Choosing the best plugin for your WordPress site will help make your day-to-day life easier and deliver a better experience for your users as well.
Take a look at the top 20 WordPress plugins:
1. WordPress SEO by Yoast
WordPress SEO is not just an SEO plugin, it is the complete website optimization package. Apart from adding titls and descriptions to your articles, it also allows you to add open graph meta data, do page analysis, publish xml sitemap, and so much more. It is easy to install and setup and that’s why we use it on all our websites.
2. BackupBuddy
BackupBuddy is the easiest and most beginner friendly WordPress backup and migration plugin. It allows you to quickly setup automatic backup schedule for your website. You can store your backups on the cloud and sleep easily, knowing all your content is backed up.
3. W3 Total Cache
Your site’s speed plays an important role in search engine rankings. W3 Total Cache helps you optimize your WordPress site for speed and performance. It allows you to easily setup page and browser caching, compress pages for quicker downloads, and setup a content delivery network for your static files.
4. Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms is the most beginner and developer friendly contact form plugin for WordPress. It can be used to add almost any kind of online form to your WordPress website. It comes with powerful add ons which allow you to create online survey,user submitted posts, web directory, or almost anything where a user input is required.
5. OptinMonster
OptinMonster is the best lead generation plugin for WordPress. It allows you to create beautiful optin forms and popups for your WordPress website and convert your users into subscribers. It comes packed with features like page-level targetting, analytics, split testing, and exit-intent technology which allows you to display optin form when a user is about to leave your site.
6. Edit Flow
Edit Flow provides an efficient editorial workflow management system for WordPress. It allows you to see your editorial calendar, manage authors, assign posts, leave editorial comments, and much more. You can create your own custom post status and plan your content strategy with in your WordPress dashboard.
7. Soliloquy
Soliloquy is the best responsive WordPress slider on the market. Most slider plugins will slow down your website which would hurt your SEO. Soliloquy, on the other hand, is the fastest slider plugin which loads your sliders at blazing fast speeds. It comes packed with features and even has a free version that you can try on right away.
8. Sucuri
Any website on the internet can get hacked or attacked by malicious denial of service attacks. It is better to be prepared than sorry. Sucuri offers real time alerts, website security scanner, and even offers malware removal service.
9. Floating Social Bar
Most social media plugins for WordPress come with a lot of bloat. With countless social networks that no body wants, and unnecessary scripts that slow down your website. Floating Social Bar is the best social media plugin for WordPress, it allows you to add only a handful of social networks that really matter. It is highly optimized for speed so that your social buttons don’t slow down your website.
10. Disqus
The default WordPress commenting system works well for websites with fewer visitors. However, for larger sites with lots of user comments you are better off with Disqus commenting system. It is a third party commenting system, which means comments will not affect your server. It does not affect your site’s page speed and comes equipped with anti-spam filters.
11. AdSanity
AdSanity is a WordPress ad management plugin focused on ease-of-use. Adding new ads in Adsanity is very similar to adding a post. It comes with with widgets and shortcodes support to display ads, so you can display ads in sidebars, posts and pages. You can create either time-based ads (that run for a specific time) or infinite ads (that would keep running unless you remove them). It also has graphs and stats for ad views and clicks. If you’re looking to display advertisement in WordPress, then you should be using this plugin.
12. Envira Gallery
If you run a photography site or post a lot of images, then Envira Gallery is a must have plugin for you. Enivra Gallery is a responsive WordPress gallery plugin which allows you to create beautiful image galleries with lots of powerful effects, easy navigation, and responsive design. It loads brilliantly fast and looks pretty on all devices. There is also a free version called Envira Gallery Lite which you can try right away.
13. Login Lockdown
By default, a user can try to login into your site with as many incorrect attempts as they want. Most hack attempts usually rely on breaking into your site’s admin area by using password lists. Limit Login Attempts simply puts a limit on how many times a user can try to login. After a given number of login attempts it locks down the admin area for a limited time.
15. Compact Archives
By default WordPress creates a long bulleted list of your monthly archives. If you have been blogging for a while, adding monthly archives would make users scroll a lot. Compact Archives solves this problem by displaying your monthly archives in a compact block.
Take a look at the top 20 WordPress plugins:
1. WordPress SEO by Yoast
WordPress SEO is not just an SEO plugin, it is the complete website optimization package. Apart from adding titls and descriptions to your articles, it also allows you to add open graph meta data, do page analysis, publish xml sitemap, and so much more. It is easy to install and setup and that’s why we use it on all our websites.
2. BackupBuddy
BackupBuddy is the easiest and most beginner friendly WordPress backup and migration plugin. It allows you to quickly setup automatic backup schedule for your website. You can store your backups on the cloud and sleep easily, knowing all your content is backed up.
3. W3 Total Cache
Your site’s speed plays an important role in search engine rankings. W3 Total Cache helps you optimize your WordPress site for speed and performance. It allows you to easily setup page and browser caching, compress pages for quicker downloads, and setup a content delivery network for your static files.
4. Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms is the most beginner and developer friendly contact form plugin for WordPress. It can be used to add almost any kind of online form to your WordPress website. It comes with powerful add ons which allow you to create online survey,user submitted posts, web directory, or almost anything where a user input is required.
5. OptinMonster
OptinMonster is the best lead generation plugin for WordPress. It allows you to create beautiful optin forms and popups for your WordPress website and convert your users into subscribers. It comes packed with features like page-level targetting, analytics, split testing, and exit-intent technology which allows you to display optin form when a user is about to leave your site.
6. Edit Flow
Edit Flow provides an efficient editorial workflow management system for WordPress. It allows you to see your editorial calendar, manage authors, assign posts, leave editorial comments, and much more. You can create your own custom post status and plan your content strategy with in your WordPress dashboard.
7. Soliloquy
Soliloquy is the best responsive WordPress slider on the market. Most slider plugins will slow down your website which would hurt your SEO. Soliloquy, on the other hand, is the fastest slider plugin which loads your sliders at blazing fast speeds. It comes packed with features and even has a free version that you can try on right away.
8. Sucuri
Any website on the internet can get hacked or attacked by malicious denial of service attacks. It is better to be prepared than sorry. Sucuri offers real time alerts, website security scanner, and even offers malware removal service.
9. Floating Social Bar
Most social media plugins for WordPress come with a lot of bloat. With countless social networks that no body wants, and unnecessary scripts that slow down your website. Floating Social Bar is the best social media plugin for WordPress, it allows you to add only a handful of social networks that really matter. It is highly optimized for speed so that your social buttons don’t slow down your website.
10. Disqus
The default WordPress commenting system works well for websites with fewer visitors. However, for larger sites with lots of user comments you are better off with Disqus commenting system. It is a third party commenting system, which means comments will not affect your server. It does not affect your site’s page speed and comes equipped with anti-spam filters.
11. AdSanity
AdSanity is a WordPress ad management plugin focused on ease-of-use. Adding new ads in Adsanity is very similar to adding a post. It comes with with widgets and shortcodes support to display ads, so you can display ads in sidebars, posts and pages. You can create either time-based ads (that run for a specific time) or infinite ads (that would keep running unless you remove them). It also has graphs and stats for ad views and clicks. If you’re looking to display advertisement in WordPress, then you should be using this plugin.
12. Envira Gallery
If you run a photography site or post a lot of images, then Envira Gallery is a must have plugin for you. Enivra Gallery is a responsive WordPress gallery plugin which allows you to create beautiful image galleries with lots of powerful effects, easy navigation, and responsive design. It loads brilliantly fast and looks pretty on all devices. There is also a free version called Envira Gallery Lite which you can try right away.
13. Login Lockdown
By default, a user can try to login into your site with as many incorrect attempts as they want. Most hack attempts usually rely on breaking into your site’s admin area by using password lists. Limit Login Attempts simply puts a limit on how many times a user can try to login. After a given number of login attempts it locks down the admin area for a limited time.
14. WPtouch
WPtouch offers a mobile suite for WordPress that gives your website the powerful features and capabilities that responsive themes simply cannot match. If you want to create a mobile version of your website, then WPtouch is your answer. It has built-in support for eCommerce, mobile-advertising, custom content, and most importantly it allows you offer an app for your site without the App Store.
WPtouch offers a mobile suite for WordPress that gives your website the powerful features and capabilities that responsive themes simply cannot match. If you want to create a mobile version of your website, then WPtouch is your answer. It has built-in support for eCommerce, mobile-advertising, custom content, and most importantly it allows you offer an app for your site without the App Store.
15. Compact Archives
By default WordPress creates a long bulleted list of your monthly archives. If you have been blogging for a while, adding monthly archives would make users scroll a lot. Compact Archives solves this problem by displaying your monthly archives in a compact block.