When you sell online, the tools that you use are just as important as the products you create. Choose the right ones and you’ll be more successful, more efficient, and less stressed.

One of the biggest benefits of WordPress is its customizability — you can easily use free or premium plugins to add just about any functionality you can imagine. But the number of choices can become overwhelming. We’ve made this easier by putting together a list of the types of plugins you may need to grow and streamline your business.

When you own a restaurant, your time is both extremely valuable and extremely limited. Between managing day-to-day operations and new food innovations, you probably don’t have a lot of extra time to invest in your website.

But a high-quality site is critical for success. That’s why choosing the right tools is so important. We’ve put together a list of the best WordPress plugins for restaurants that save you time and help with everything from marketing and security to management.    

The internet can seem like everything’s just floating out in space, but when you get down to the nitty gritty, your WordPress website files actually have to physically live somewhere. A hosting company’s job is to store your files and database so that your site can be accessed by anyone from any location around the world.

Ideally, your website can live happily at your hosting company forever and you never have to give the physical files any thought. But there may come a time when you want to move your website. Let’s take a look at a few reasons you might need to migrate to a new host and how you can do this easily.

If you have a website with global visitors, high traffic spikes, or a lot of images or videos, your page load time may be less than ideal. Even after optimizing images, implementing server-side caching, and minimizing content, you may still want to make improvements to your site’s performance. One of the best ways to achieve this is by setting up a Content Delivery Network (CDN). 

A CDN is a series of networked, geographically-distributed servers that store and deliver a site’s content using the server that is closest to each individual visitor. Normally, your host delivers content from a single server in a set place regardless of each visitor’s location. This can weigh down that server and reduce performance. 

A CDN distributes that weight more efficiently, improving page speed and reducing load on your server. 

Once you’ve determined that your site needs a CDN, you’ll want to find the provider that best fits your needs. There are a variety of things to consider including ease of use, performance and reliability, useful features, and cost. 

Maintaining a positive user experience is a huge part of what makes a WordPress blog successful, especially if you’ve created a lot of content. However, it can be tough to keep in mind, especially if your site has hundreds or thousands of articles. How do you find that happy balance between a seamless user experience and a flow of fresh, new content?

The secret? Implementing site search for your WordPress blog. 

A WordPress search plugin creates a more positive experience for your visitors. Check out these five reasons why you need to add a search plugin to your site:

There are a variety of reasons you might want to migrate your WordPress site. You could be unhappy with your current hosting provider. Or you may be launching a new version of your website. Either way, Jetpack Backup makes it easy thanks to the website cloning feature.

We want the entire process to be as simple as possible, so this WordPress site migration checklist will walk you through all the considerations for a seamless move.

Jetpack Search has proven to be quite popular among WordPress site owners — and for good reason. This relatively new tool has the magical ability to understand the true intent of a visitor and serve up exactly what they’re looking for, all in a split second. Sometimes the perfect result is displayed even before the searcher has finished typing.

The outcome? People stay on sites longer. They read more, view more pages, and buy more products. 

If you haven’t read Kylie M. Interiors’ story, you should make the time. This incredible business from a small town in Canada receives more than 50,000 page views each day. They needed a reliable search plugin and their dreams came true with Jetpack Search. From the article:  

Kylie’s husband of 15 years, Tim, handles business operations and runs their WordPress site.  “At the end of it all, Jetpack Search was the best solution I found,” Tim said. “We’re euphoric over how well it works.” 

“Tim didn’t tell me that he changed the search function,” Kylie added. “One day I made a search and was like, ‘I got what I wanted!’”

Kylie described the new search functionality as a ”game changer” for her business. “Now you can find any of the 300 articles you’re looking for in a hot second,” she said. “I’m advertising it in my client consultations and telling people to use it because it works.”

Given the success of the plugin, we wanted to shine a light on the heroes behind the scenes. How exactly does it work? What’s the story behind it? 

We interviewed Jason Moon, who wrote most of the code for Jetpack Search, as well as other team members Chris Rosser and Robert Felty. We also got feedback from Greg Brown, who helped architect Jetpack Search and bring the idea to fruition.

WordPress is open source, which means there are thousands of freely available plugins to enhance your website. If there’s something you need your site to do, chances are there’s a plugin for it!

But since many plugins are developed on a voluntary basis by community members, their quality can vary. By choosing the right ones — like those with a strong reputation — you’ll be less likely to encounter performance issues or experience conflicts with other critical plugins. Plus, quality solutions help you steer clear of potential security risks.     

Here are a few qualities to look for in the best WordPress plugins for your website.