15 Essential WordPress Plugins for your Website

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WordPress owes its popularity to the high level of flexibility it offers to users, which again is a reality because of the wide range of WordPress plugins.

If WordPress powers your website then you too must be surely taking advantage of the numerous features offered by the plugins. Well, we certainly understand that it’s not easy to choose a set of plugins that would eventually transform your website into a Great one!

We’ve vetted hundreds of plugins and whittled down the list to 15 incredibly useful ones. These will not only improve the security and performance of your website but also make it search engine friendly.

We’ve segregated the list of plugins under different categories such as site speed, engagement, SEO, and security so that it becomes easier for you to make your choice. Our choices are based on different metrics such as overall reviews, number of active installations, user ratings, and support.

Let’s begin with our list of awesome plugins:

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WordPress Backup Plugins

Using a dedicated backup plugin is essential to keep your site up and running and here are three essential ones to choose from:

DreamObjects

This plugin helps in creating automatic backups for your entire site on the DreamObjects Cloud server. DreamObjects offers an affordable and efficient storage solution for file storage as you can easily set backup frequency and restrict the number of files to be stored on the cloud.

UpdraftPlus

This is a free backup plugin and the great news is that it’s compatible with DreamObjects. UpdraftPlus is extremely popular because it’s easier to use and offers a one-click backup solution that comes with numerous extensions to enhance the plugin’s functionality.

Jetpack’s VaultPress Feature

VaultPress, which is now offered along with the Jetpack suite offers daily backs that can be monitored and maintained using a dedicated dashboard. If you too are mindful about minimizing bandwidth then you can carry out backups using SSH and FTP.

Must Read:

WordPress Security Plugins

Security of your site must be at the top of the priority list even though it can be quite overwhelming. Thus, you’ll need reliable solutions to handle security in a convenient manner, which is why security plugins play an important role.

Akismet

Don’t stress about eliminating spam and securing your website as the Akismet plugin filters malicious links as well as irrelevant content from your website after checking the same with a global database. This plugin is available free for bloggers; however, if you’re operating a business then you must have a subscription.

Jetpack’s Security Features

Jetpack plugin also includes some vital security features, which depend on the plan you buy. Backups and spam filtering are both included as premium features; however, you will also get access to features such as downtime monitoring and brute force protection.

WordPress Caching and Speed Plugins

Traffic numbers decline steadily when you experience slow site speeds, as users don’t have the patience to wait too long for a page to load. Site caching is a smart technique to improve loading time of webpage. Here are two plugins that can seriously improve caching and speed of your website:

Must Plugin:

WP Super Cache

Developed by Automatic solutions, WP Super Cache is free and improves caching of website pages in the form of static HTML. Setup is super-easy and you can choose from three different modes to enhance the customization as per your need.

Varnish HTTP Purge

Every time you make changes, this WordPress plugin speeds up your website by cleaning the cached data on a post or page. This facilitates quick loading of changes and the best thing is that you can administer it by using WP-CLI. You also have the option of setting when and how to trigger a purge.

WordPress SEO Plugins

Here’s a list of WordPress SEO plugins to help you in your SEO efforts:

Yoast SEO

This plugin has helped millions of WordPress users optimize their sites quickly and conveniently. It is the most sought after WordPress plugin in the world owing to the incredible features it delivers. You can find out whether your page or post is SEO-friendly or not by using a very simple light system. Green light signifies the post or page is well-optimized whereas a yellow or red means it requires more tweaking. You can even check for readability, irrespective of whether the content includes keywords or not.

Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights

This plugin doesn’t quite fall in the category of traditional SEO-plugins but offers features that can further your SEO efforts. You’ll be able to get an overview of Google Analytics within WordPress and find out more about the visitors to your site.

Jetpack’s SEO Tools

If you buy the Professional plan then you can access a range of tools to optimize the posts and pages. You’ll be able to customize titles, posts, taglines and archives that appear on search engines. Writing custom meta descriptions is easier while you can even preview how the content would appear on social media.

WordPress Contact Form Plugins

Converting leads is easier when you have a good quality and interactive form on your website. Thus, using a WP form plugin is a great idea to achieve better conversions:

Contact Form by WPForms

Contact Form by WPForms is an advanced and robust tool for creating easy to use forms. The drag and drop interface facilitates quick form creation for your website and includes a truckload of features to create a variety of forms. You can even use the templates to create forms at lightning speed.

Contact Form 7

This WordPress plugin helps you customize as well as manage multiple forms on your website via a WP HTML editor. Contact Form 7 is a free plugin that’s not only powerful but presents users some really cost-effective solutions.

Ninja Forms

It’s a highly intuitive and powerful plugin with a drag and drop editor to create forms quickly. Developer centric features like filters, hooks, custom fields etc facilitate the creation of complex forms with great ease.

Best Plugins:

WordPress Social Media Plugins

Jetpack’s Social-Media Modules

Improving social media reach of your business or website can be extremely tedious without the help of powerful plugins. Sharing your content across different social media platforms is easier with Jetpack Social media module. You also get access to several tools and widgets to connect as well as engage with your visitors.

Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons

If you’re looking to share your content without much fuss then this is the perfect plugin. A collection of over 200 social media share buttons makes it a wise choice.