If you’re like me, trying to make a mark in this ever-changing digital world, you know how vital it is to sell your services online. Whether you’re a freelancer or an entrepreneur, the right tools can make all the difference in showcasing and selling your skills effectively.
Now, I’m a big fan of WordPress. Its flexibility and powerful features make it a top choice. But what really takes WordPress to the next level are the plugins. With thousands to choose from, it can feel like finding a needle in a haystack.
So, to save you the trouble, I’ve put together a list of my top 11 WordPress plugins that I use to sell my services online. Each one has unique features that have helped me streamline my online operations, increase my conversion rates, and keep my customers happy. So, let’s dive in and unlock the full potential of your WordPress site together!
Which features are we looking for to sell services online with WordPress ?
It’s always great to ask ourselves what we need to run our business website.
- A good and flexible theme
- Complete control of the website’s design
- Accept payments
- Get appointments automatically
- Deliver our services the most fluently possible (and get our customers informed about their orders)
- Not fun, but we must be compliant with worldwide regulations (GDPR…)
To go forward, we also would like to improve our conversions and business health. So we will add :
- Get visitors’ contact information to nurture them with marketing automation, so we will improve relationships with our visitors and customers
- Improve our content efforts with SEO management
- Get analytics to manage the website and the marketing efforts
I intentionally do not mention online courses as it is a dedicated tech stack for that purpose.
What are WordPress plugins?
Basically, WordPress is just a Content Management System (CMS) to power your blog. Nothing more. But nowadays, WordPress has changed dramatically and can have powerful features, to do a LOT more than just blogging, so you can use it to run your complete business, whatever its size. You’ll do that thanks to WordPress plugins.
They are small programs (free or paid) that can be added to a WordPress website and developed most of the time by third-party editors. They provide extra functionality to WordPress users without having to write custom code. There are thousands of WordPress plugins available, each with a different set of features. Finding the right plugin can be a time-consuming task. However, it is essential to choose the right plugin to enhance the user experience on your website. In summary, WordPress plugins are a vital component of building a successful WordPress website.
What should you look for before investing in a plugin?
When comes time to choose some plugins to run your website, you should be careful about some crucial points. And no, it’s probably not what you think (only features that it has). A lot of people add plugins for WordPress only because it has the feature they are looking for. Unfortunately, they are wrong, because they will meet some bugs and they will have to fight against them so hard to run their website smoothly. When I have to choose a plugin, here are the criteria I am looking for (sorted by importance) :
- Integrations. This is the point I look for at the very first step. If I hesitate between 2 plugins, I will always choose the one with the most direct integrations (and I don’t look at Zapier, because of its extra pricing)
- Features come in second, because of course, if the plugin does not meet my expectations, this will be a no-go for me
- Quality. I can evaluate this through ratings, social proof, feedback, and testimonials (as long as they are verified)
- Price. Yes, this is my last point, because I’ll prefer to spend more money on a good plugin than on the cheapest one that will be buggy or with less or no integrations (and a lack of support).
The following list will mention the best WordPress plugins for selling services.
Hosting
Before getting right into the topic, I have to mention one thing that is crucial for your business. Hosting.
Imagine this: You’ve just set up your ecommerce site or landing page on WordPress, but you’re noticing that your page load times are slower than a snail on vacation. That’s definitely what you don’t want. You will build different kinds of WordPress pages, from a simple thank you page to a massive and complex landing page, you should take into account the most complex pages to display and choose your hosting accordingly. Bad hosting can ruin a business.
Good hosting will literally save your sales and conversions, thanks to various aspects:
- Fast page loading times: Yes, the myth of the visitor who leaves after 3 seconds is true. If your page does not display as soon as possible, you will have visitors who will flee. Also, Google hates slow pages, and it will just downgrade your pages as it goes. The performance and optimization of pages is therefore not a luxury, but a necessity.
- Security: What’s scarier to see that our site, your blog or online store on which we have spent so many hours of work, has been hacked or hijacked? The worst part is that it will cost you dearly, both in terms of your brand image and the amount of repairs by a specialist.
- Optimization: The technical optimization of your site is done at several levels: the performance of the server itself, at the level of WordPress, and outside. A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is essential these days and will allow your different content to be replicated all over the world simultaneously. Thus, your Indian and American visitors will be served as quickly as possible, thanks to the servers located closest to their homes. Remember that your hosting provider optimizes your WordPress site at his level.
So, if you’re serious about your WordPress site, consider investing in a solid WordPress hosting service. It’s the secret sauce to ensuring your site is fast, secure, and always performing at its best.
AstraWP: The Base Of Your Business
There are many WordPress themes out there. Astra is not a brand new WordPress theme, but definitely a bestseller.
Despite the fact it is not brand new, if you don’t know which theme to pick, AstraWP always be a good choice. Its speed and overall code optimization make it a good fit to start building your next project.
It must be said that it has serious advantages going for it: a wide variety of options for customizing it makes it possible to build just about any type of site. It is of course compatible with page builders (including Elementor, my favorite), so you can make almost any design for your pages. AstraWP offers a great variety of pre-built websites, sidebar options, content width, and header options, as well as integration with WooCommerce.
It will definitely help you sell your services.
Why AstraWP?
- Fast a lightweight plugin
- A wide range of design options
- Well integrated with popular plugins like WooCommerce and LearnDash
- Great choice for your online presence
Pricing:
- Astra Free: $0 (of course)
- Astra Pro: $59 per year
- Essential Bundle: $169 per year (premium starter templates, unlimited sites…)
Elementor Pro: The Drag-And-Drop Design
Here is my absolute star: Elementor Pro, the King of WordPress Page Builders. More than a page-builder, it is now a site-builder. I just can’t build a website without it now. This mainly comes from 2 things: first, it is very flexible, very powerful and it is particularly pleasant to work with. Second, the ecosystem that has grown up around it is absolutely huge. Many plugins have been created to be compatible with it, or downright addons of all kinds for it.
If it was an ecommerce plugin, it will undeniably be WooCommerce.
Its free features are great, but it shows its full potential with paid features. Global colors, Pro widgets, page templates, and even now artificial intelligence (paying extra), it is a real Swiss army knife for anyone who wants to develop their website easily and quickly.
Indeed, you will create designs and see the result in real-time. Magic for a beginner. From simple pages to popups, through forms, headers, footers, and menus, it knows how to manage everything. So, if in addition, you wire a Crocoblock on it, the mixture is simply overpowering.
This plugin helps you to go from draft to production in no time, whether you’re building an ecommerce store, a consultancy website, or a blog to pass the time. This is one of the must-have WordPress plugins.
Why Elementor Pro?
- You’ll have full control over your website’s design
- You’ll need some pro gadgets to run your business
- The global colors pro feature is a must-have to not waste time when adjusting colors all over your website
- Globally, building your WordPress site without it will be painful.
Pricing:
- Elementor Free: $0
- Elementor Pro (Essential Plan – 1 website): $59 per year
- Elementor Pro (Expert Plan – 25 websites): $199 per year
- Elementor Pro (Agency Plan – 1000 websites): $399 per year
WooCommerce: The Payment System
Yes, WooCommerce is a popular WordPress plugin, but it’s an ecommerce plugin. Strange choice here.
I agree, this choice isn’t obvious, as WooCommerce is like a juggernaut. And the question you should ask is: why choose an ecommerce plugin for WordPress to power a selling services website? It’s true after all: we don’t do e-commerce here.
The main (and only) reason for this choice is a 1-word answer: integrations.
And no, it’s not because it’s free. Because it really isn’t. Sure, you will get it for free to download, but believe me, you’ll need some WooCommerce add-ons and they are expensive, especially for small businesses or beginners.
The fact is: even if you don’t run an online store, if you want payments and build your website with no headache, you’ll choose WooCommerce, because of all the integrations out there. It is absolutely huge. Almost all the themes and plugins are compatible (or made for) WooCommerce. The number of plugins that are compatible with it is endless. Especially for plugins that interest the community of freelancers, solopreneurs and small businesses: WordPress automation plugin, to do no code directly as close as possible to WordPress.
In addition, you will find countless resources on the internet, tutorials, themes, add-ons of all kinds, and many SaaS applications are also directly compatible with WooCommerce, which is not the case with other solutions.
Why WooCommerce?
- Reason #1 is: INTEGRATIONS.
- It is free to use, even if we’ll have to add other plugins around it to build your dreamed website.
- Well-known by developers and agencies
- Compatible specific hostings available
Pricing:
- WooCommerce: free, forever.
- WooCommerce Subscriptions: $239 per year
Fluent Forms Pro: The Magnet
Well, we have our theme, our site builder, and our payment system. Let’s focus a bit on marketing. You know, there can be no business without a minimum of marketing. And one of those that you can embed into your site is email marketing. The advantage is that it is inexpensive compared to other forms of marketing. So we are not going to deprive ourselves of it!
We will use Fluent Forms Pro for 2 different usages:
- Build online forms to get interactions from your visitors
- Attract visitors to your site and get their personal information (yes, you’re right, we’re talking about leads).
Unfortunately, we’ve talked previously about Elementor Pro, which has Elementor Forms. But it won’t match our requirements because it is not as powerful as Fluent Forms. Choosing the right WordPress plugin is pretty important, that’s why I’m here to help. 😉
Sure, you’ll build contact forms (the basic) on your website. But not only. You’ll create some lead funnels with it, like survey funnels for example. And you’ll be able to create pretty complex calculator funnels for even more results and leads.
Please note that in some cases, you can sell services directly with Fluent Forms, as it can allow you to accept payments, but it won’t be as powerful as a plugin like WooCommerce.
Why Fluent Forms Pro?
- If you’re looking for the best extension to power forms, so Fluent Forms is one of the best form plugins out there.
- It is a popular WordPress form builder
- A large range of field types available in Pro (for surveys and calculators)
- Pro version is mandatory to unlock calculations, conditions, surveys, and much more
Pricing:
- Fluent Forms – Free version
- Fluent Forms Pro – 1 site: $59 per year
- Fluent Forms Pro – 5 sites: $129 per year
- Fluent Forms Pro – Unlimited sites: $199 per year
Read the Fluent Forms Review here.
FluentCRM Pro: The Relationship
The next one is just like a massive extension of the Fluent Forms plugin. It’s called FluentCRM Pro, and it is designed to manage your email marketing campaigns, right into WordPress. It’s a huge advantage, as SaaS apps for email marketing can be pricey very quickly.
Selling on day one is just an exception – or for busy businessmen who believe they can be successful right after their launch. The fact is: you’ll need a strong process and time to get sales and improve your conversions over time.
As a service provider, you need to be close to your clients. And as the world isn’t perfect, you also need to convince your leads with arguments and time. To create a such relationship, you need a tool: FluentCRM. With this plugin, you’ll be able to create a real and strong relationship with your leads and customers, communicating on a vast range of topics, customized for everyone, and sent to the right people at the right time. Imagine if you had to record manually every lead’s information, and send them emails to show them your services. One by one. Day by day. You would quit after a single week.
FluentCRM will send complete email campaigns on autopilot, making it easy to communicate with your audience. He will know exactly who is a lead, who is a customer, and who is interested in this or that, at every time, and he will react accordingly and immediately, to increase trust and slowly build a healthy relationship. Sure, you’ll have to design your marketing campaigns, email content, automation, lists and tags, and so on… But it is worth the time you’ll invest because it will work for you 27/7. Your best-seller, without a doubt. Whether you want to get a review, nurture your audience about your services or your market, or remind leads to act because of this promo that is ending soon… He will take care of everything, as long as you have built this automation.
Why FluentCRM Pro?
- A must-have premium WordPress plugin to sell products and services
- Every business owner should implement email marketing on his website
- It will manage your email list and make it grow day after day
- We need its pro features to achieve our goals (email sequencing, dynamic segmentation, conditional content, conditional blocks in automation…)
Pricing:
- FluentCRM Free Version
- FluentCRM Pro – 1 site: $129 per year
- FluentCRM Pro – 5 sites: $249 per year
- FluentCRM Pro – 50 sites: $499 per year
To read: How to use Fluent Forms and FluentCRM to build an irresistible survey funnel in WordPress in 3 steps.
WP Amelia: The Sales
So we have our website, our design, lead magnets and even our email marketing. Great! But what if you want to schedule calls or meetings with your visitors or clients? Because yes, this would be a part of your business, especially if you plan to do consulting, for example.
There’s a great solution for that. If you want to use WordPress to get appointments, that’s completely possible thanks to WP Amelia. This plugin is simply one of the best WordPress plugins to get appointments on your website.
Not only this plugin is powerful, but it is made with a trendy and clean design that will look professional. No matter what kind of appointments you need to run, WP Amelia got you covered. Thanks to his step-by-step wizard, your customers will be able to book a free or paid meeting with you, depending on your free time in your own calendar (Zoom and Google Meet integrations inside). Long story short, this is a plugin that lets you get appointments (or events) automatically, and streamline all the process thanks to various integrations (including WooCommerce) and Webhooks.
Ok, WP Amelia isn’t a free plugin. But sure the product is worth every penny.
Why WP Amelia?
- Best of its class in terms of appointments
- Pro look and feel, from the backend or the client side
- Not a lot of integrations, but the main ones are here
Pricing:
- WP Amelia – Basic – 1 site: €79 per year
- WP Amelia – Pro – 1 site: €119 per year
- WP Amelia – Pro – 3 sites: €249 per year
- Lifetime deals and Developer licenses also exist.
Complianz Pro: The Legal Side
I agree, this one is not fun. But we have to talk about it, because this matters a lot. Every business out there must be compliant with laws all around the globe. And I know, not everyone makes the effort to comply with the law of each country. Be aware, however, that a simple banner saying “We use cookies” with an OK button is not compliant with the law.
That being said, it can be easier than you think to be compliant, even with regularly changing laws in all countries. Among plugins and tools that can help you on this topic, my favorite one is Complianz Pro. This plugin does the heavy lifting for you and updates your legal pages automatically, whenever a law changes somewhere.
A dedicated panel in the plugin will help you to fix various errors, making it easy the overall compliance process.
As soon as you do business with WordPress, it is imperative to equip yourself with Complianz Pro.
Why Complianz Pro?
- Among premium plugins that can help you run your business, Complianz Pro is almost mandatory.
- It is one of the best ways to be compliant with various regulation authorities worldwide.
- Pro version is highly recommended to get access to the record of consent and unlock simultaneous regions with conditional consent and dedicated cookies banners.
Pricing:
- Complianz Free Version
- Complianz Personal – 1 website: €49 per year
- Complianz Professional – 5 websites: €149 per year
- Complianz Agency – 25 websites: €299
Site Kit by Google: The Analytics
It’s not so easy to effectively track your site’s analytics, even with Google Analytics, which is free. First, you have to think about it. And then, you have to remember the URL to access it, and finally, you have to understand what you see, to know how to improve the performance of your site.
What if I told you that there is a simple and free way to have all of your site statistics directly on your site, all for free?
Site Kit is a free WordPress plugin that manages your Google Analytics relationship and displays your analytics in your WordPress dashboard.
The cool thing about Site Kit is that it not only includes Google Analytics but also Search Console, PageSpeed Insights and AdSense. All in one dashboard. For free.
Why Google Site Kit?
- It’s free
- Easy to connect to your Google Account and properties
- Really complete
- … It’s free!!!
Pricing:
- Site Kit Free
- No, I said it’s free.
- Did I mention that it’s free?
Rank Math: The Long-Term Visibility
At present, our site is almost complete. It’s cool, we have enough to make a beautiful site, robust, complete, ready to sell our services online.
But there’s a problem: you don’t have a client. In fact, you don’t even have any visitors. So there are generally only 2 ways: either you have a (consequent) budget to launch your site with paid advertising, or you have to do otherwise. And even if you have the budget, people won’t buy from you because they don’t know you, and you haven’t proven your expertise to them.
If you want to get visitors in the long term, you don’t really have a choice: you will have to write articles about your market, and your skills, and show your know-how. But what good is writing articles if Google does not reference you?
This is where Rank Math comes in. You will use this plugin to attract Google so that it ranks your articles, and thus attract visitors (and therefore customers).
Difficult to list its 89 features here. With more than 2M+ installations, this powerful WordPress plugin’s effectiveness is well established. But what I like the most is its very clear interface, which is not the case with all SEO plugins. It generates schema automatically (and you can even create your own), synchronize automatically your sitemap to Google, and much more. So if you’re looking for the best WordPress plugin to power your SEO, Rank Math is a great choice.
Why Rank Math?
- Follow SEO best practices.
- Sitemap generation and automatic submission to Google
- Advanced Image SEO Module
- SOON: Link Builder for internal linking
Pricing:
- Rank Math SEO – Free
- Rank Math Pro – Unlimited personal websites: $59 (ex VAT)
- Rank Math Business – 100 clients websites: $199 (ex VAT)
- Rank Math Agency – 500 clients websites: $499 (ex VAT)
Conclusion
There, you are now well-equipped! You have all my recommended essential plugins that I install on all my clients’ websites to sell their services online. Sure, you will maybe find other plugins to complete this collection (if this is the case, just let me know!). You have a robust theme, a powerful tool to easily create your designs, and all your marketing machines, from email marketing to content marketing.
I wish you the best of luck with sales!
