The all new OptimizePress 3.0 launched back around June 2019. There have been a lot of new features since then such as an awesome Funnel Builder called OptimizeFunnels, a new Checkouts plugin called OptimizeCheckouts, & probably about 15 to 20 new OptimizePress Page Builder Elements & Features (too many to name here).
While there are almost an unlimited number of things you can create with OptimizePress 3.0, there are some things that you'll still want to use 3rd party plugins for.
I have compiled a list of plugins that I either use myself or use on client sites that have worked really good for things like contact forms, adding sitewide scripts, as well as some for security.
Please ensure that you check OptimizePress's guide at the following link to learn how to enable the styles and scripts for plugins
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Use WP Umbrella to Easily Manage and Backup All Your WordPress Sites Through an Easy to Use Dashboard
If you are like me, and have several websites, managing them all can be a royal pain in the rear! It's like a never ending constant battle to keep WordPress, as well as all the themes and plugins updated. I have at least 10 of my own sites, a few friends sites, as well as a lot of client sites that I manage.
If it were not for tools like WP Umbrella, I would probably lose my mind trying to manage everything manually.
With WP Umbrella, you can connect all your sites to a central dashboard that will allow you to easily manage all your sites. From the dashboard you can quickly see your site speed, available updates, backup status, site health status, php issues, and a link to log you into your admin area for any site that you are managing through WP Umbrella.
If I know that a particular update is okay for all sites then I can simply update all the sites with a few clicks. Definitely suggest trying it out if you haven't already got a tool like it.
WP Umbrella has impressed me with several nice updates since they first launched. I actually prefer it over Manage WP, which was my previous "go to" for managing multiple sites. WP Umbrella has a flat fee for each site instead of paying a fee for each feature like you do with Manage WP, which can get quite expensive with a lot of sites.
WP Umbrella Backups are Super Easy!
Backing up sites through WP Umbrella is quite simple. All you have to do is login to their dashboard and setup a backup schedule without having to do any other tedious tasks to get the job done, or messing with tons of settings like most backup plugins do. It's just so simple.
You can also easily access the backups through the dashboard and download them if you need to.
With the automatic backups feature, you can rest easy knowing that you can safely update plugins and themes, and even WordPress Core without worrying if your site will be down for days waiting for a plugin update to fix a major issue. Soon you'll also be able to fully restore a database, files, or the entire site in just a few clicks.
Manage Your Updates With Ease Using WP Umbrella!
You can view each site to see what updates there are, or you can go to the bulk screen to see what updates are available. If you open the toggle for an item you can see what sites have the update available.
If you have multiple websites to manage you can truly see that using a service like WP Umbrella can be a real helpful tool to help you stay on top of site issues, backups, and updates. I have barely scratched the surface here on the features they have. Go check theme out and see what all they offer. You won't be disappointed.
Here is their website link again in case you missed it above.
Contact Form Plugins
OptimizePress has a great Optin Form element that can be used to add leads to your CRM (ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, Aweber, among many others). I have seen some interesting optin forms that were turned into contact forms, which honestly makes no sense to me. A CRM is not a tool for sending/receiving emails on a personal basis (that is what Email is for).
If you want to have a way for your site visitors to reach out to you and have the email more reliably delivered to your inbox than your CRM can handle, I would suggest using the all new OptimizePress Contact Form element that was released earlier this year (2022). Check out how it works here:
Sitewide Header & Footer Scripts
While you can add scripts to individual pages in OptimizePress 3.0, it is not possible currently to add sitewide scripts within the OptimizePress platform. There are plugins that handle this quite well though, and I do think OptimizePress may add this at some point, but the best plugin I know and use personally for adding scripts is the Header Footer Code Manager plugin.
To me, this is the only one worth having because not only can you add the scripts you need, you can also choose what pages and posts they load on. There are even options to show scripts based on the device.
Other script management plugins do not come close to the functionality you find with this plugin. I'm sure there are others out there similar, but as far as I'm aware, none have been as active in development or have the amount of options.
I have no doubt that this is one of the best plugins for OptimizePress that you can use for adding your header/footer scripts on a sitewide basis or groups of pages.
Help Keep Your Site Secure From Login Form Attacks
First let me say that it has been my experience that using plugins such as WordFence, or iThemes Security tend to slow down page loading, or create more problems than they solve, so while I don't use them myself, they can be useful, however I feel a better approach is to prevent your login form from getting attacked by bots or hackers by simply hiding the login URL. You can also avoid getting hacked by using strong passwords, keeping WP, Plugins, and Themes all updated regularly, and using unique username.... anything other than "Admin" or variations of "Admin" as pretty much anyone can, and will guess that.
There is a lot more to security than just hiding the login URL. I will have another blog post on that in the future.
WPS Hide Login plugin is one of the best plugins for OptimizePress that has worked for a long time and is updated on a regular basis. Install, Activate, and head over to "Settings" and you'll be able to change the login URL. Don't forget what you set it to!
Add Image Galleries To Your OptimizePress Sites
Image galleries can be useful to have if you need to showcase a lot of photos on your site. There are two plugins I have used that have been really good with OptimizePress 3.0.
My favorite is Modula. The free version is very good, but I use the Pro version which has tons of extra, incredible features that I have come to enjoy.
Of course, FooGallery is also a great plugin that has stood the test of time. I have used this one since 2014 on a personal travel blog of mine where I share image galleries of some places I have stayed.
Both are really good. I haven't tried any others that have come close to having such easy to use admin options. Creating image galleries in either of these plugins is a breeze for the most part.
I would suggest trying both and seeing which one suites you best. Just make sure you optimize your images for the web with something like ShortPixel.
Optimize Your Images & Make Your Pages Load Faster
High resolution images are a great thing to have, but if you upload them to your site, it will most likely cause a slow loading of the page, which can be compounded if you use several images on the same page. There are a wide range of tools available for Optimizing images.
In the past, I have promoted tools here such as the Smush Plugin or ShortPixel, which are both awesome in their own ways, but no longer needed if you are using OptimizePress.
Since June 2021, OptimizePress now has a very good image optimization feature that converts images to the new image format WebP which gives superior lossless and lossy compression for images and a great alternative to PNG or JPG images and doesn't lose image quality.
OptimizePress also has other Optimization features such as CSS and JS compression which also aid in making pages load faster.
Click the link below to learn more about this feature in OptimizePress.
I hope that you have found a couple of new plugins to use that help you save time. If you have any suggestions to add to this list, or have any questions, please leave a comment.