The Umbraco CMS is a robust Content Management System used to design websites and web-based applications. This platform has a lot of powerful tools for designers and application developers as well. However, you can still enhance Umbraco with simple plugins for the Umbraco CMS. These Plugins which are called “Packages” in the Umbraco ecosphere can help extend the functions and features of your website easily. Below are 12 plugins that can help make your website awesome.
Dedicated Media Folder
The plugin is designed especially for large websites with many media files and pages. It perfectly supports the work of the editorial office and automates the creation of dedicated media folders.
The dedicated media folder for Umbraco has the following features:
SEO Starter Kit
All sites need SEO, this plugin can come in handy irrespective of the type of website or application you are developing. This plugin is highly configurable, allowing you to tweak its features with a high level of precision to align with your requirements. With this package, it is easy to add various on-site SEO elements to a Umbraco website, so the Search Engine bots can crawl and index the site easily. The SEO Starter Kit package has the following features:
- Create SEO-friendly title tags for pages or edit existing page titles for SEO
- Create and edit meta descriptions for pages
- Create canonical tags
- Designate an index and create a robots.txt file for search engines bots.
- Create your sitemap file easily with the flexibility of excluding pages from the sitemap.
The 301 URL Tracker
A broken URL is an annoying factor for users, and the search engines also hate it. When a page on a website appears not to exist, it is referred to as a broken URL. So, when you move your content to a new address, it is essential to redirect users to the new page or to another relevant content. This redirect will give your visitors a better user experience and the search engines will update their index to reflect the moved page. This package provides you with full control over website 301 redirects with a user-friendly application interface.
The 301 URL tracker for Umbraco has the following features:
- The URL change tracker automatically monitors changes in your URL.
- The server code tracker helps you stay on top of server page errors such as 404 and 302.
- Provides interface to create and edit page redirect easily.
- The package makes recommendations for redirection when the need arises.
- Matches query strings
The Translation Manager
Do you want to have a multilingual website? The Translation Manager package makes it easy for you to translate your website content into another language. All that is required is to create the material in the default language, and this package gives access to translators to perform their tasks without the need for manual copying and pasting. The plugin has an intuitive translators dashboard that provides the translating team and content editors with various access levels to edit the content on the Umbraco website.
Publication Queue
The task of publishing content from various editors can become tedious when there is a lot of content. The Publication Queue package makes it easy for a content admin to publish many materials on a Umbraco website without the need to stay glued to the PC all day. This package creates an interface that allows the admin to queue up all content to be published and publishes them sequentially, and automatically. The program also gives the admin an interface to view the progress of the content publishing in real-time. This package is useful for a site that does extensive content publishing.
The Umbraco XML Sitemap
The sitemap is a document that provides the logical layout patterns of a website. It is useful for search engines to understand the content layout and also for website visitors to navigate a site. This document also determines the way the search engines will index your site. Allow this plugin to create the sitemap document for you and upload it to the Google Search Console and other parallel applications for other search engines to index your site.
LeBlender
Do you make use of similar data structures such as grid development? Then the LeBlender package can make your work easier. With this plugin, developers can do advanced grid development by creating multiple reusable content blocks that can be applied to different rows.
DigiBiz Advanced Media Picker (DAMP)
Although the stock Media Picker is good at what it does, you can make your work more efficient with additional features found in DAMP. This package has several advanced features such as the ability to add imagery from a property without navigating to the Media section. One of the excellent features of this program is that it gives the user the power to select images and reorder them when required. This function is excellent for creating galleries.
On the final note, this package has native support for the Pixlr web-based image manipulation tool which is like replicating the power of Photoshop in a web browser! It allows the user to perform various image editing functions after uploading an image to Umbraco.
Moreover, the image picker is limited to only the relevant file extension, this makes it easy for the user to locate relevant image files. Regarding the technical aspect, this package can output complete XML data types which allow the developer to integrate easily with other apps.
FamFamFam Icons
There are some sets of icons that are shipped with Umbraco which are good. However, if you are looking for excellent images to improve the user interface of the Umbraco back office, you should consider using the FamFamFam icon sets. This package provides the developer with an extensive collection of icon sets to use with the node structure. The best part is that the imagery applies to various contexts which enhances the professional look of a project.
Examine File Indexer
Making the media content of Umbraco indexable by the search engines is an excellent choice when the extra traffic from image search appeals to you. This extension provides the utility that easily links up files in the Azure blob storage. This package works with all types of media files to make them indexable by search engines. As a result, the application makes the work of the developer easier and provides an enhanced SEO for the website.
Page Comments Plugin
In the present time when online privacy is of paramount concern for most users, the page comment plugin can help protect the privacy of the user that visits a Umbraco website and leaves comments on the pages. Because Umbraco uses third-party packages for comment purposes, the security of the personal data users that post comments cannot be ascertained.
The page comment plugin works to secure the personal data of commenters and also allows the Umbraco admin to moderate and manage comments efficiently. Added features include comment email notifications, bulk moderation features, the option to approve comments automatically, and integration with the Google reCAPTCHA 2.0 to protect the comment section from spambots.
Diplo Trace Log Viewer
The log is the first place to begin troubleshooting an application platform, and the same goes for the Umbraco CMS. However, the procedure for gaining access to the log files on Embraco is complicated. It entails accessing the hosting server, reading the log files in an editor, and searching for the keyword “Error”. However, with the Diplo Trace Log Viewer, gaining access to the log files from a Umbraco CMS becomes easier. The package adds a “Trace Logs” menu to the developer tree where you can find the server logs and advanced filters that make it easy to locate the server errors.
USPLIT
Performing split tests on landing pages can make the difference between wasting money on driving traffic and deriving excellent ROI from your landing pages. Testing landing pages give access to salient information about the user preferences which allows the webmaster to tweak the design and interface of the landing page for conversion and other objectives.
The uSplit plugin is a versatile utility that has excellent features required to perform split tests of landing pages without hassles. Moreover, the plugin integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics to sync test data to Analytics. Perhaps the best part is that this package is available for free on the Umbraco CMS while other developers charge a premium subscription for apps with parallel features on other platforms.
Summary
The packages described above are just a part of excellent plugins available to users on Umbraco - see Umbraco CMS must-have packages - free and paid. The packages can add features to your website that enhances performance and extends what you can do on Umbraco. Since many Umbraco packages are released from time to time, watch out for other powerful packages that can enhance the awesomeness of your Umbraco website.