21 "Must-Have" WordPress Plugins For Your Childcare Centre Website

This article will discuss the must-have plugins for childcare websites and their key features. If your website is powered by WordPress, then this article is for you.

According to our recent studies, we found that over 78% of the childcare and daycare centre websites we reviewed use WordPress as their preferred Content Management System (CMS).

So if you are running a website, chances are that it's built using WordPress is pretty high. In fact, WordPress is the de facto standard for building modern-day websites.

As of 2022, out of the 1.4 billion total websites in the world, 455 million of them are running on WordPress. Which means 32.5% of the world's websites are powered by WordPress.

WordPress itself is fairly limited in terms of functionality and what it offers out of the box. This is where plugins come in handy.

Plugins are the building blocks of WordPress. To add extra features and functionalities, you need to install some essential plugins. Plugins help you improve your website in many ways, from boosting security to increasing traffic.

1) Rank Math SEO

Rank Math is a Search Engine Optimization plugin for WordPress that makes it easy for anyone to optimize their content with built-in suggestions based on widely-accepted best practices.

Easily customize important SEO settings, control which pages are indexable, and how you want your website to appear in search with Structured data.

Rank Math helps your website get ranked higher by making it SEO-friendly and making your content worthy of a featured Position.

Rank Math is the solution for you if you want to grow your website traffic without spending hours upon hours on SEO. With Rank Math, all the hard work is automated, so you can focus on other tasks while it does its job.

Key Features

• 15+ built-in modules you can enable & configure based on your requirements
• Measure and track keyword rankings to keep a pulse on your SEO success
• Run a detailed SEO analysis to identify issues based on 30 known factors
• Easy one-click imports for seamless migrations from other SEO plugins
• Fully compatible with both the WordPress Gutenberg & Classic Editors
• Win rich snippets with support for 20+ Schema types (incl. FAQ & HowTo)

Pricing

Rank Math has a free version and has a 30 Day Money Back Guarantee for all plans

• Pro $59
• Business $199
• Agency $499

2) UpdraftPlus

UpdraftPlus is a WordPress backup plugin that helps you easily create and restore backups of your WordPress site. It is the most popular backup plugin on WordPress, with over two million active installs.

Investing in quality backups for your WordPress website is a no-brainer. At some point, something could go wrong--your site could get hacked, an update might break something, the server crashes, or the hosting company folds up shop.

If you don't have good backups, though, All of your hard work disappears and becomes nothing. Updraftplus will keep your backups safe.

 

Key Features:

• Highest-rating backup and restore plugin at wordpress.org (4.8 stars out of 5.0), and ranked in the top 30 (of over 50,000) WordPress plugins for popularity.
• Designed to run everywhere that WordPress runs
• Multi-site (i.e. WPMU/WordPress Network) compatible.
• Proven to backup sites of 100GB; file size only limited by Web host.
• Backs up limitless non-WordPress files and external databases.
• Incremental backups that can be set to the hourly schedule of your choice

Pricing:

UpdraftPlus has both free and premium versions

• Personal $70.00 2 licenses
• Business $95.00 10 licenses
• Agency $145.00 35 licenses
• Enterprise $195.00 Unlimited licenses
• Gold $399.00 Unlimited Licenses Licenses+

3) OptinMonster

OptinMonster is the best lead generation and email opt-in plugin for WordPress. It helps you grow your email list by converting website visitors into subscribers with beautiful opt-in forms. Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to connect with your audience and build relationships with them.

However, if you don't have a way to collect emails from your website visitors, then you're missing out on a lot of potential leads. That's where OptinMonster comes in. It is the most popular lead generation plugin for WordPress, with over 1 million active installs.

Key Features:

• Convert any link or image into an opt-in form. Proven to boost conversions by 785%
• Improve conversions by personalizing campaigns based on visitor's location
• Detects user's mouse behaviour and shows them a targeted message as they are leaving

Pricing:

14 days money back guarantee

• Basic $9/mo
• Plus $19/mo
• Pro $29/mo
• Growth $49/mo

4) WPForms

WPForms is helpful for you if you are looking for the best way to create custom forms for your website.

WPForms is the most popular form builder plugin for WordPress. It allows you to easily create forms and surveys for your website with its drag-and-drop builder. With WPForms, you can create stunning contact forms, feedback forms, subscription forms, payment forms, and other types of forms for your site quickly in minutes.

Regardless of the device your website visitors are using, be it mobile, tablet, laptop, or desktop, WPForms' 100% mobile responsive contact form solution ensures that your contact forms will always look amazing.

Not only are WPForms' contact forms great for web and server performance, but they are also optimized for speed. This is important for SEO, marketing, and conversion.

Key Features:

• Build online forms for free and in minutes
• Has pre-built WordPress form templates that can be easily customized
• Easily integrate your WordPress forms with an email marketing service or collect payments for bookings and orders

Pricing:

WPForms Lite is completely free, and it offers a 100% money-back guarantee to all deals that contain extra features.

• Basic $39.60
• Plus $79.60
• Pro $159.60
• Elite $239.60

5) WP Rocket

WP Rocket is much more than just a WordPress caching plugin. It's the most reliable solution to speed up your website, increase your Page Speed score, and fix any core web vitals issues you may have.

Caching is essential to the performance of any website, but it can be a complex and technical subject. WP Rocket makes it simple and easy to get started with caching for your WordPress site. With just a few clicks, you can enable caching and start seeing an immediate improvement in your site's speed and performance.

Key Features:

• Caches your pages by creating static HTML files and making them easily available for future visitors.
• Can delay the execution of JavaScript files until user interaction to reduce initial load time
• With LazyLoad, you can choose to load images or iframes only when users scroll down, making the page loading process much faster.
• By immediately caching your content upon activation, WP Rocket allows you to give visitors the speedier, cached versions of your site right away.
• Provides a dedicated set of options to optimize your database and keep it lean
• You can integrate CDN in WP Rocket's dashboard in a few clicks.

Pricing:

1 year of support and updates

• Single $39.20
• Plus $79.20
• Infinite $199.20

6) LiveChat

One of the best ways to increase conversion is to communicate with your customers.

LiveChat is a plugin that allows you to chat with your website visitors in real time. It's the perfect solution for providing customer support or sales assistance to your website visitors

With customized messages are not the only thing you can do- you can also chat with your prospects and customers! The best part is, if they're offline or unavailable, you can still send them a message. You could even use the chat widget as an opt-in form for your mailing list.

Key Features:

• Allows you to chat with your website visitors in real-time
• Provides a quick and easy way to resolve any issues your visitors may have
• Allows you to answer any questions your visitors may have about your products or services

Pricing:

14 days free trial

• Starter $20
• Team $41
• Business $59

7) FluentSMTP

FluentSMTP is a WordPress plugin that allows you to send emails directly from your WordPress site. It's the perfect solution for sending transactional, or notification emails, such as password reset emails, order confirmation emails, and more.

If you're experiencing difficulties sending emails from WordPress or want to change the email address your messages are sent from, this plugin will take care of everything. FluentSMTP is the premier WP Mail Plugin that establishes a connection with your Email Service Provider so that not a single message gets lost in transit.

Key Features:

• Handles email deliverability. It will reach the user's inbox while maintaining optimal performance.
• Can route your emails through different email-sending services simultaneously based on different conditions
• Easily connect with popular email service providers and any other SMTP services to send emails.
• Email Logging lets you keep track of every email sent from your site.
• You can resend the emails again anytime till the emails are available in the email log, and you can also resend emails that are already sent.
• Detailed graphical representation of the total emails sent per day through different senders

Pricing:

FluentSMTP is always FREE.

8) HubSpot

HubSpot's all-in-one WordPress plugin streamlines website visitors' experiences by providing free forms, live chat, CRM (contact management), email marketing, and analytics--all without having to code anything. It's easy to use and built specifically into WordPress for your convenience.

 

With this HubSpot plugin, your website forms will be automatically synced with your CRM. This makes it easy for you to manage contacts, segment them into lists, and see every interaction they have had with your website--including page views, live chat conversations, form submissions and more.

Key Features:

• Connect 1:1 with visitors on your site in real time using live chat and chatbots.
• Capture leads with ease ? build custom forms or link existing forms from your website in minutes.
• Nurture your leads by sending newsletters & automating email marketing campaigns.
• Track the health of your business with easy-to-understand analytics dashboards.
• See a unified timeline of a contact's page views, past conversations, and more in a WordPress CRM.

Pricing:

Hubspot's WordPress plugin is free to use but also offers premium plans with advanced features.

9) Imagify

Imagify is the most advanced image optimization plugin available, and it can be used directly in WordPress. With just one click, you can optimize images and reduce the weight of photos on your site ? all without sacrificing quality.

This plugin also offers three different levels of image compression: normal, aggressive, and ultra. You can choose the level that best suits your needs, and you can even optimize individual images or bulk-optimize all images in your WordPress media library.

Key Features:

• Resize images automatically
• Compress every image size, even the thumbnails, in order to be efficient on all devices
• We optimize the image sizes generated by the WP retina x2 plugin in order to maintain both high resolution and performance.

Pricing:

You can compress your images for free with Imagify, which also offers a premium plan

• Growth $4.99/month (2 mos. free for yearly payment)
• Infinite $9.99/month (2 mos. free for yearly payment)

10) Elementor

Elementor is the ultimate WordPress page builder, with no limits to what you can create.

With Elementor, you can design any type of website or landing page you want without having to hire a developer or designer. This plugin is packed with powerful features that let you create beautiful websites with an intuitive visual builder.

Key Features:

• Build great websites without using multiple plugins
• Create your ideal website using 90+ widgets and countless built-in capabilities.
• Sanitize and remove malicious content when needed

Pricing:

Has 30 money-back guarantee

• Essential plan 49$/year
• Expert plan 199$/year
• Studio plan 299$/year
• Agency plan 999$/year

11) Broken Link Checker

Broken Link Checker monitors and tests all internal links & external links on your site, looking for broken links. It helps you fix bad links to improve SEO and user experience.

This plugin will help you easily find and fix broken links on your WordPress site. It monitors your website for broken links and notifies you when they are found. You can then choose to either ignore or unlink the broken link.

Key Features:

• Monitors external links and internal links in your posts, pages, comments, blogroll, and custom fields (optional).
• Detects links that don't work, missing images and redirects.
• Notifies you either via the Dashboard or by email.
• Makes broken links display differently in posts (optional).
• Prevents search engines from following broken links (optional).
• You can search and filter links by URL, anchor text and so on.
• Links can be edited directly from the plugin's page without manually updating each post.

Pricing:

Broken link checker is free but also offers a premium plan for extra features.

Personal

• Basic $7.50/month
• Standard $12.50/month

Business

• Freelancer $32.50/month
• Agency $82.50/month

12) Google Site Kit

Google Site Kit is a one-stop solution to deploy, manage, and get insights about your use of official Google products on your website.

This plugin provides accurate and up-to-date information about how your site is performing in Google Search, Analytics, AdSense, and PageSpeed Insights. It also offers recommendations on how to improve your site's performance.

Key Feature:

• Have all the key information about your website's vital stats in one easy-to-read place.
• Get all of your Google tools' official stats in one Dashboard. Quick setup for multiple Google tools without having to edit the source code of your site
• View detailed reports about your site's traffic, ads, and speed
• Track your site's progress and specific posts with metrics
• You can easily manage granular permissions for WordPress and different Google products.

Pricing:

Google site kit is a free plugin.

13) 404page

HTTP error code 404 indicates that the requested page is not found.The 404page plugin allows you to easily create and manage custom 404 error pages for your WordPress site. You can use any WordPress theme or page builder to create your 404 pages, and the plugin even lets you choose which pages to display on your site's front end and back-end.

404page is a plugin that allows you to easily create and manage your 404 error pages. This plugin is great for both beginners and advanced users. With 404page, you can create custom 404 pages in minutes without having to write any code.

Key Features:

• Create beautiful 404 pages in seconds without writing any code.
• Manage all your 404 pages from one central location.
• Redirect visitors to the correct page automatically, or give them a choice of where to go next.
• Track how many times each page is viewed, and see which links are most popular.

Pricing:

404page is free without any restrictions

14) Better Find and Replace

Better Find and Replace is a powerful search and replaces tool for WordPress. It allows you to find and replace text in your posts, pages, comments, and even custom fields.

This plugin will automatically find a specific word and will replace it with your own word. The changes will be automatically done before the website renders to the browsers. It doesn't affect any other plugin files or your database.

This plugin is great for making bulk changes to your content, such as changing the URL of an old blog post or swapping out an affiliate link. Better Find and Replace also has a handy "dry run" feature that lets you see what will be changed before you make any permanent changes.

Key Features:

• Easy-to-use and user-friendly options
• Search and replace any text
• Search and replace text loaded by Ajax / jQuery
• Find and replace URLs
• Search and replace images, attachment URLs etc..
• Create word masking with find-replace over the whole website
• Create find-replace temp rules without touching the database.
• more...

Pricing:

Has a free version and premium plans, with 30 days money back guarantee

• Basic $19 (individuals or freelancers)
• Pro $49 (Small business)
• Extend $99 (Large business)

15) Really Simple SSL

Really Simple SSL automatically detects your settings and configures your website to run over HTTPS. The entire site will move to SSL.

This plugin handles the entire redirect process and ensures a WordPress website with an SSL certificate installed will load correctly without any errors.

Key Features:

• Leverage SSL for even better security
• Easily configure advanced security headers designed for WordPress
• A successful migration is a continuous check while developing your website

Pricing:

Provide a refund if it's requested within 30 days of purchase

• Agency $169 (25 domains)
• Professional $69 (5 domains)
• Personal $29 ( single license)

16) Wordfence Security

The Wordfence scanner checks core files, themes, and plugins for malware, bad URLs, backdoors, injected code, and more. Wordfence starts with a firewall and malware scanner designed specifically to protect WordPress websites.

Our Threat Defense Feed provides Wordfence with the latest firewall rules, malware signatures and malicious IP addresses so that your website is always defended against new threats. Wordfence provides WordPress websites with unrivalled security through 2FA and additional features.

Key Features:

• Leads the industry in login security controls, including brute force protection, XMLRPC protection, reCAPTCHA to block automated attacks, and IP access control
• Centralized security events and template-based security configuration management, 100% free
• Provides robust 2FA for your admins and users using secure open standards
• Produce malware signatures to block intrusion attempts, detect malicious activity, and provide robust security for your WordPress site

Pricing:

Has free and paid plans

• Premium $99per year
• Care $490per year
• Response $950per year

17) Smash Balloon

The Smash Balloon Instagram Feed plugin lets you display photos from any Instagram account on your WordPress website. Just enter your username, and the plugin will take care of the rest.

The plugin also includes a number of customization options, so you can choose how many photos to display, what size they should be, whether or not to display captions and more.

This plugin provides you with the necessary tools to display your social media content on your WordPress site in a beautiful and visually appealing way. You can also use Smash Balloon plugins to display Facebook posts, YouTube videos, and more.

Key Features:

• Save time and increase efficiency by only posting your photos to Instagram and automatically displaying them on your website.
• Increase engagement between you and your Instagram followers
• Leverage your Instagram content to help grow your business
• Automatically push your new Instagram content straight to your site to keep it looking fresh, keeping your visitors engaged for longer, and boosting your SEO

Pricing:

30 days money back guarantee

• Personal $49/year
• Business $99/year
• Developer $149/year
• All-access bundle $299/year

18) EventON

EventON is a popular WordPress plugin that allows you to easily create and manage events on your website. With EventON, you can add events, locations, speakers, organizers, and more. EventON also includes a number of features to help you promote your events, such as social sharing buttons, Google Maps integration, and email marketing integrations.

Key Features:

• Create beautiful event listings with photos and descriptions
• Integrate with Google Maps to show event locations
• Add social sharing buttons so visitors can share your events with their friends
• Integrate with email marketing platforms to send out automated event reminders

Pricing:

Offers free EventON lite and paid plans

• Regular $25
• Extended $250

19) Child Theme Configurator

Child Theme Configurator is a user-friendly utility that allows you to analyze any WordPress theme for common problems, create a child theme, and customize it further than the Customizer permits.

If you're looking to directly customize your child's theme's stylesheet, this is the plugin for you. Simply identify and override the CSS attributes you want to change with ease.

Key Features:

• Child Theme Configurator automatically determines the correct way to set up a child theme based on the theme you are using.
• You can find the exact style selectors your theme uses and change properties quickly.
• You can locate, copy and edit theme templates from the admin.
• Much more...

20) WPVivid

WPvivid Backup Plugin is an all-in-one WordPress backup and migration solution. It allows you to create a complete backup of your WordPress website, including files, databases, and plugins. WPvivid also makes it easy to migrate your website to a new host or domain.

Key Features:

more

• Include/exclude specific files or folders and database tables from a backup
• Export a website to 3 locations as needed: web server, remote storage, and target site
• Automatically back up plugins, themes, WordPress core and the entire database before you update them
• Set up one or multiple email addresses to receive a backup report
• Two backup schedule types ? general and incremental schedules
• .

Pricing:

Has free and Pro versions and a 30-day money-back guarantee

• Blogger $29 49/year
• Freelancer $69/year
• Small Business $99/year
• Ultimate $149/year

21) WP Rollback

WP Rollback is a WordPress plugin that allows you to quickly and easily roll back any WordPress plugin or theme to a previous (or newer) version without any of the manual fuss. This plugin is especially useful if you're having issues with a newer version of a plugin or theme and need to revert back to a previous version that was known to be stable.

Key Features:

• Quickly and easily rollback any WordPress plugin or theme to a previous version
• The one-click process makes it easy to revert back to a stable version of a plugin or theme
• View a changelog of all changes made to a plugin or theme before rolling back