We are often asked for recommendations on best WordPress plugins and services. People particularly want to know about the plugins and tools that we use to run the WPBeginner website.
As a result, we have decided to create the WPBeginner Blueprint which gives you behind the scenes look at all the tools, plugins, and services that we use here at WPBeginner.
Blog Platform
Self-Hosted WordPress
As you can guess, our website is powered by the best publishing platform on the web, WordPress.org.
我們的網站是由最佳的出版平台:WordPress.org 的提供的。
It’s important that you know the difference between
WordPress.com vs WordPress.org and choose the right platform for your needs.
WordPress.com vs WordPress.org 這兩者是不一樣的喔!
While there are many blogging platforms out there, we always recommend using WordPress because of the freedom and flexibility you have to customize your website.
縱使有許多其他的平台可以使用,我們還是建議使用 WordPress,因為他的自由彈性,你可以自訂你的網站!
Recommended reading:
Web hosting is your website’s house on the internet. Every website needs web hosting, and each website has different needs.
At WPBeginner, we use
HostGator. We have been using their service since 2007.
HostGator hosts over 8 million websites and is one of the most popular hosting companies in the industry. With 1-click WordPress install, 99.9% uptime, and 24/7 support, it’s a smart choice for every growing business. (See our
HostGator review)
Website Design / Theme
WPBeginner uses a custom designed WordPress theme built specifically for our website.
Unfortunately this design is not available for download or sale.
If you are looking for high-quality WordPress templates, check out these companies:
Security
Login Lockdown – We use Login LockDown plugin to prevent brute-force login attacks. It locks user’s IP address after an X number of failed attempts. – See our
Login LockDown review.
Performance
MaxCDN – We use a Content Delivery Network,
MaxCDN, to speed up our site and reduce server load. We use it to serve static content (images, css, javascript). See our
MaxCDN review.
Classic Smilies – We use classic smilies to turn off all emoji functionality in WordPress and replace it with older smilies from previous versions of WordPress.
Marketing
Yoast SEO – We use Yoast SEO to improve our on-page SEO by adding Title Tags, XML Sitemaps, Indexation rules and more. See our
Yoast SEO review.
WPForms – WPBeginner uses WPForms to power all contact forms and form based lead generations (including email opt-ins and payment orders). See our
WPForms review.
MailChimp –
MailChimp allows us to design, send, and track beautiful email newsletters to our readers. Every site owner should build an email list. Check out our
MailChimp review.
MonsterInsights – MonsterInsights allow us to connect to Google Analytics for FREE. It shows us who visits our website, where they come from, and how they interact with our content.
Monetization
WP-Bitly – We use WP-Bitly plugin to automatically generate short URLs for our posts that look like
http://wpbeg.in/. See our
WP-Bitly review.
Styling
Comments
Akismet – We use Akismet to combat comment SPAM. Akismet lets us focus on writing quality content rather than moderating SPAM comments. See our
Akismet review.
Behind the Scenes
There are several tools, plugins, and custom code snippets that we use at WPBeginner. Here is the list of our behind the scene plugins, code snippets, etc.
Members – This plugin allows us to add new roles and limit content permissions by users. We use it specifically for role management in WPBeginner. See our expert comparison of
5 best WordPress membership plugins.
Advanced Custom Fields We use Advanced Custom Fields to add custom fields into WordPress posts and custom post types.
Post Types Order – By default, you can order your posts by ID, author, title, date etc. But there is no easy way to use a custom order. This plugin lets us do that with an easy drag-drop interface. See our
Post Types Order review.
Excerpts for Pages – We use custom code snippet to display excerpts for pages in WordPress.
Random Post Redirect – This custom code snippet allows us to redirect users to a random post in WordPress if they add /random/ at the end of the url.
That’s all for now. We will update this page when we start using some new plugin or tool on WPBeginner.
If you found our blueprint helpful, then please subscribe to our
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