It seems that threads, discussion, battles, and wars of Joomla and WordPress supremacies will never run short. Millions of arguments that show how flexible is Joomla and how user friendly is WordPress, dozens of wrangles on who’s going to be the best among the content management systems. Actually, in this article we won’t give up on this tradition, but meanwhile, take up the glow and look through Joomla and WordPress major instruments that make your website management more transparent and straightforward- they are plugins (for WordPress) and extensions (for Joomla).

Of course, both Joomla and WordPress’ third-party add-ons, have their own structure and methods of building, but nevertheless, they aim to make the website functionality more convenient and easier for every site owner, without taking into consideration your programming knowledge. So, coming close to this long-draw opening remarks, let’s make a diligent overview of some plugins and extensions, founding on the major aspects of the site optimization. This sketch will be based on the most popular and outstanding plugins and extensions.

WordPress Must-Have Plugins

1. WordPress SEO by Yoast

This is the most complete WordPress plugin for your site optimization that goes absolutely for free. It covers everything from snippet preview to the accomplished site analysis. The major features of WordPress SEO are the following:

• Post Titles and Meta Descriptions
  So, while adding an article you will be able to see the snippet preview of your post and get the whole picture of how it will be look like. Moreover, you may easily make some corrections at once, to make your website well-optimized for Google bots.

• Robots Meta Configuration
  In case you have some pages that shouldn’t be indexed, you know it appears when there’s some out-of-date content, or some pages that are under construction. In this way, WordPress SEO provides you with the robots meta configuration block that allows to you choose whether you page or single post should be ‘noindex’/‘index’, ‘nofollow’/’follow’. Such options work for tags, categories, and custom taxonomies.

• Pure XML Sitemap Work
  WordPress SEO XML sitemap differs from an average one because of its cooperation with other part of the content. When you ‘noindex’ some pages or posts, frequently, other sitemap generators include such types of content and allows Google bots to index them. While WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast takes into consideration all the peculiarities of robots meta configuration settings and allows to keep taxonomies out of sitemap.

2. NextGen Gallery

NextGen Gallery is mostly used WordPress gallery plugin. It counts the following features and benefits:

• Precise Galleries Management
  NextGen plugin comprises two methods of managing your galleries. The first  – you may use the dedicated management area, and the second is using the attach option that is directly at the post dashboard. It’s available centralised gallery organization and thumbnail management.

• Accomplished Performance
  It’s essential to notice that NextGen plugin provides you with the responsive design and allows to choose various slideshow size, transition styles, thumbnails, etc.

3. bbPress – Forum Plugin

The intuitive interface, single forum and website dashboard, breeze setup and swift management processes, that is all about bbPress.

• WP + bbPress = Friends Forever
  What is most important about bbPress is the thing, with every WordPress new release, bbPress is still compatible with the newest versions. So, you shouldn’t worry whether your forum will be supported together with the WP upgrade.

Joomla Extensions Stellify

1. sh404SEF – Powerful SEO

This is a fully-featured Joomla extension that improves your search engine optimization. Taking no notice that this is a commercial instrument, it seems that this is a #1 solution to make your Joomla be at the top. The benefits of sh404SEF are almost measureless, but a few we list below:

• Enhanced URL Structure
  sh404SEF allows to form readable URLs and gets rid of duplicate content by using 301 permanent URLs redirect. Currently the latter option is the only solution that prevent from duplicate pages creation.

• Built-in Google Analytics
  Joomla itself doesn’t provide you with any statistics, however, sh404SEF possesses a built-in Google Analytics integration. In this way, you may easily monitor your traffic via the Joomla dashboard. Plus, this plugin includes social media sharing.

• Meta Customization
  You may easily customize your posts titles and descriptions to make your content even more SEO beloved.

2. Phoca Image Gallery

As the counterpart of WordPress Nextgen Gallery, Phoca Image extension includes components, modules and plugins and allows its users to upload images and videos in various styles.

• Performance
  Phoca Image Gallery uses different techniques of displaying detail of an image – No Popup, Standard JavaScript, Shadowbox, etc.

• Image Optimization
  This Joomla extension allows you to make your media files readable for SERPs – you may add description and categories to your images.

3. Joomla Kunena – Forum Extension

Now, we couldn’t drop Joomla forum extension and one of the most outstanding is Kunena. This is a free discussion board that is rapidly updating and improving.

• Robust Categorizing
  That is true, Joomla Kunena possesses the diligent categorising system that allows you to create nested tags as well as several categories gathered into another. Also, you may easily combine your Joomla website with Kunena forum that will be perfectly suit each other.

Wanna Make a Switch?

Now, this is a compellation to website owners who want to make a switch from WordPress to Joomla or migrate their existing content in opposite direction from Joomla to WordPress. Apart from automated data conversion you may easily shift your current third-party add-ons with their counterparts at the new CMS platform. It means that you may migrate your website content from Joomla to WordPress and simultaneously, transfer your sh404SEF, Phoca Image Gallery, and Kunena data directly into WordPress SEO by Yoast, NextGen Gallery and bbPress forum, as well as in the opposite direction.