The internet has transformed the way we do our daily tasks. You can work from the comfort of your home without worrying about the shirt you forgot to iron. Web apps can help you to learn and teach virtually anything online. There is no need for a physical classroom when you have a WordPress learning website.
Once you have set up your site, you can start providing your lessons or tutorials as soon as you get students. You only need to choose essential plugins you will need to power your WordPress site. We have written this post to unveil the plugins for WordPress any online tutor should not miss on their website.
WordPress users may need several plugins to secure the site and enhance the features and communication process. We will focus on those that will help you to deliver your lessons to your learners feasibly. Pick the most appropriate plugin according to your current needs to enhance your services.
Here are five of the top plugins online tutors need for their WordPress sites.
1. LearnPress LMS for WordPress
Creating a learning website requires a plugin that converts WordPress from a simple site or blog to a fully-featured learning solution. An LMS plugin serves as a core driver of the learning websites running on WordPress. With the plugin, you get a lesson maker, student database management system, billing, and lots of features you will need.
Among the widely-used learning plugins for WordPress is LearnPress. The plugin turns your WordPress website to a complete learning management platform. You can create, edit, and sell courses online. The plugin also allows you to have a communication channel with your students – for supporting them whenever they need it.
Currently, LearnPress is powering over 30 000 schools. You can use it on your site, and it is compatible with any WordPress theme you prefer to use. Apart from tutoring, LearnPress allows you to create student’s certificates after they complete a course quickly. Tutors can also join your site and start selling their courses online. You can charge them a subscription fee if you want.
2. Sucuri Security
Running a learning website requires top security efforts to secure your website, the learning material, and your learners’ information. We know that there are many attempts to hack several WordPress websites. However, it is upon you to either allow the malicious attempts to go through or not.
You can block hacking attempts by taking precautionary measures on your WordPress installation. In this way, you will stop hackers from getting into your system and stealing user information and your vital documents, courses, and premium content. That, however, is not enough.
To ensure that your WordPress learning website is secure, you should block any invasion by viruses or malware. Infected websites on the same server where you host your site can spread the malware on the whole server. You will end up losing your content due to virus infection. The malware can also assist hackers in collecting relevant information from your website.
Sucuri Security is a to-rated WordPress security solution from Sucuri Inc. It will help you to monitor and scan your learners’ website for any security threats and inform you about them or fix them. It even includes a website firewall to monitor all incoming and outgoing connections on your server.
3. UpdraftPlus Backup Plugin
After creating your stunning learning website and set up security systems to monitor and protect your information, it is time to ensure that you do not lose your site whatsoever. You cannot risk a server problem sending your website offline and never to recover it. That is why you need a backup solution to take care of your WordPress backup needs.
Remember that a backup is not simply about zipping up your website and downloading the files to your computer. That is the worst thing you can do as a backup. In some cases, the restore process may fail due to incompatibilities when you want to move to a new server.
You also need to understand that backups involve the database as well, and if you are not conversant with database management, you may find it hard to create and restore them accurately. For all your needs, UpdraftPlus, the most used WordPress backup plugin, will suffice. It will schedule and create backups and secure them on the cloud while you are sleeping or taking a vacation.
4. Gmail SMTP
Every website owner needs a professional email address (or more than one) to manage their business communications. However, there is a problem with the default WordPress email service. If you try to send out an email from your site, it will either end up in the junk/trash of the recipient or it will not send out completely.
To solve this issue, you need an SMTP solution to relay your email through an authentication process. Among the many SMTP plugins that I tried, only Gmail SMTP worked on my site. With its OAuth authentication process, you do not need to enter your SMTP password on a server. You are always safe. The plugin works the best when you have a GSuite account for your business so that emails do not appear to come from Gmail.com.
5. Yoast! SEO
SEO is an important aspect of any business. While it involves the acquisition of organic traffic to your website, optimizing it goes far beyond the free visitors. With SEO, you can make your website user-friendly. Yoast! SEO is a plugin that helps you to create content that is reader-friendly and easy to find.
Apart from that, the plugin is also vital to mend the broken links on your website. In case you have decided to delete or move the location of a course or information on your website, you do not need to worry about the 404 errors people will encounter when clicking on the links. Yoast! Helps to fix the broken URL with a 301 redirect to valid pages. It will help your users to click to the correct content pages.
Summing Up
Your choice of plugins for wordpress to use on your WordPress Learning website depends on your needs. There is no limit as to what to add. You can use as many plugins as you want to modify your site as much as you desire. These five essential plugins, however, are mandatory if you want to make your business successful.
