WordPress has over 50,000 plugins and add-ons available and this can be incredibly overwhelming for new users. So, here are my top 7 must-have picks for the end of 2021 or in other words, the best WordPress plugins for the end of the year. Be sure to let me know what YOUR favourites are so I can check them out for myself!
Okay, let’s kick things off with my first choice!
DC4E (Dynamic Content for Elementor)
If you’re into building more complex websites using WordPress and Elementor, Dynamic Content for Elementor is one of the best WordPress plugins you can incorporate into your toolbox.
Firstly, why do I say to use the term “plugin” lightly? Mainly because it is more like a suite of tools to a simple plugin or addon for Elementor. You have an absolute truckload of features and can easily replace several plugins in one. It has a form builder with comprehensive conditional logic, payment options that work with PayPal & Stripe, saving form data to your database, a signature field, and way more.
If you’re looking for a powerful form builder, it’s worth considering just for that feature alone. But it doesn’t stop there, oh no! If you like working with dynamic data (I’ve been known to dabble with it from time to time you know), you have so many features and tools, it can be totally overwhelming knowing where to start. But once you do start, you’ll quickly realise that you open up a whole world of exciting possibilities – many of which I’ve covered in this playlist.
Playlist Link: Dynamic Content for Elementor Plugin Tutorials
The beauty of Dynamic Content for Elementor though is that you can use it to expand and complement to tools you have in Elementor Pro or you can use it to power up the free version.
That’s right, you don’t really need to drop any extra money on an Elementor Pro license as DC4E includes pretty much everything you need, from a full complement of dynamic options, including advanced tools to work with the likes of ACF Pro repeater regions and flexible content fields.
On top of that, you also have a powerful templating system for building your websites. Disclaimer, it is a little more complex to get used to than the native Elementor Pro version, but it’s there should you want to use it.
Even mentioning everything I have already really doesn’t cover the scope and breadth that DC4E provides – it’s a true powerhouse of a tool. I’d strongly recommend taking a look at the previously mentioned playlist of videos if you’re considering jumping into DC4E as it will provide you with a lot of invaluable information on some of the key tools offered.
For me, Dynamic Content for Elementor is up there as one of the best plugins for expanding Elementor and working with the complexities of more dynamic WordPress websites.
Crocoblock
Following on in the same vein as Dynamic Content for Elementor, we have the Crocoblock suite of plugins. I’m going to lump the Crocoblock suite into one as I think it’s easier than breaking things down into component pieces. But, I’m mainly going to focus on some specific plugins that are part of the bundle and ignore some of the others.
Let’s kick things off with JetEngine. If you’re unfamiliar with JetEngine, it is Crocoblock’s dynamic powerhouse that makes the complexities of working with dynamic data a much more visual affair.
One area that makes JetEngine even more appealing is the fact that it now works with both Elementor (free and pro) as well as Gutenberg. This is a key feature for me as removing the reliance on a single platform makes it more future-proof and more attractive to more users.
JetEngine not only makes the creation of custom post types, custom meta fields, custom taxonomies, option pages, and database relationships far easier, it also keeps everything inside a single plugin.
Once you’ve built your custom post types or added custom meta fields to the normal WordPress posts, you can handle the design aspect with ease using the listing’s features. This enables you to easily and more importantly, visually, craft the look, feel and included information you want in your designs and then build beautiful-looking WordPress loops all while managing custom queries to output only the information your meticulous design requires.
When it’s time to let your users search or filter the information presented in your custom listings, you have the power of JetSearch and JetSmartFilters at your disposal. These plugins make building all manner of searching and filtering a relative breeze. Even if you’re not using JetEngine, you can create visually appealing filtering options for WooCommerce, and then when you’re ready to craft your own unique look and feel for your store you can use JetWooBuilder.
These are just a handful of the tools that are included in the Crocoblock suite of tools for WordPress and if you want to learn more about getting the most out of working with the Crocoblock tools, there are a load of useful videos on the WPTuts channel just waiting for you. I’ll drop some links in the description for when you’re ready to learn more!
Crocoblock Jet Engine Tutorial – Beginners Guide
Stackable
Moving away from Elementor and dynamic content, let’s focus on some great tools for Gutenberg. Top of my list right now is Stackable, a collection of global options and blocks for the WordPress builder that makes it a far more usable proposition for anyone looking to build something a little more eye-catching.
Stackable comes in 2 flavours, the free version, and the Premium version. While I generally use the premium version in my workflow, the free version of Stackable contains an amazing amount of features that means it should seriously be considered for your next Gutenberg-based project.
From the inclusion of global options for colours, typography to the great-looking collection of pre-designed starting blocks, you have everything you need to get started building great-looking sites with Gutenberg – not something I thought I’d be saying!
The premium version opens up some additional options and loads more designs to pick from. If you do opt for the Premium version, it not only offers more great designs to choose from but also adds in dynamic content integration with core WordPress features as well as working seamlessly with the likes of Advanced Custom Fields.
Currently, the dynamic features are fairly minimal, but version 3 promises to expand upon this further. This is great news if you want to get a little more creative. Stackable also works incredibly well with my current favourite WordPress theme – Blocksy.
If you want to learn more about using this great combo, check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A5Hz6Cnqcw
GridBuilder WP
If you create more comprehensive WordPress websites with lots of information, whether that’s in the form of posts or you have a complex listing website for real estate or job listings, you’re going to need the right tools for displaying and filtering the information.
This is where GridBuilder WP steps in. It’s pretty much an all-in-one solution that easily allows you to create your individual card design, your grid design and then add in some super-powerful and comprehensive searching and filtering options.
Even if you’re simply creating visually stunning WooCommerce stores, you can leverage the power and flexibility on offer with GridBuilder WP.
With its built-in tools that allow you to query and display content from your WordPress websites post types, taxonomies, users, products, and more. You have everything you need to do it with style.
You can get started quickly by using one of the many pre-designed cards or design your own from scratch, or any combination of the two with the powerful card builder that’s included. Once you’ve designed your cards, you can then apply the same design to everything or create individual designs for all your different post types for a truly unique look and feel. You can then move on to designing and styling the grid layouts to display all your posts using the popular Masonry, Justified, Metro, or Carousel layouts for a touch of class.
Ready to move on to filtering, sorting, or searching your posts and data? GridBuider WP has you covered in spades! You can opt for simple checkboxes and radio buttons all the way up to colour swatches, logo designs, ratings, and sliders. You can easily stack these to work in conjunction with each other or to work independently.
The beauty of using a plugin like Gridbuilder WP is that you can use it as a standalone product that integrates directly into Gutenberg or through shortcodes, but if you like using page builders like Oxygen or Elementor, you can download the relevant add-ons to get it working directly inside your page builder of choice. It also fully supports multilingual options through another addon as well as a dedicated cache to speed up your filters, facets, and searches. Oh and there’s also a pretty cool map facet you can use to create even more unique filters for your listing websites.
Again, I have a selection of tutorials on using GridBuilder WP with Oxygen and Elementor here and in the description below.
Playlist Link: GridBuilder WP Tutorials
Admin Columns (Free and Pro)
In the past, I’ve talked about the WordPress dashboard being a little bit of an afterthought in favour of Gutenberg and full site editing. Well, with this plugin you can make it a lot more of a useful place for sure. Good news, while there is a free and a premium version of this plugin, you can do a whole heck of a lot just using the free version.
What does Admin Columns do? As its name would suggest it allows you to do stuff to the columns of your posts, pages, media, or custom posts inside the WordPress dashboard. Sounds really exciting, doesn’t it? [sarcasm]
In reality, though, it really does make the WordPress dashboard a much more functional place and if you use custom posts it makes them even easier and more fully-featured.
At its most basic, Admin Columns allows you to enable and disable the default columns of any of your WordPress post list – be it posts, pages, custom posts, or WooCommerce products. But, on top of that, you can do a lot more. You can enable and disable all manner of additional columns that are not normally on display. This lets you supercharge your custom post types by adding in things like the featured image, custom taxonomies, and more. On top of that, you can filter your information in all manner of different ways. This is amazingly powerful on more comprehensive sites with hundreds or thousands of posts.
Add to that the ability to inline edit as well as bulk editing and you can start to see why this little gem is so useful. I love using it in combination with tools like CPTUI for creating custom post types and ACF for managing all my meta fields. Check out many of my masterclass videos and you’ll regularly find Admin Columns as a key component in that toolkit.
If you have the need to export your content, Admin Columns can help you there too. It gives you the tools to export your data to CSV format as well as export custom filtered and sorted content too.
Some other key areas that Admin Columns helps with is the ability to add in horizontal scrolling – great for more complex layouts of data. You can quick-add new entries, save filters for a faster way to access your most important information, user conditions, multi-site support, and much more and you can see this opens up a lot of missing functionality in your WordPress dashboard.
Buy Link: https://jo.my/o380e9
Happy Files
Another area that WordPress has pretty much ignored over the years is media management. Step into the frame, HappyFiles, a great little addon for WordPress that offers up a lot of useful features to help organise your website uploads. I’d definitely say that HappyFiles is one of the easiest and best WordPress plugins to manage your media with relative ease.
There is a free and a premium version available and the free version, while limited to only 10 folders, may well be enough for many smaller sites that don’t need a huge amount of organisation.
I’ve been using HappyFiles for several years on both my own and several clients’ sites and it makes managing media files much easier. It is totally non-destructive, meaning that if you decide to remove the plugin, the folder structure is limited to inside the media panel of WordPress and not saved to your server. This is great if you decide to test and then remove HappyFiles – no issues with messed-up media folders and broken links.
So, apart from being able to create folders, what else does the plugin do? While not as feature-rich as some of the other media management tools out there, it provides the key things most of us need. You can easily move your files and folders around, batch move, rename and organise your files.
It also includes SVG uploading with sanitization and the ability to preview SVG files – incredibly useful if you are downloading SVG files from unknown sites. Also, the interface is fully drag & drop, which makes it feel very similar to working on a Mac or PC. You’ll feel right at home immediately.
Another nifty feature is the ability to create galleries from a folder of images directly inside HappyFiles and then place that anywhere inside your Gutenberg designs. Finally, if you’ve been using other media managers like FileBird or Enhanced Media Library, you can import your existing folder structure directly into Happy Files – sweet!
Buy Link: https://jo.my/bn4va6
Shop Engine
Shop Engine is a fairly new addition to the Elementor and WooCommerce arena but it comes from the same developers as ElementsKit, a well-known Elementor addon that has over 70 modules included.
What Shop Engine offers for free is impressive. If you’re looking for a relatively easy and full-featured way of creating more unique designs for your WooCommerce stores, this is worth looking at. It allows you to easily create all the template files you need, customise the look and feel and then integrate them into your site.
Not only that, but it also gives you a solid selection of widgets to build out each of your pages or templates using the familiar free version of Elementor’s interface. Yes, you hear me right – you don’t even need to have Elementor Pro installed!
On top of those already impressive features, Shop Engine allows you to remove several other plugins you may already be using for the likes of wishlists, additional product options, comparison, filters, and more.
If you’re in the market for a great way to customise almost every aspect of your online shop, you could do a lot worse than checking out the free Shop Engine plugin.
There is a premium version of this plugin in development, but I have no idea when that is due for release and what new features it’ll include, but you can rest assured that I’ll be taking a look at it when it does come out.
If you want to learn more about Shop Engine, you can take a look at the videos that I released recently – links in the description.
Tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO-2lKSxC44
In Closing
Those are 7 of my favourite plugins for WordPress in 2021 – but what are yours?