Let's say someone is visiting your site, and it's slow to respond, hard to navigate, or just plain boring. There's no way around it — they'll go somewhere else.
But here's the good news: WordPress has a ton of great plugins to help ensure your website visitors have a great experience.
Read on to discover the best WordPress UX plugins and how they can elevate your website.
- What Is WordPress UX?
- Why Should You Care About WordPress UX?
- WordPress UX: Top 10 Plugins
- Pair Your Plugins With Reliable WordPress Hosting
What Is WordPress UX?
UX stands for user experience. It refers to how a user interacts with your business, or in this case, your WordPress website. It covers everything from the first page load to the checkout process on your ecommerce website.
Described another way, if a user interacts with it, it’s part of the user experience.
Why Should You Care About WordPress UX?
Have you ever opened a website to find that the page takes forever to load? Or maybe the images don't load? Have you ever tried to make an online purchase, but checkout fails?
We all have at least once. Like most people, you likely left the website without achieving your desired result. That's the kind of experience you want to avoid for your website users.
While WordPress UX plugins help you steer away from negative user experiences, they aren't the only thing that can make or break your website. Quality managed WordPress hosting also plays a huge role. After all, if your hosting is not up to the task, your user's experience will suffer.
Accessibility and reliability are why WordPress stands out above the rest. If paired with the right hosting plan and high-quality plugins, it'll offer website visitors the best user experience and take your business to the next level.
WordPress UX: Top 10 Plugins
Now that you know what WordPress UX is and why it matters let’s explore the 10 of the best user experience plugins in the market.
1. Smush
Poorly-formatted images often cause websites to load slowly. That's where Smush, the ultimate WordPress image Optimization plugin, comes in. Created by the awesome folks over at WPMU DEV, Smush makes optimizing images easy. It lets you compress images into the smallest file size without sacrificing quality.
You can even automate image optimization. So every time you upload new images, Smush will automatically optimize them for you. It's simply ideal for speeding up WordPress.
Price: Free. Premium plans start at $5/month when billed annually.
2. The Events Calendar
If promoting events is your thing, a calendar that looks good and works well is a must-have. The Events Calendar is the most popular event planner plugin for WordPress for a few reasons.
For one, the plugin is easy to set up, and you can add events in just a few steps. Once created, website visitors can see the event calendar in a month, week, or day view. The premium WordPress version adds myriad features like advanced widgets, recurring events support, and top-notch customer support that helps you keep your website’s UX up to standard.
Price: Free. Premium plans start at $99/year.
3. Broken Link Checker
Don’t you hate it when you click on a link, and instead of seeing what you expected, you see a big ugly 404 Not Found message instead?
Broken Link Checker is a free WordPress UX plugin that ensures your users will always click on a link and see exactly what you want them to see. No more 404 errors. The best part is how easy this plugin is to set up. Just install and activate.
Price: Free. The Premium plan costs $29/year.
4. Tawk.To
Offering website visitors a live chat feature is a huge boost in terms of WordPress UX. After all, having the opportunity to engage with the company in one click instills users with a sense of confidence that encourages them to buy your service or product.
If you want to show availability when users need you most, consider using a plugin like Tawk.To. The live chat plugin connects you with users in a snap. Unlike other plugins, Tawk.To handles the chat service on its servers. That means numerous chat requests won’t bog your website’s server down, preventing crashes.
Price: Free.
5. WP Rocket
As we mentioned earlier, speed determines the quality of your website’s user experience. In that sense, having a fast-loading website is essential.
WP Rocket is a performance optimization plugin that helps you speed up WordPress. It lets you optimize every page on your website quickly and safely. WP Rocket integrates with many content delivery networks (CDNs) and plugins like Smush to optimize your images.
Price: Plans start at $49/year.
6. Really Simple SSL
Nowadays, there is no excuse for not having an SSL. In fact, most managed WordPress hosts include a free Let's Encrypt certificate, and they apply it automatically to every part of your website. But what if your hosting provider doesn't offer it?
You'll need to install an SSL yourself. While Really Simple SSL won't install an SSL for you, it will ensure that every page of your website has the reassuring padlock most customers expect to see in the address bar. Once your SSL is installed, all you have to do is install Really Simple SSL and click the activate SSL button.
Price: Free. Premium plans start at $169/year.
7. Solid Security
While we are on the topic of security, Solid Security is another important plugin to note.
WordPress websites are at constant risk of many different cyberattacks. With Solid Security, you can instantly mitigate these threats and ensure your sites remain secure and safe from malware and hackers. The plugin also offers IP blocking so you can ban repeat offenders.
Price: Free. Premium plans start at $80/year.
8. Forminator
While there are many excellent WordPress form plugins, Forminator is one of the best.
You can create any form for any purpose quickly and easily. You can even use it to create quizzes, polls, calculations, and take payments through Stripe and PayPal.
Price: Free. Premium plans start at $5/month when billed annually.
9. Akismet Spam Protection
Most people familiar with WordPress know about Akismet Spam Protection. After all, it’s included in any new WordPress installation. That alone speaks volumes of the quality of the plugin.
Visitors care about comment spam. Nobody wants to read their favorite blog and see the comments section filled with spammy links to unrelated products they are not interested in. Akismet Spam Protection is the best way to keep your comment sections healthy and on-brand.
Price: Free. Premium plans start at $10/month when billed annually.
10. WP Mail SMTP
Are undelivered emails affecting your website’s user experience? Get WP Mail SMTP by WPForms. With this simple plugin, you can ensure that every email arrives where and when it should.
Price: Free. Premium plans start at $99/year.
Pair Your Plugins With Reliable WordPress Hosting
A poor user experience can destroy your business in an instant. But given the number of available plugins in today’s market, it doesn’t have to be that way.
Once you have the plugins installed, leave the rest to Nexcess. Our managed WordPress hosting plans give your website what it needs to offer its visitors a reliable, smooth user experience. Try it out today.
