Top 20 Essential WordPress Plugins You Must Have
WordPress is the world’s most used website software. According to the fundamentals, WordPress core can be extended with plugins and themes. The WordPress plugin market lists millions of plugins obviously you can’t have it all at once.
Software systems are limited by available resources, time, and money obviously. And, we’re here with a list of the top 20 extremely essential WordPress plugins. It will power your site with additional features from Content, SEO, to Traffic monitoring and Google Adsense, and so on.
So, What plugins are essential for your website then? Here is a listicle:
1. Yoast SEO
“Improve your WordPress SEO: Write better content and have a fully optimized WordPress site.”
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plays an important role in content & digital marketing. Creating content without focusing on promotion strategy is like taking a bull’s eye in the dark. Install this plugin in order to make your site more SEO friendly. You can further extend Yoast SEO functionality with add-ons. We’ll cover this in upcoming articles.
2. Contact Form 7
“Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.”
Building a website is an initial task in digital marketing. Promoting a site and keeping your customers engaged is a subsequent one. And, letting people contact site admins with ease is one of the most essential features.
This contact form plugin will help you design amazing contact forms for your WordPress site.
Contact Form 7 – WordPress plugin
3. Elementor Website Builder
“The Elementor Website Builder has it all: drag-and-drop page builder, pixel-perfect design.”
Amazing drag-and-drop page builder plugin for WordPress. You can design amazing, eye-catching pages with simple steps. Customizing the theme with Elementor is cool and fast and awesome. Give it a try. But, let’s me tell you these types of plugins mostly premium. There is also an alternative premium plugin called “Divi” We’ll talk about it later.
Elementor Website Builder – WordPress plugin
4. Classic Editor
“Enables the previous “classic” editor and the old-style Edit Post screen with TinyMCE, and Meta Boxes.” This plugin is for those who are not acquainted with recent post-editors in WordPress.
It was the default editor in WordPress. It is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. It is a visual editor that allows you to create posts and pages with a visual interface.
Classic Editor – WordPress plugin
5. Akismet Spam Protection
“The best anti-spam protection to block spam comments and spam in a contact form.”
Dealing with spam comments is a pain in the head thing for webmasters. Taking down spam and worthless discussions is not so simple task. The automated tool to deal with such kinds of mundane tasks is a blessing. And, this plugin is an example of this.
Spam is a type of unwanted or unsolicited message sent on the Internet, typically to a large number of users, for the purposes of advertising, phishing, spreading malware, etc. This plugin helps you curb spam in your WordPress blog.
Akismet Spam Protection – WordPress plugin
6. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the world’s most popular open-source eCommerce solution.
E-Commerce plugin for WordPress which is free and open-source software. If you’re a small shop owner or a medium size business with products this plugin will help you with product management to analytical reports.
Features of WooCommerce:
- Product management
- Inventory management
- Shipping
- Payment gateways
- Marketing
- Reports
WooCommerce – WordPress plugin
7. Contact Form by WPForms – Drag & Drop Form Builder for WordPress
“The best WordPress contact form plugin. Drag & Drop online form builder that helps you design more productive forms.”
Contact forms play an important role in content and digital marketing strategies. It will help you not only to keep in touch with customers but also in creating an email list. And, if you’re a serious webmaster you might already know the importance of Email marketing.
WPForms is a drag-and-drop form builder plugin for WordPress. It is a premium plugin but you can use it for free with limited features. It is a drag-and-drop but you can use it for free with limited features.
Contact Form by WPForms – Drag & Drop Form Builder for WordPress – WordPress plugin
8. Really Simple SSL
“The easiest way to improve security! Leverage your SSL certificate and protect your website visitors.”
SSL (Secure Server Layer) protocol keeps your site safe and sound. It securely transmits traffic between the client and the server.
What will Really Simple SSL do for your WordPress website?
Really Simple SSL is a WordPress plugin that will make sure your website is using HTTPS. It will redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS. It will also make sure all resources are loaded over HTTPS. It will also make sure all resources are loaded over HTTPS.
Really Simple SSL – WordPress plugin
9. Jetpack – WP Security, Backup, Speed, & Growth
“Improve your WP security with powerful one-click tools like backup and malware scan.”
What is this so-called Jetpack plugin anyway?
Jetpack is a free plugin that helps you improve your site’s security, performance, and traffic. It is a swiss army knife for WordPress sites.
It provides a lot of features like Site stats, Site security, Site performance, Site traffic, Site monetization, Site customization, Site engagement, Site growth, Site backup, Site sharing, and so on.
Jetpack – WP Security, Backup, Speed, & Growth – WordPress plugin
10. All-in-One WP Migration
“Move, transfer, copy, migrate, and backup a site with 1 click. Quick, easy, and reliable.”
Migrate or Clone your WordPress site from one location to another, or even to a completely different domain. One-stop location for all your migration needs. Migrating your site without downtime is one awesome thing you will love about this plugin. At the writing of this article, this plugin has more than 5 million active installations. It was originally released in 2013, a long way back now 9-year-old improved, and has a well-supported plugin. Give it a try on the appropriate occasion.
All-in-One WP Migration – WordPress plugin
11. Wordfence Security – Firewall & Malware Scan
“Secure your website with the most comprehensive WordPress security plugin. Firewall, malware scan, blocking, live.”
Firewall for your WordPress site. Protect your WordPress site with this cool security plugin that provides a lot of necessary features. A malware scanner will scan your site for any malicious code and secure it before any major damage. It is like Antivirus for WordPress with specialized functionality. At present plugin has more than 4 million installations.
Benefits:
- Compares your core files, themes, and plugins with what is in the WordPress.org repository, checking their integrity and reporting any changes to you.
- Checks your site for known security vulnerabilities and alerts you to any issues
- Malware scanner
- Firewall
- Two-factor authentication
- Login security
- Brute force protection
- Block logins for administrators using known compromised passwords.
Wordfence Security – Firewall & Malware Scan – WordPress plugin
12. Yoast Duplicate Post
“The go-to tool for cloning posts and pages, including the powerful Rewrite & Republish feature.”
This plugin is open-source software that allows users to clone posts of any type, or copy them to new drafts for further editing. At present this plugin has more than 4 million active installations.
Yoast Duplicate Post – WordPress plugin
13. WordPress Importer
“Import posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, tags, and more from a WordPress export file.”
WordPress official plugin to ease importing content in your WordPress blog.
You can import posts, pages, and other custom post types, comments, comment meta, custom fields, post meta, categories, tags, and terms from custom taxonomies, term meta & authors.
At present this plugin has more than 3 million active installations.
WordPress Importer – WordPress plugin
14. LiteSpeed Cache
“All-in-one unbeatable acceleration & PageSpeed improvement: caching, image/CSS/JS optimization.”
The cache is essential for website speed and performance. The LiteSpeed Cache plugin provides useful caching features that will make your site perform better with available resources.
LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress (LSCWP) is an all-in-one site acceleration plugin, featuring an exclusive server-level cache and a collection of optimization features. LSCWP supports WordPress Multisite and is compatible with the most popular plugins, including WooCommerce, bbPress, and Yoast SEO.
LiteSpeed Cache – WordPress plugin
15. UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin
“Backup and restoration made easy. Complete backups; manual or scheduled (backup to Dropbox, S3, Google)”
UpdraftPlus simplifies backups and restoration. Having a strategic backup for a website is one of the essential and critical things. Securing a site from any unplanned mishappening is the responsibility of a webmaster. The plugin help manage WordPress backups seamlessly.
UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin
16. MonsterInsights – Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress (Website Stats Made Easy)
“The best free Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. See how visitors find and use your website.”
Having Analytics with eye-sights always helps monitor website traffic and plan your move. MonsterInsights allows you to enable all advanced Google Analytics tracking features with just a few clicks. At present this site has more than 3 million active installations.
17. All in One SEO – Best WordPress SEO Plugin – Easily Improve SEO Rankings & Increase Traffic
“The original WordPress SEO plugin. Improve your WordPress SEO rankings and traffic”
“Easily improve your WordPress SEO: XML sitemaps, SEO for custom post types, SEO for BuddyPress, SEO for BBPress, SEO for eCommerce, and much more.”
All in One SEO is a WordPress plugin that helps you optimize your site for search engines.
You can choose from above mentioned Yoast SEO or this plugin both work great and has competitive features.
All in One SEO – Best WordPress SEO Plugin – Easily Improve SEO Rankings & Increase Traffic
18. WP Mail SMTP by WPForms – The Most Popular SMTP and Email Log Plugin
“Make email delivery easy for WordPress. Connect with SMTP, Gmail, Outlook, SendGrid, Mailgun, Zoho, and so on.”
Email deliverability is essential for any business connection. WP Mail SMTP is a free plugin that helps you to send emails from your WordPress site using an SMTP server. It is a free plugin that helps you to send emails from your WordPress site using an SMTP server.
This plugin will help you make email deliverability easy and reliable. It will help you send emails from your WordPress site using an SMTP server.
WP Mail SMTP by WPForms – The Most Popular SMTP and Email Log Plugin
19. Duplicate Page
“Duplicate Posts, Pages and Custom Posts easily using a single click.”
Duplicate Page is a simple plugin that allows you to duplicate any page or post in WordPress.
Why Duplicate Page?
You may need to duplicate your site pages in order to make a backup to make a draft out of it or to make an improved version.
Duplicate Page – WordPress plugin
20. Site Kit by Google – Analytics, Search Console, AdSense, Speed
“Site Kit is a one-stop solution for WordPress users to use everything Google has to offer.”
Site Kit by Google is a one-stop solution for WordPress users to get insights from Google tools. And, also keep a close watch on analytics, search console, AdSense, and speed.
Site Kit by Google – Analytics, Search Console, AdSense, Speed – WordPress plugin
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