but what all it can do. There are many WordPress magazine plugins that would just help you with the issue layout or will get the conventional look and feel of a magazine but there wouldn’t be much else to get your issue the leverage it needs over other publications. What you need are WordPress magazine plugins that can facilitate publishing a copy that stands out and for that you need some really good tools. Here are some of the most useful WordPress magazine plugins.

1. Manage Issue Based Magazine (Multi-language)

Using this plugin you can transform almost any type of site into one that looks like a magazine. Most relevant for blogs, this plugin is also useful for sites that keep publishing new content, which could be articles, tips, guides or any other informative content. With this tool, you can transform the design and layout of your site, you can manage all your publications and keep them sorted without writing a code, you can ccategorize all your publications and make it easier for your target audience to browse the site, you can have pdf versions of your publications, there is date-wise or issue-wise browsing feature and you get multilingual support in English, Italian, German, Spanish, Turkish and Chinese. Then there are drag and drop widgets catering to current issue, articles, lists, feature posts and more.

2. IssueM

With IssueM, you can create issues, articles and also assign those articles to their relevant issues, publish all articles or an issue from within the plugin, have archives for past issues, instill a search bar for subscribers to look for specific content and have featured articles or editorials displayed at some place on a roster. This plugin is easy to use, highly compatible with all themes you may consider on WordPress and you don’t have to worry about browser compatibility either.

3. Listly: Listicles For WordPress

No matter what format or type of article you are about to publish, this plugin will come in handy. It facilitates publishing slideshows, articles, blog posts, galleries and more. The plugin is embeddable, collaborative, is responsive so it can fit into various sizes and types of browsing devices, has various layouts, has social media integration and influences the rank of the website. Listly is for pros.

The featured image or images on a website speak a lot about the website, the people running the website and what is being showcased through the site. Not only should you have a featured image but you must have one that stands out. If you have a WordPress site, then this task of choosing or getting a featured image can be quite easy. All you need is one of the best WordPress featured image plugins. Here are some for you to consider.

1. Featured Image

This is one of the more often downloaded WordPress featured image plugins. It can allow you to add a featured image on any page of your website and on any part of the layout of that webpage. You can write the shortcode if you want or you can use the widget to get it done. It is a very easy to use plugin with the shortcode already provided if you want it for your records. The widget is compatible with WordPress themes.

2. Quick Featured Images

This plugin is more expansive. It has tons of features allowing you to add a featured image, to replace it or to delete all featured images from the website at once. You can keep the images organized, manage them efficiently, you can change or add featured images to hundreds of pages and remove them simultaneously as well. This saves a lot of time and is also a convenient option. There is a free version and a pro version. The pro version additionally allows you to have a Settings page to control the visibility of DFI metabox, you get custom title settings to change DFI metabox title as per your need, powerful shortcodes, featured image slider, fascinating tech support on various forums and dedicated email and chat support.

3. Automatic Featured Image Posts

This plugin is capable of managing hundreds and thousands of featured images regardless of the type of website you have. You can create new posts every time you add a new image and vice versa.

4. Drag & Drop Featured Image

As the name implies, it is one of the simplest to use WordPress featured image plugins with just a drag and drop action on your part. Also, there are different widgets and customization option to suit the needs of various kinds of featured images, also depending on the webpage it is on.

The foreground and its design along with the content may be the most important attribute of a website but the background too has a certain degree of relevance and significance. It is the background that can either accentuate and complement or dilute the impression of the foreground. Millions of websites across industries do not have any noticeable background and that is outright negligence. You would notice that some of the largest or the most popular websites in the world have fascinating contrasts between the foreground or design and the background.

For an optimally attractive website that keeps the visitor hooked, you need to work on the background. Fortunately, there are many WordPress background plugins that you can use to simplify the whole process. Here are the top 3 WordPress background plugins.

1. Background Manager

From having a random image at the background of your website to having a timed slideshow, from changing images to myriad shades, you can choose from innumerable options using Background Manager. You can create your own images or choose from templates, you can use third party sources or some media library. The plugin also allows you to play with the ratio, different kinds of patterns or displays, overlays to background images and the entire palette of colors. Background Manager has a feature by the virtue of which you can instill URLs in the background images which allow people to get redirected to an intended webpage or websites and all such links and click-through are tracked via Google Analytics.

2. WP-Backgrounds Lite

WP-Backgrounds Lite would help you to create clickable background images and layouts that would work with all WordPress themes and would be compatible with all major browsers. The plugin has dozens of useful features such as vertical & horizontal image centering, image sliders supporting transitions and other effects, support for different backgrounds for various web pages on the site, integration of videos and images to background themes, customization of existing themes, layouts and patterns and a whole array of tools to play with the font and colors among other attributes of a design

3. Soundy Background Music

Soundy Background Music is one of the rare WordPress background plugins that come with almost all standard features expected in such a tool but with the additional feature of having a soundtrack being played while the website is being viewed. And this soundtrack doesn’t interfere with the normal functioning of the website, neither does it have an overarching presence nor does it make the site slow or have any other adverse impact for that matter.

=A busy or an expansive website will always need a library. You may want a page wherein you can have all your links or categories and then the subsets, menus and submenus and everything that you have on your site to be organized and kept in a sorted manner for easy retrieval or reference. You may not host this section, you could use it purely for backend or you may have some sections of such a feature available on the site for general convenience. Here are the five best WordPress library plugins to use.

1. Link Library

This plugin allows you to have a list of link categories and a complete list of links with notes and descriptions. The plugin will help you to create a webpage that has your entire inventory with all its backdrops and details and there will be a search bar facilitating easy spotting of the file or information you need. Some of the features of this plugin are a library in table form with search box and link submission form, library in unordered list form with RSS feed icons, library in unordered list form with RSS feed icons and Pagination, library only showing one category at a time through AJAX queries, library in unordered list form with 1 full RSS item per feed inline and 5 RSS item full previews when selecting preview icon.

2. Media Library Assistant

The Media Library Assistant is ideal for managing the media library. You can have a gallery of images, customize the gallery and also include posts and pages and any type of enhancements. You can choose the different sets of factors to categorize the whole library.

3. Enhanced Media Library

This is another plugin purposed to manage media files. You would get media taxonomies, have unlimited tags and categories, you can define the taxonomy parameters, have custom categories as well which are not within the preset ambit and this plugin is compatible with other plugins so you wouldn’t have a problem with your site’s performance.

4. Gmedia Gallery

This plugin comes with a photo gallery, music and video player, media library and image slider. You can manage all your galleries, slideshows, content and multimedia files using this plugin.

5. Use Google Libraries

This plugin has more than a hundred thousand active users. That and the brand name are two good enough reasons to try this plugin.

There are hundreds of WordPress quote plugins, some of which are free and many come at a nominal price. You obviously cannot try out all the plugins or even a fifth of the options at your discretion. You need a few WordPress quote plugins that are useful and worthwhile. You can then test run them and see how they work for you. Depending on the assessment you can choose to continue using one. It is recommended that you use only one of the WordPress quote plugins. Attempting to use a few on the same website may lead to the plugins affecting the performance of one another. Here are 5 WordPress quote plugins that you cannot afford to ignore.

1. Quotes Collection

Quotes Collection uses an Ajax powered Random Quote sidebar widget that will collect and also display the quotes you want to showcase on your website. The plugin has a very simple interface, it allows you to import and export the quotes collection you have, there is support for multiple widgets and there is consistent updating of the plugin by the developers to keep the interface relevant and state of the art. You can opt for random quote generating option or you can stick with certain quotes that you want to display perennially on a website. You may also opt for a random rotation of quotes or a particular sequence that you preset and the plugin will adhere to your chosen settings. You also have the luxury to cap the length of the quotes or use certain tags which make the quotes more relevant or articulate.

2. Flexi Quote Rotator

Flexi Quote Rotator is one of the more relevant WordPress quote plugins. It doesn’t just display quotes and testimonials among other types of special mentions or statements but the plugin also attends to the rotation of the same. Having a sequence of rotating the snippets of content is quintessential when you use WordPress quote plugins. Perennially displayed quotes don’t really have much of an impact today. This plugin comes with a widget and allows you to style the quotes as well.

3. Quote of the Day by BrainyQuote

You may have heard of BrainyQuote. Quote of the Day is a plugin for WordPress sites from BrainyQuote. This plugin installs or allows you to add the Quote of the Day widget to your website, which could be on every webpage of your WordPress site or just one particular page. The widget is extremely popular. This plugin stands out from the aforementioned ones because the widget or this plugin gets you connected to the larger presence of BrainyQuote which is across various platforms or mediums. The widget sources relevant quotes from BrainyQuote and gets them displayed on your website.

You can choose the category of quotes that you want to display on your website. You may go with funny quotes, art quotes, love quotes or any other popular category. Whatever works for you is what you should go for. You may also opt for a cross-sectional approach and have different types of quotes or categories. From inspirational quotes to quotes by the rich and famous, you can get almost all types of quotes in this plugin.

BrainyQuote is the undisputed leader among quotation sites. It has the largest collection of quotes and attends to myriad audiences. It is unlikely that you wouldn’t find the relevant quotes or inventory of quotes for your purpose. With this plugin, you can have a Quote of the Day sidebar on your page, the plugin would easily adapt to the theme of your WordPress site which is an added advantage as there wouldn’t be any incompatibility or conflict and you can choose from as many as five different quote feeds. You can also opt for multiple widgets on your site or even on one webpage instead of having only one. The plugin would not be impaired if you have different settings on different widgets.

4. Quote Master

Quote Master is a very useful tool with simple but effective features. You can create or add quotes, edit them, delete them and display them in random sequence on your website using this plugin. You can also create categories for different sets of quotes, show them in accordance to their category or in any particular sequence that you deem fit and you also get a built-in widget to facilitate the display. There is a feature of adding a tweet link to the quote so your target audience or website visitors can directly share the quote from the website itself. Quote Master has a feature by the virtue of which you can avoid duplicate content. The plugin uses pull-quote for this purpose and such displays vanish automatically when you uninstall the plugin or disable the plugin.

Websites that have some kind of rating sections, host polls or contests and allow visitors to review or comment will need rating plugins for WordPress. It doesn’t take much time to set up such features on a WordPress site and if you choose a good plugin then the task can be made simpler and quicker. Here are the top five rating plugins for WordPress.

1. Rating-Widget: Star Rating System

This plugin allows you to set up a five star rating system for posts, pages, comments, products sold via WooCommerce, BuddyPress users and activities, forum topics, replies and author reviews among others.

2. Polldaddy Polls & Ratings

This plugin works with all WordPress themes without any incompatibility issues. You can create and manage polls along with the ratings with amazing ease. The plugin is available in more than two dozen languages.

3. Yasr – Yet Another Stars Rating

This plugin is best for review websites. You can have a simple rating system or you can have multiple sets or criteria based rating systems. The plugin is very easy to use and there is no need for coding or any extensive technicality. Yasr is available in English, Italian, German, Polish, Dutch, French, Russian, Spanish and many other languages.

4. Multi Rating

Multi Rating is ideal if you have several criteria or a questionnaire and the participants or your audience is expected to consider all the options. You can have five star rating system, percentage and score results, have various criteria, drop-down lists and radio buttons, icons for the ratings as well as different kinds of images courtesy Font Awesome. You can customize the widgets and also have different level of customization for each rating. The plugin also generates daily reports on the number of entries and tracking all activities pertaining to the contests, polls or ratings.

5. kk Star Ratings

This plugin works best for blogs or content sites wherein the posts uploaded have to be rated. There is a cool feature of this plugin where the hovering of the mouse over the ratings will show the stars getting fueled up but only clicks would get the rating recorded. This isn’t an out of the world feature but it is really cool to have such a function in a rating plugin. The plugin also supports Google Rich Snippets so the ratings will get indexed in Google Search, thus helping the website in search engine optimization.