9 Must-Have WordPress Plugins For Developers To Improve Efficiency

WordPress is, without a doubt, one of the most effective platforms for building high-performing websites, and perhaps that’s the reason it’s becoming remarkably popular in the tech industry these days. Whether you agree with it or not, but a wide range of developers, across the planet, opt for this content management system based website framework.

As a developer, it’s not enough for you to be proficient in WordPress; you also have to be familiar with the best WordPress plugins when it comes to taking the quality of your projects to the next level. In other words, to make your work look more impressive-and reduce troubleshooting activities, it’s better to rely on quality plugins.

Here are some super powerful plugins that can simplify the work of WordPress developers to a large extent.

1) Query Monitor

This one is my personal favorite. When you code anything in a WordPress template, some coding rules are strict and to the point. This plugin monitors each movement of developer coding. It shows database queries, debugging of database queries, total queries per page, enqueued scripts, and styles. In short, it’s the perfect tool for developers when it comes to developing WordPress websites.

2) Duplicator

The migration of WordPress sites is sometimes a bit tough when customers use third-party themes. So whenever they want to migrate their sites swiftly and smoothly, Duplicator comes to their rescue. It can clone the website with the database: and it can make a new extension base file that will only be accessed by Duplicator’s installer file. The developers can use this file in another hosting place if their clients fail to provide the credentials (for example, server details) of the main website due to security reasons. They can ask their clients to install this tool to provide them with the Duplicator file. Developers can eventually use the Duplicator file to configure their local server and give a proper estimation of development.

3) Display PHP Version

When developers take the backup of WordPress, the whole site works fine on their server. However, when their clients come with that website, it shows some errors, and nothing works fine. Whenever that happens, the old version of PHP remains the culprit most of the time. So developers can use a plugin called Display PHP Version to identify the PHP version of the current server. So if the plugin identifies the old version, developers can suggest their clients, to upgrade it. Nowadays, the latest versions of WordPress give the PHP version itself. But it’s useful for old WordPress versions where the PHP version is also older or is not compatible with current WordPress websites.

4) WP Database Backup

If you are thinking, what is the purpose of including WP Database Backup on the list when we already have Duplicator on it, then let me tell you, there is a good reason for that. Considering that Duplicator schedules the backup for the entire site, it requires a bit more storage memory. However, by using Database Backup, developers can only take the backup of the database, which consists of all the essential data. It stores the data in Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon s3, FTP, and Email, which proves to be utterly helpful for the clients whenever they face virus issues. Virus attacks can affect the database, but with the help of this plugin, we can save the data effectively.

5) WP Staging — DB & File Duplicator & Migration

It is my second favorite plugin as a developer. Packed with incredible features, it enables us to clone the entire website for development purposes. And the one thing that I would like to highlight over here is, it’s remarkably helpful whenever WordPress rolls out new updates. For example, generally, when the updates come, clients face tremendous issues with the functionalities of their websites. At that time, they seek developers’ assistance to fix the problems immediately without hampering the performance of their sites. And the plugin that helps developers the most during that time is WP Staging — DB & File Duplicator & Migration. It not only saves their time but also helps in keeping the websites live. So, as a developer, I recommend this plugin to all the WordPress developers out there.

6) Email Notifications For Updates / Notification — Custom Notifications And Alerts For WordPress

It is also a highly useful plugin for developers. Generally, when the site is under development mode, we as developers set up updates for plugins and themes. However, once the site goes live, after a few months, new updates come related to those plugins and themes. And when that happens, clients face a lot of difficulties. However, using this plugin helps in dealing with the issue swiftly. As developers, if we install this plugin, we will receive notifications related to the plugin and theme updates, and based on those notifications, we can assist our clients accordingly.

For more details, please check this link:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-update-mail-notification/
https://wordpress.org/plugins/notification/

7) Duplicate Post

If you are looking forward to cloning your posts, then Duplicate Post is, without a doubt, one of the best plugins for you. Whether you talk about copying posts or saving them in new drafts, it helps in doing such activities quickly.

8) Reorder Posts

WordPress wp_query and query_post don’t have the dynamic ordering of posts. So when a customer needs some related posts at the top of the list page, then we can reorder the posts by using this plugin. It’s highly useful and user friendly.

For more info, please check out this link:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/metronet-reorder-posts/

9) Asset CleanUp: Page Speed Booster

If you are looking forward to increasing your page load speed, then ‘Asset CleanUp: Page Speed Booster’ is the best plugin available to you. It plays an indispensable role in loading a page faster by unloading unwanted CSS/JS.

In other words, by using this plugin, the crawling of script and style run will decrease, which will eventually increase your page speed.

For more info, please check out this link:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-asset-clean-up/

Tips

1. Developers can use a third party boilerplate for theme creation https://underscores.me/ If developers copy the default theme and extend that theme, the site also provides the Sass CSS structure and WooCommerce boilerplate template.
2. If a client doesn’t have cPanel or declined to give you cPanel, then use adminer.php file download from https://www.adminer.org/ site to download the database. Apart from that, if the client doesn’t have wp-admin credentials, then by using adminer.php, you can change the user password and access the dashboard.

Note: Insert adminer.php file using FTP when the client doesn’t give you access to cPanel. Apart from that, make sure that you remove this file from the server once you finish your database related work; otherwise, hackers might access the database.

3. If the client uses the ACF pro with flexible content, then they can use the BEA — Beautiful Flexible (https://github.com/BeAPI/bea-beautiful-flexible)

Originally published at https://www.zealousweb.com.