Introduction
WordPress users can choose from hundreds of thousands of plugins. There are actually so many of them that it can be difficult to determine which are overhyped and which ones truly do make a difference. Many provide beneficial options for specific fields, but only a few are essential WordPress plugins for every website. There are several plugins you should install, regardless of the type of website you run and the category it belongs to.
10 Must Have WordPress Plugins
1. UpdraftPlus
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13,000 websites are thought to be hacked daily. You must have WordPress plugins targeted frequently when you take into account that it powers 43.1% of websites on the internet. In addition, occasionally, basic mistakes can cause parts of your website built on WordPress to stop working.
For instance, it’s evident that the possibility of confronting compatibility issues is frequent if the majority of users have 10 or fewer plugins on their websites, and half of them have updates every month. Whether you’re attempting to move your site, have been attacked, or are experiencing compatibility problems, a single current backup may spare you a great deal of effort.
This is where the next important WordPress plugin for you to have is useful. Although there are several WordPress backup plugins accessible online, UpdraftPlus is the most powerful and easy-to-use of them. It is compatible with several providers of cloud storage to protect your backups. Additionally, you can set up an ongoing schedule to automate your backups.
The best-rated and most commonly employed scheduled backup and migrating plugin in the world is called UpdraftPlus. With only three clicks, restore from a backup stored in your chosen location. Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace Cloud, Amazon S3 (or compatible), FTP, DreamObjects, Openstack Swift, or email can all be used for backup. UpdraftPlus comes with both a free and a paid edition.
2. MonsterInsights
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When you’re looking to expand your business, you must understand your audience. To increase engagement and sales, you can modify your advertising approach based on the way consumers interact on your website. Using MonsterInsights, you can view useful visitor data directly from within your WordPress dashboard.
You need to have the MonsterInsights plugin in order to achieve that. It connects Google Analytics with your website built with WordPress, so you can obtain all the relevant user data analysis. The number of users that must have WordPress plugins indicates how crucial it is for understanding when your site’s visitors interact with your material.
Setting up MonsterInsights is simple. It takes just a few easy steps to link your WordPress website and Google Analytics account. Once all is finished, you may view the statistics directly from the dashboard of your WordPress site. It costs free to use the plugin. The following are the plans that are available when you wish to unlock extra features:
- Plus: $99.50 annually
- Pro: $199.50 annually.
- Agency: $399.50 annually.
3. Image Optimization by Optimole
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Over half of the size of an average page is made up of images. This implies that upgrading your photos can significantly impact the speed at which pages load on your website. Why does that matter? If it takes your website in excess of three seconds to load, up to 38% of visitors will leave.
If your website performs poorly, 79% of consumers on the internet may not visit it again. As if that were not concerning enough. Although there are additional variables that affect a website’s performance, one of the most significant factors is WordPress image optimization for quicker page loads. Every image you provide to WordPress is optimized by Optimole to use less space. It also speeds up the website by using a cloud-based approach. Opti Mole changes image sizes based on the screen size it detects instantly to give users a responsive and quick-loading experience. For a monthly limit of 5,000 visits, this plugin is free. Users can then choose to switch to the regular version, which is priced at $22.50 per month and paid annually.
4. Yoast SEO
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Yoast SEO is one of the essential must have WordPress plugins because it’s among the most widely used SEO tools offered by WordPress. It can not only assist you with SEO, but it additionally assesses the readability of your material. Because 79% of users just scan posts and pages, you have a better chance of keeping their attention if your material is simple to read.
There are several strategies to increase site traffic when it comes to SEO. None, though, have the same potential as the others. Google alone processes nine billion searches per day.
Saying that organic traffic may make or break an online presence and that, for the most part, you can’t buy your way to the top of the heap isn’t hyperbole. To highlight that point, consider this: of search engine traffic, only 1.7% of bought leads result in conversions. For this reason, optimizing your keyword search is essential for any website. Also it is one of the best SEO Plugins For WordPress
Yoast SEO’s base edition is totally free, but the complete Yoast review reveals that there is an additional variant with even more abilities.
5. Revive Old Post
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That implies that when you stop being active on social media, you’re missing out on a ton of prospective traffic. To put it into perspective, every day, some two billion individuals and 300 million users, respectively, check out Facebook and Twitter. You should completely give the plugin we’re about to talk about a go if posting on those platforms can make it more likely for you to connect with even a small percentage of those users.
Revive Old Post is another one of this list’s essential must have WordPress plugins. It is intended to assist in increasing website traffic through social media. The plugin does this by automatically sharing old as well as fresh articles from your website on Facebook and Twitter. There are copies that are premium, as well as those that are free.
6. WP Rocket
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A strong caching plugin that may help you reduce loading times is called WP Rocket. To reduce the quantity of work your servers must perform, they accomplish this by generating cached copies of every dynamically created page on your website.
As we’ve already discussed, caching methods can sometimes be even more successful than image optimization to decrease the time it takes for a website to load. For instance, the W3 Total Cache plugin can, on average, reduce your website’s loading time by in excess of 43%.
WP Rocket performs even better; in our tests with the WordPress caching plugin, it reduced the time taken to load a page by an astounding 63%. Even though there are possible conversions at stake, the outcomes make it well worth the cost. The annual license for WP Rocket, a premium product, costs $59 for just one website.
7. Elementor
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Elementor is one of the biggest contributions to our list of essential must have WordPress plugins, having over 5,000,000 active installs. With the help of our visual page builder, anyone can create distinctive page designs that aren’t totally dependent on their existing theme.
This implies that integrating all those awesome effects—like background overlays, hover implications, movies, and more—don’t require you to be an expert in web development; the only thing you need to do is drag and drop. It works flawlessly with other plugins for WordPress on the following list, as well as the Gutenberg editor.
Anyone wanting to design a stunning landing page for their company can benefit from utilizing Elementor (see review). It’s also a great option for people who want to change some areas of their internet presence but lack the funds to hire a developer to accomplish it.
8. Otter
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Otter is a small must have WordPress plugins that offers Gutenberg several helpful extra features. It’s a library with additional blocks and Gutenberg best WordPress themes. Although Gutenberg is an excellent alternative to the traditional WordPress editor, premium-class capabilities won’t be available for a while. On the other hand, Otter can be added for more Gutenberg blocks, and you may utilize it to construct simple-to-use pages. Otter’s built-in responsive options allow you create designs that have been optimized for mobile devices. To offer an identical user interface on a tablet, desktop, and mobile device, every section can be adjusted. A free plugin for WordPress is called Otter.
9. Redirection
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Redirection is an essential must have WordPress plugins, so we can’t reasonably ignore it in our discussion. It is a WordPress redirect manager. Redirection records all clicking through data and allows users to configure unique 301 redirects on your web page. It may be utilized as well to monitor links that are broken on your web page.
Improper user experiences are despised by Google and other search engines, as everyone is aware. A page that is broken and has a 404 error adds to the same. However, it is difficult to manually review each and every article and page on the site, especially when you have several hundred of them. After installing the Redirection plugin, you will see a list of pages that contain 404 errors. All you have to do is provide the URL that you want the visitor to be directed to. Redirection is provided at no extra charge.
10. WPForms
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WPForms is a fantastic must have WordPress plugins that allows users to create stunning forms, including contact forms. This plugin offers the ideal balance of useful functions and usability. It reacts well to mobile devices and is quite user-friendly.
One of the primary explanations why this plugin is already used by over 5 million webpages is its capacity to create visually appealing contact forms without the need to work with JavaScript or other code. You may customize a modern contact form with WPForms, which enhances involvement and yields greater changes, more answers to surveys, and much more.
For websites who wish to utilize it on the contact page, WPForms Lite is a free option that functions well. Additional functions and connectors will become available with WPForms Pro. For $49.50 a year, customers can get access to an extensive collection of form designs.
Conclusion
It’s always good to install some plugins, no matter what kind of website you run. According to the data available, these ten are the best choices for important plugins:
Considering that 79% of users skim posts and pages, Yoast SEO is a popular must have WordPress plugin that helps with both SEO and readability. Since only 1.7% of bought prospects turn into conversions, it is crucial for boosting site visitors. UpdraftPlus is a robust and user-friendly WordPress backup plugin that offers automation and backup protection. Optimole minimizes the time it takes for an internet site to load by optimizing images for quicker page loads. Revive Old Post automatically distributes both recent and old articles on social media to help grow website traffic. A caching plugin called WP Rocket creates cached versions of dynamically generated pages in order to speed up loading times.
With the use of a visual page creator called Elementor, users may design original pages without having to know anything regarding web development. With the help of the well-known WordPress plugin WPForms, users can design attractive contact forms without knowing any coding, including JavaScript. A little WordPress plugin called Otter gives Gutenberg additional capabilities like more blocks and Premium WordPress themes.