Choosing the right plugins from WordPress’s collection of over 60,000 plugins can be overwhelming. With multiple choices in each category, picking essential plugins becomes even challenging. Each plugin appears promising, but determining its suitability requires testing, which can be laborious.
To address this issue and reduce confusion, we’ve curated a list of essential plugins. The list includes plugins for SEO, optimization, backup and migration, security, anti-spam, mail, forms, redirection, maintenance, page building, Google Analytics, and so on that every WordPress site should have.
Must-Have WordPress Plugins
In this article, we have listed must-have WordPress plugins essential for enhancing your WordPress website.
Table of Contents
1. SEO – RankMath
SEO is essential to improve visibility and rank higher on search engines. Rank Math SEO is one of the best and must-have WordPress plugins for improve SEO. Rank Math SEO is the only plugin that uses Artificial Intelligence to optimize the content. Rank math helps in writing better content and provides suggestions using Smart links.
Rank math consists of two blocks, AI Assistant and Table of Contents by Rank Math. Rank Math provides more features than other SEO plugins. It has a faster loading time, offers free keyword suggestions, and supports a hassle-free migration process from other SEO plugins.
Rank Math has a simple interface and doesn’t display any ads. Moreover, Rank Math is the go-to choice for beginners, bloggers, businesses, and anyone aiming to enhance their website’s search engine performance.
Features
- Google Schema Markup integration for Rich Snippets
- Unlimited keyword optimization
- AI assistance for SEO-friendly content
- Google Search Console integration
- Detailed SEO analysis tools
- Smart redirection manager
- Local business SEO support
- Role management for user access control
- Multisite compatibility
- Faster loading times
- Compatibility with popular page builders
- Easy migration from other SEO plugins
- Version control for updates
2. Optimization – WP Optimize
WP-Optimize is one of the best and must-have WordPress plugins for optimizing the website’s speed and performance. Beyond caching, it simplifies image compression, file modification, database cleaning, and code minification. It helps to identify the redundant data in different tables, clean up the table, and remove unwanted data, including spam comments, ping-backs, trackbacks, etc., that automatically clears the memory space. WP-Optimize is a multipurpose plugin that ensures a faster and more efficient WordPress experience with its user-friendly interface and better optimization results.
Features
- Accelerates website speed by storing temporary HTML versions for quicker retrieval.
- Easily compresses images to reduce file sizes and improve loading times.
- Optimizes your WordPress database by removing unnecessary data and improving site performance.
- Minifies HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to enhance speed and efficiency.
3. Backup and Migration – UpdraftPlus
UpdraftPlus is one of the best and must-have WordPress plugins for the backup and migration of WordPress sites with the highest active installations. UpdraftPlus provides scheduled or automatic backups, and after the backup process, it stores them in any desired location or other options like Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, FTP, and more. By backing up, you can restore your site in case of data losses or website issues within a single click.
Additionally, the plugin facilitates migration to new hosts, servers, or domains, making it valuable for website owners looking to protect and manage their WordPress sites efficiently. For migration, you can easily download databases, plugins, themes, and other resources, from the source site and upload them to the desired site.
Features
- Create the backups of the entire site in easy steps.
- Beginner-friendly and intuitive interface.
- Choose to back up your data either automatically at scheduled times or manually.
- Provides single-click restoration option by using one-click migration extensions.
- Backup of WordPress Multisite is possible with the plugin.
- It provides an array of options for choosing the locations of backup.
- It smoothly migrates the sites to new hosts, servers, or domains with built-in migration tools.
- Update old strings during migrations using the plugin’s search-and-replace engine.
4. Security – Wordfence
Wordfence is a leading WordPress security plugin with a dedicated research team. It offers an endpoint firewall, malware scanner, and login security features. The Threat Defense Feed ensures real-time updates against emerging threats. With two-factor authentication and CAPTCHA, it further enhances login processes, and Wordfence Central allows centralized security management for multiple sites. The Live Traffic feature monitors real-time visits and hack attempts.
Features
- Identifies and blocks malicious traffic, offering deep integration with WordPress.
- It Checks core files, themes, and plugins for malware, bad URLs, backdoors, SEO spam, and code injections.
- It Implements two-factor authentication, CAPTCHA on login pages, & blocks login attempts for compromised passwords.
- Efficiently manages security for multiple sites in one place, providing a centralized view and configurable alerts.
- It Provides a threat defense feed for real-time updates on firewall rules, malware signatures, and malicious IP addresses.
- The Live Traffic feature monitors real-time visits and hack attempts, allowing IP-based blocking and advanced rule creation.
- Monitors visits and hack attempts in real-time, providing insights into the origin, IP addresses, and activity on site.
5. Analytics – MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights is one of the most installed and popular Google Analytics plugins for WordPress. The reason behind its popularity is none other than the quick setup and beginner-friendly interface. It provides an easier way to connect the WordPress Site with Google Analytics, shows the crucial analytics in your WordPress dashboard, and helps to make decisions to boost sales and increase website visitors. It offers different features, including real-time stats, eCommerce tracking, affiliate link tracking, custom dimensions tracking, GDPR compliance tools, and more. The other best thing about using this plugin is it provides all the advanced features, and hiring a developer is not required.
MonsterInsights is among the must-have WordPress plugins, serving as the ultimate shortcut to Google Analytics for WordPress users. It provides comprehensive insights to optimize website performance and drive business growth.
Features
- Easily connects the WordPress site to Google Analytics
- Beginner-friendly and easy interface for setup
- Displays real-time stats and necessary information, including GA4 reports inside the WordPress dashboard
- Eliminates the need for hiring a developer to work with the code & use Google Tag Manager
- Tracks user interactions, file downloads, form conversions, video analytics, and so on
- Suitable for all business types
- It is applicable on WordPress Multisites
- Improves SEO with headline suggestions
- Ensures GDPR compliance for businesses
6. Page Builder – Elementor
Elementor is one of the most popular and must-have WordPress plugins for building a website with a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface. It provides complete control to build websites without need for writing a single line of code. It features an AI integration, advanced design capabilities, and over 40 free widgets.
Features
- Build websites without coding using an intuitive drag-and-drop editor.
- Elementor AI transforms website creation by instantly generating sections, text, code, and images.
- It provides complete control over design with Flexbox, CSS Grid Containers, and nested elements.
- Includes over 40 free widgets and supports advanced design features such as uploading SVG files, applying masks, adding box shadows, gradient backgrounds, and more.
- It offers pre-made templates for quickly creating websites and provides the flexibility to export and import custom templates.
- Displays content according to devices, provides custom breakpoints for adjustments in every breakpoint, and offers responsive design options.
- It enhances workflow by providing a finder for quick navigation, favorites for easy access, copy-paste between websites, and revision history.
- It optimizes performance with reduced DOM output and improves media loading, lazy loading, and more.
- Built with accessibility in mind, it offers features like HTML5 semantics and full keyboard navigation.
7. Form – WP Forms
WPForms is a user-friendly WordPress form builder with a drag-and-drop interface. It provides pre-built templates, is responsive, SEO-friendly, supports advanced fields, and offers conditional logic. The plugin integrates with payment gateways for payment collection, facilitates surveys and polls, and optimizes conversion with features like form landing pages. With additional capabilities like membership forms, calculator forms, and integrations with various services, WPForms is a must-have WordPress plugins for creating efficient and customized forms on WordPress.
Features
- Easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder suitable for beginners and experts.
- It has pre-built form templates for surveys, polls, and quick setup.
- Ensures forms are responsive and SEO-friendly, optimizing performance on all devices.
- Supports a variety of form fields and integrates with payment gateways.
- The smart conditional logic enables dynamic forms based on user responses.
- Includes tools for creating surveys, polls, user registration forms, and accepting payments.
- The plugin allows custom calculations of quotes, estimates, and order forms.
- Offers additional features like distraction-free pages and analytics to enhance conversion rates.
8. Redirection – Redirection
Redirection is a popular and must-have WordPress plugins for managing redirects. It simplifies the management of 301 redirects, tracks 404 errors, and enhances overall site performance. It reduces errors and helps in higher ranking on the search engines. It automatically creates the redirects when the permalinks are changed. Also, it applies conditional filters to redirect based on login status, user capabilities, browser, referrer, cookies, and more.
Redirection is a trusted plugin for maintaining SEO and tidying up loose ends on websites.
Features
- Easily create and manage 301 redirects, suitable for sites with just a few or thousands of redirects.
- Redirect based on login status, user capabilities, browser, referrer, cookies, and more.
- View and export logs for all redirects, including visitor details, browser information, and referrer data.
- Redirect based on IP address and display geographic information about visitors.
- Add headers to redirects or the entire site for impact reduction and improved security.
- Keeps track of 404 errors, groups them for focus, and performs bulk redirection.
- Match, ignore, or pass through query parameters to the target URL.
- Manage redirects within WordPress, configure automatic handling by Apache, or export to Nginx rewrite rules.
- Customize permissions for different users, making it suitable for client sites with varied needs.
9. Spam – Akismet
Akismet stands out as a leading anti-spam plugin for WordPress, specifically designed to combat spam in comments and contact forms. After the installation and activation, it seamlessly operates in the background, safeguarding your blog or site. It automatically analyzes user-submitted content, such as comments and form submissions, and distinguishes between legitimate content and potential spam. The discord feature deletes the worst spam message immediately, and others identified as spam are promptly moved to a designated spam folder for your review and can be modified or removed as needed.
Akismet is a must-have WordPress plugins that effectively enhances site security and preserves the integrity of user interactions, offering ease of use and reliable spam management.
Features
- Check out all the comments and filter out the spam comments
- Provides clear comment history
- Displays the URLs in the comment to identify misleading links
- Remove or block spam easily in no time
- Well-trusted and easy-to-use
10. Mail – WP Mail SMTP
WP Mail SMTP is among the top WordPress email plugins, having an impressive user base with over 3 million active installations. If you’re encountering issues like WordPress emails not being sent or getting flagged as spam, the WP Mail SMTP plugin provides a solution. It emphasizes email delivery by setting up the default wp_mail() function with precise SMTP host credentials or an SMTP mail provider. The plugin includes its integrated SMTP mail provider, enabling emails to be sent via the provider’s API and ensuring successful delivery even if the web host is blocking SMTP.
Features
- It includes many different SMTP mailers like Sendlayer, SendGrid SMTP, Gmail SMTP, etc.
- When paired with other email subscription plugins, it serves as a newsletter plugin.
- Resolves the email delivery issues by replacing WP mail with SMTP mail provider.
- It supports various WordPress Multisite networks.
- It comes with a guided process to make it easy to configure.
- It offers dedicated API integrations.
11. Maintenance – Maintenance
Maintenance is a free and must-have WordPress plugins designed to facilitate website closure for maintenance purposes. This plugin is simple and comes with all the features. Using this plugin, you can create an alert or message page to notify the website visitors about the ongoing maintenance. Also, you can display a customized message using the Google Analytics tracking code or enable HTTP 503 for the search engines. This plugin is best for all, including nontechnical site owners, due to its simplicity and easy interface.
Features
- Simple & easy to use.
- Customization options are available for text, headlines, and titles.
- The plugin provides a full-screen background.
- Users can easily customize logos, fonts, icons, and backgrounds.
- It integrates with popular caching plugins.
- The plugin uses built-in Google Analytics functionality for tracking website activity.
Conclusion
We hope this article has helped you find the right and must-have WordPress plugins to build and improve your website.
While it’s simple to enhance your website’s features by adding plugins from the WordPress repository, overloading your site with too many can lead to slower loading time, reduced performance, and heightened security risks. You should understand the impact of plugins before adding them to your site to avoid conflicts and compatibility issues.
If you look forward to enhancing and upgrading your site’s security, learn how to make your website secure with our article Tips To Improve WordPress Security.
If you find our article helpful and have been using any of the plugins from the list, please share your experiences in the comment section below.
Thank you for reading till the end.