You are here because of an interest in WordPress plugins for photographers and their business. If you continue reading, then you’re interested in WordPress for photographers, more specifically, plugins that are worth installing on your WordPress website.
WordPress Plugins for Photographers
In this article you will see some very useful WordPress plugins for photographers that can help make your website become more than just a website. Some of these WordPress plugins for photographers can provide business management functionality so that your website works for you in so many ways.
The majority of the plugins included here are used on my photography website. Want a list of all my currently active plugins? Click here to jump to it.
Google Analytics
I recommend using Monster Insights because it makes life easier to connect and view Google Analytics. In addition to quickly connecting to your Google Analytics account, it offers very clean and easy to follow dashboards on your site’s statistics. It basically offers what Google Analytics offers, without having to leave your site.
For those more technical, and want a lighter plugin, try Simple Universal Google Analytics which comes with no reporting. It just allows for easy adding of Google Analytics to your site.
Simple Universal Google Analytics makes it extremely simple for anyone to implement the Analytics tracking codes.
Search Engine Optimization
There is no better SEO plugin than this plugin from Yoast, and it is also one of the most popular plugins in the WordPress directory. Yoast SEO makes it very simple for anyone to add SEO functionality to a website. The plugin also adds necessary Open Graph data for sharing on Facebook, Google Plus, etc. Optimizing your photography website has never been easier.
If you record and publish a lot of videos on your website or blog, then I recommend adding the Video SEO plugin which compliments the WordPress SEO plugin. This will add an additional video sitemap to your site and generate a search engine result with a video thumbnail and more.
If you are trying to market your business locally, then I recommend taking advantage of the Local SEO plugin which also compliments the WordPress SEO plugin. With it, you can easily localize your website to multiple locations or just one, include a map (or many), hours and address all with proper Schema markup.
When thinking about SEO, it’s important to consider the little things Google requires businesses to do in order to stay ranking well.
One of the modern ways, at the time of updating this post, is to use Google My Business and in particular, updating your GMB page with new posts. GMB posts don’t have to be intricate. They can be as simple as what you share on social media.
This is where the plugin Post to Google My Business comes in handy. It enables you to post to GMB at the same time as publishing a new blog post. The premium version goes way beyond that too, but automatically reposting to GMB overtime.
Contact Forms
Of all WordPress plugins for photographers specifically as a contact form tool, this is the best. This is not a free plugin, but it is definitely the ultimate contact form plugin. Why? Well, it is packed with so many features and is supported by a wide range of third-party developers. Rocket Genious, the developer of Gravity Forms, has also created integration with PayPal, Mailchimp and more. In addition to contact forms, photographers can use the plugin to create questionnaires for clients. Visit The Modern Tog website and click Must Have Tools to see client questionnaires for Weddings, Family Portraits and Newborn Portraits, and Senior Portraits.
Want some free Gravity Forms form templates?
Do a search in the WordPress plugin directory for Gravity Forms and see if there are additional plugins that can benefit your business.
If you want another premium form plugin option, try WP Forms, which is quite impressive as well.
I already mentioned that Gravity Forms has addition support by other third-party developers. Here is a great example. This plugin makes it possible for Gravity Forms to transfer the contact information from prospects into a photographer’s ShootQ CRM database. There are also add-ons for Salesforce and other CRM systems. You can even connect your form to Sprout Studio if you utilize them for your CRM.
Not interested in paying for a contact form plugin? Custom Contact Forms is a free alternative with a bunch of good features. Hey, not all WordPress plugins for photographers have to be expensive. Free can work!
Booking Calendar
While it is possible to use Gravity Forms for booking, this plugin makes a very simple booking system for photographers. It’s designed for online reservation and availability checking service for your site.
WordPress Gallery Plugin + Ecommerce
The most popular of WordPress plugins for photographers, the most popular WordPress gallery plugin and most specifically WordPress gallery management plugin without a doubt. With over 20 million downloads (as of 4/27/2018) and 1.3 million active users, the plugin has proven itself to the WordPress community. Now owned by Imagely, the plugin will be taken to the next level of awesome with even more features that benefit photographers.
Like Gravity Forms, NextGEN Gallery is also supported by third-party developers. Do a search for NextGEN in the WordPress plugin directory and you will see over 100 add-ons.
NextGEN Plus is a premium add-on to NextGEN Gallery with extra display styles of your galleries and a Pro Lightbox for individual photo commenting and social sharing.
NextGEN Pro adds a full E-commerce system for photographers to sell their photographs. PayPal Standard, PayPal Express and Stripe payment gateways. Multiple pricelists are supported as well. NextGEN Pro offers coupons, tax, free product offerings, proofing and so much more.
Backups
Hopefully, your photography website hosting company offers free backups. But if they don’t then check out WP Time Capsule. The free backup plugin can store your site and its database in Dropbox, Google Drive or Amazon S3. And it works like Apple’s Time Machine, using incremental backups. And like Time Machine, you can revert to a specific state of backup. At this moment WP Time Capsule is completely free.
No WordPress plugins for photographers are worth it if you do not have a good backup system in place (like you should with your photographs).
SEO Friendly Images
As of WordPress 4.7, images uploaded to the Media Library no longer get ALT text automatically saved.SEO Friendly Images can help you make ALT text, easily. And as you know, ALT text is good for image SEO.
Spam Prevention
Akismet checks comments on your articles against its web service to see if they look like spam or not. It will automatically block known spam and report IP addresses to its database. Of all spam protecting WordPress plugins for photographers, this is by far the best and happens to also be created by the company behind WordPress.
Note that Akismet requires a WordPress.com account (which is free).
Content Scheduling
The Editorial Calendar makes it possible to see all your posts and drag and drop them to manage your blog. Knowing that you’re blog is a crucial element to your photography business, keeping it organized is as important.
If you want an enhanced editorial calendar that also lets you automate your social media activity then check out CoSchedule instead of Editorial Calendar.
Social Media Scheduling
If you’re using Buffer already then you need to take a look at WordPress to Buffer Pro. It will enable you to automatically add new content to your Buffer queues. With it, you’ll never need to manually schedule anything to Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest or elsewhere. Then you can work more on your photography business in other ways, and only reply to comments on social as needed.
Page Builder
You have two options when it comes to page builders in WordPress. The first is to use the built in block editor and possibly an extension to it. The second is to use a page builder plugin like Elementor.
I’ve heard it time and time again “Squarespace is better than WordPress because it’s easier to use.” I can understand the argument, but really it’s not better. And for those who say it’s easier, they’re wrong. Why? Becuase there are more options for beautiful drag and drop page builders then what Squarespace offers. My favorite one is called Elementor. It’s a page builder plugin that’s built the right way, and it’s so beautiful and easy to use. Elementor makes WordPress easier for photographers.
If you choose to use the block editor of WordPress, you can do a lot of what Elementor offers, but using WordPress core blocks. No additional plugins needed.
If you want to extend beyond WordPress core blocks I recommend trying one of the following plugins:
Image Compression
One of the most common dilemmas in photography websites is image compression. As photographers we want our images to be large and beautiful. But search engines prefer small and highly compressed. There is a fine line for image compression. I usually recommend JPEGMini Pro which is available for Mac and Windows. But for those who need a
Testimonials
Reusable blocks in WordPress can be the perfect tool for creating testimonials. But if you need something more robust than either a block plugin with a testimonials block and the built
It’s fantastic because it works so well, and offers organizational tagging and collections so you can display your testimonials in various ways.
It uses a shortcode, which means you need to use the shortcode block for displaying your testimonials.
You also have a variety of displays styles, like a grid and a carousel.
Site Security
Security is a pain point of any photography website. Wordfence Security is a free security plugin that includes a firewall, virus scanning and more. While it is free, there is a premium version available for those needing additional security.
- Scans core files against repository for changes
- Scans for signatures of over thousands of known malware variants that are known security threats.
- Continuously scans for malware and phishing URL’s in all your comments, posts and files that are security threats.
- Scans for heuristics of backdoors, trojans, suspicious code and other security issues.
- Checks the strength of all user and admin passwords to enhance login security.
- Monitor your DNS security for unauthorized DNS changes.
- Includes a firewall to block common security threats like fake Googlebots, malicious scans from hackers and botnets.
Currently Active Plugins
- Akismet
- Gravity Forms
- Gravity Forms Google Analytics Event Tracking
- Gravity Forms
Mailchimp Add-On - Instant Articles
- Imagify
- Kadence Blocks
- NextGEN Gallery
- NextGEN Pro (for proofing and selling photos)
- OptinMonster
- Redirection
- Related Posts for WordPress Premium
- Scott Wyden Personal Site Plugin
- Social Warfare
- Social Warfare Pro
- WordPress Editorial Calendar
- WP Mail SMTP
- WordPress to Buffer Pro
- WP Rocket Cache
- WP Time Capsule
- Yoast SEO
WordPress Themes For Photographers
All of these WordPress plugins for photographers are great, but you need your website to look great before it can really help your business. Fortunately, I’ve already written about the best WordPress themes for Photographers. Please note that I work at Photocrati, but believe it is the best choice for a photographer’s website.
Your Turn
Now I want to hear from you. Tell me which plugins you think are essential for a photographers website and business. I will review your comments and will add to the article any I agree with.
Thank you for checking out my list of essential WordPress plugins for photographers and their business, and I hope that you found the content useful.
Scott
Leave a Reply