Free plugins can help you unlock all the powerful features you need to supercharge your WordPress website. While WordPress is a powerful tool out of the box, plugins add functionalities that are missing from the core software and that you would otherwise need to hire a developer for.
However, with thousands of free and premium plugins to choose from, it can be difficult sorting the good from the, well, not so good. Here’s a collection of ten must-have WordPress plugins that I use on nearly all my client’s websites and that are all totally free.
10 WordPress Plugins for Yoga Teachers and Wellness Entrepreneurs
#1 Coming Soon Page & Maintenance Mode by SeedProd
This is the #1 coming soon page plugin and I use it to make sure that the website is not visible to anyone while in development. It’s super simple to set up, just make sure that you don’t forget to turn the coming soon mode off when you’re ready to share your website with the world.
Cookie Notice allows you to elegantly inform users that your site uses cookies. I’m not sure if it’s covering all the legalities of the EU GDPR regulations, but it’s simple to set up and looks good.
This nifty plugin allows you to duplicate pages and posts with one click. I really don’t know why this isn’t a functionality covered by the core WordPress system, so I’m super grateful for this plugin.
Let’s say you have a yoga retreat that’s outdated, but you want to direct people who visit the old link to find your upcoming retreat in the same location. That’s where a redirect comes in. With the help of the Redirection plugin you can easily set up redirects without needing to know any coding or programming.
#5 Simple Calendar – Google Calendar Plugin
When you’re not ready for a “big” scheduling tool and you just want a simple way to display your schedule on your website, this plugin offers a great (and free!) solution by allowing you to integrate your Google calendar in your website.
You start by setting up a public calendar in Google, add all your events and classes and share it through the plugin. It’s a really smart and easy way to keep your website visitors up to date on what’s coming up. Here’s how it can look like.
#6 Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed
Formerly named “Instagram Feed”, this plugin allows you to display your Instagram feed on your website with lots of customizations. I use it on my homepage.
This amazing plugin is packed with useful features and allows you to efficiently manage your events, making sure that outdated events don’t show up on your homepage. It’s extensible (I use the pro version on www.happyyogatravels.com), easy to use, and completely customizable. This is what the free version can look like.
Your hosting provider should also run backups of your website, but it’s good to have your own backups on hand as well. I like UpdraftPlus because it’s super easy to set up and I never ran into any issues when I used it to go back to an old version. It’s definitely a must-have!
Adding a shop to your website can seem intimidating, but WooCommerce makes it as simple as possible, especially when you use a WordPress theme that integrates with WooCommerce, like the Avada theme that I use on all my websites. Here’s how a simple WooCommerce with Avada can look like.
I show you how to set it up in my course Blissful Websites and I promise it only takes a few hours before you can start selling your services and products online.
And finally, the WordPress plugin everybody loves to hate, Yoast SEO. It’s supposed to help ypu optimize your content so it gets found on Google and it does a pretty good job, but be aware that it’s not a magic bullet and it’s still the quality of your content that matters, not how many key words you have in your copy. Here you can learn more about how to get the most out of the Yoast SEO plugin.
And there you have it, ten free WordPress plugins that are perfect for yoga teachers and wellness or health entrepreneurs!
When you install plugins, make sure that you always keep them updated to the latest version. I recommend that you schedule some time each month to check the theme, WordPress version and all plugins that want to be updated. Also check make sure backups are running as scheduled and maybe download one to your desktop, just in case.
