Are you familiar with all the plugins you need for your WordPress blog?
If yes, that’s awesome!
However, if you are looking for the best must-have WordPress plugins for your website, you have come to the right place. In this article, we are going to introduce you to 8 must-have plugins. They come with many features to give you a better website experience. No matter if you are a blogger, an affiliate marketer, or a web developer, you cannot afford to ignore the plugins you need for your WordPress website. This is because each plugin has its own set of features. If you select the wrong plugins, you could negatively impact your online marketing strategy. It’s true that your website represents your brand and so with the right plugins, you can provide a better experience for your community, your company, or your brand.
A beginner or an expert in website building, WordPress is the right choice for you. WordPress is the only Content Management System (CMS) that allows you to customize your website the way you want. You would be surprised to know that WordPress powers over 35% of all websites, and over 10% of them are listed in the top 100.
If you want to optimize your WordPress website, you can use different plugins depending on your needs. The WordPress plugin repository has literally thousands of plugins for you to choose from. There is no doubt that finding the right plugins for your WordPress site has become increasingly complicated. Of course, you can find plugins that work well with your website, but what about those plugins that aren’t compatible?
However, do not worry about anything…
It is our intention in this post to explain why plugins are so important to the success of your website and to provide you with a list of plugins that you will need to use.
Let’s get right to it and discover the top plugins for WordPress we recommend for you.
Must-have plugins for WordPress – 2023 Edition
As we have discussed before, WordPress is the most popular platform for bloggers, which is why bloggers rely on it to create and publish their content. But without the right plugins, a WordPress blog can become clunky and less appealing to your audience.
WordPress has a large collection of plugins available. It’s important to pick the ones that work best with your website. There are many free and premium plugins that can improve usability. Following is a list of the top 8 WordPress plugins you may like to consider:
1. MonsterInsights
As a blogger, you must constantly monitor your blog to find out how it is performing so that you can take steps to improve it.
If you are in the online industry, you have certainly heard of the Google Analytics tool. This tool is specially created by Google to provide insightful website performance reports to website owners. Using this tool, you can easily access the top-performing pages or posts on your website. Apart from that, you can also analyze the audience report like traffic location, gender, the device they are using, and many more. On behalf of these reports, you can take essential actions to improve your web performance.
Google Analytics is an advanced tool, specially designed for analytics professionals. But if you are a beginner or do not have enough technical skills, it is possible that you find it difficult to understand the analytical reports.
But what if you find all the analytical reports in an easy way?
Fortunately, there is the MonsterInsights plugin option available which allows you to track all of your website’s performance reports right on your WordPress dashboard. The best thing about this plugin is that you don’t need a professional, you can easily analyze all reports without having any technical knowledge.
Key Feature of MonsterInsights Google Analytics Plugin
MonsterInsights offers a wide range of analytical features, so let’s take a look at some major ones.
Analytics Overview Report – You can access all your essential Google Analytics data in an easy way right from your WordPress dashboard.
Real-Time Report – By using this plugin on your website, you get real-time statistics on your website performance. Apart from that, you can also analyze real-time traffic data right from your WordPress panel.
Affiliate Link Tracking – If you have an affiliate website, you can track all of your affiliate link performance from your WordPress dashboard.
eCommerce Tracking – Whether you use WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, LifterLMS, or the MemberPress platform, this advanced feature allows you to track all of your eCommerce activity with one click.
All Advance Tracking – You can easily track other advanced tracking reports like Google AMP, Forms, Author, Category, Tags, Post Type, Media Tracking, and many more.
3rd Party Integration – To provide you with better Insights analytical reports, there is an option to integrate Monstersights with a wide range of third-party tools, such as WPForms Forms, Gravity Forms, ThirstyAffiliates, Restrict Content Pro, GiveWP, and many more.
Must Read: MonsterInsights Review 2023: Is It The #1 Google Analytics Plugin?
MonsterInsights Plan & Pricing:
MonsterInsights offers free and premium plans. The free plan comes with basic features, but if you need more advanced tracking reports, you can opt for the premium plan.
- Plus – $99.50 per year for one site
- Pro – $199.50 per year for 5 sites
- Agency – $399.50 per year for 25 sites
2. OptinMonster
There’s no denying that generating leads is integral to business growth. That’s why you should seek a tool that will help you generate as many leads as possible in the shortest time possible. OptinMonster is the perfect solution for this, allowing you to capture leads for your business.
OptinMonster is one of the most popular all-in-one email capture and lead generation solutions for WordPress websites. This is a great plugin to implement on your site if you are looking for a simple, easy, and efficient way to grow your email list.
It is a powerful plugin that lets you create high-converting signup forms with just a few clicks. With this plugin, you can create different types of responsive subscription forms like light popup, floating bars, sliders, sidebars, and popups.
The plugin also offers seamless integration with all major email marketing services such as MailChimp, Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Constant Contact, Drip, SendinBlue, and many more, which means you only need to create an email campaign to start your email marketing journey.
Key Feature of OptinMonster Plugin
This plugin comes with a lot of features that help you design and build your signup forms including drag and drop builder, pre-made templates library, countdown timer, content locker, A/B testing, social sharing, live tracking, and many more.
OptinMonster has a variety of features that can help increase your conversions. These features include:
- Better Conversion Rate Optimization
- Smart Tracking
- A/B Testing
- Drag and Drop Editor
- 100% Mobile-Friendly
- Multiple Trigger Options
- Customizable Optin Styles
- Integrated Social Sharing
OptinMonster Plan & Pricing:
OptinMonster also offers a free plan, which includes basic features and a perfect solution for beginners. But if you want more advanced features like A/B testing, page-level targeting, full reporting, and location targeting, you can go for premium plans.
- Basic – $9 per month for one site
- Plus – $19 per month for 2 site
- Pro – $29 per month for 3 sites
- Growth –$49 per month for 5 sites
3. WPForms
WPForms is a powerful WordPress form builder plugin that allows you to create any type of form for your website, including contact forms, poll forms, survey forms, payment forms, event registration forms, and many more.
It is a drag-and-drop form builder, which makes it easy for you to design effective and functional forms that collect the information you need from their website visitors. The best part is here that this can be done without writing any code or having any technical knowledge.
Apart from that, this plugin is very simple and intuitive to use but it offers all the advanced features like conditional logic, date and time input, spam protection, file uploads, multi-page forms, and many more.
If you’re an eCommerce website owner, this plugin is your dream come true. It integrates with all the leading payment and marketing platforms to make it easy for you to create powerful forms.
To ensure that your business idea grows smoothly, WPForms allows you to effortlessly connect your forms to all major email marketing services including MailChimp, Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Constant Contact, and more. So you can focus only on your email marketing to generate leads for your business.
Key Feature of WPForms Plugin
- Drag & Drop Form Builder to Control Over Your Form Design
- Responsive Mobile Friendly Interface
- 100+ Pre-built Form Templates
- Split Long Forms Into Multiple Pages
- Seamless Integration With 3rt Party Addons
- Powerful Spam Protection Included
Must Read: How to Integrate WPForms With Zapier: The Ultimate Guide
WPForms Plan & Pricing:
WPForms is the leading form builder tool that lets you create beautiful and responsive online forms. It comes with free and premium plans. The free plan only offers a few basic features, so if you are a beginner, you can get started with the free plan. But if you need more advanced features, you can start with any premium plan.
- Basic – $39.50/year for one site
- Plus – $99.50/year for 3 sites
- Pro – $199.50/year for 5 sites
- Elite –$299.50/year for unlimited sites
4. iThemes Security
iThemes Security is one of the best WordPress security plugins that provides comprehensive security to your site. It is a complete security suite with many features that can help protect your site from hackers.
The plugin has a firewall that blocks malicious traffic, a brute force login protection that prevents hackers from guessing passwords, and a login alert system to keep you safe. There is also a malware scanner that checks your website for any malicious code, and a one-click installation process for the plugin.
So if you are conscious about your website security and performance, iThemes Security Plugin is a great way to keep your site safe from hackers and malware, while also maintaining the site’s uptime and speed.
Key Feature of iThemes Security Plugin
iThemes Security plugin has many features that will help you secure and protect your WordPress website from hackers and malware. Let’s take a look at some of them.
- Advanced iThemes Security Dashboard
- WordPress Brute Force Protection
- Google reCAPTCHA Integration
- Advanced Two-factor Authentication
- Daily Automatic Malware Scanning
- 404 Error Detection to Stop Hackers Scanning
- Schedule and Automate Database Backup
iThemes Security Plan & Pricing:
iThemes Security is a WordPress plugin that improves the security of your WordPress website. It offers free and premium plans for different needs. You can start with the free version, which includes limited security features. But if you need more advanced and powerful security features for your website, then you need to pay for Pro plans.
The Pro version comes in three plans:
- Gold – $80/year for one site
- Small Business – $127/year for 10 sites
- Blogger – $199/year for unlimited sites
5. WP Rocket
One of the biggest challenges of running a WordPress blog is that you need to pay close attention to the performance of your blog. If your blog loads slowly, Google will start penalizing the ranking of your pages. There are many ways to increase performance, but the WP Rocket plugin can be by far the easiest way to immediately improve your page speed.
WP Rocket is a caching plugin for WordPress that can dramatically improve site performance. It speeds up your website and reduces the load on your server, giving you a faster loading experience.
You can simply configure this plugin to cache the pages and posts on your site so that they load faster for your readers when they visit your website.
WP Rocket uses static caching, database caching, external caching, browser caching, CDN, and various other techniques to provide faster loading speed for your website.
Key Feature of WP Rocket Cache Plugin
There is no doubt that WP Rocket is the best WordPress cache plugin. It helps to speed up your site’s loading time and is very effective when it comes to sites with a lot of traffic.
This plugin has many features that make it an outstanding choice for any website, but the most notable one is how easy it is to set up. Even if you haven’t used a cache plugin before, you can get WP Rocket up and running in less than five minutes. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular features:
- Quick and Simple Configuration
- Specific Page & Post-Level Caching
- GZip Compression for Quick Loading
- Improved User-end Browser Caching
- CSS and JS Files Optimization
- One-Click Lazy-loading for Better Performance
Must Read: WP Rocket Review: A Perfect Plugin To Speed Up Your Website
WP Rocket Plan & Pricing:
WP Rocket is a premium cache plugin that includes 3 plan options.
- Single – $49/year for one site
- Plus – $99/year for 3 sites
- Infinite- $249/year for unlimited sites
6. Rank Math SEO
Every online marketer is looking for a way to optimize their sites and blogs to achieve better ranks in search engines. If you are looking for ways to make your site SEO friendly, the Rank Math SEO Plugin is the best tool to choose from.
Rank Math plugin is the perfect solution for all your SEO needs! It has features that will take your SEO skills to the next level and help you rank higher in search engines. The Rank Math SEO plugin was designed to automate the entire SEO process so you can focus on doing what you do best.
Rank Math has been used by over 8,00,000 active users to optimize their websites or blogs. It helps you get an SEO boost by providing tons of advanced tools that are easy to use. With better performance and features, it also has been rated the number one SEO plugin by webmasters and search engine optimization experts.
Key Feature of Rank Math Plugin
If you’re looking for a plugin that takes care of all your on-page SEO requirements, then Rank Math is the best SEO plugin for WordPress and literally a great solution. It allows you to create a good SEO framework for your WordPress website quickly and is compatible with all the latest versions of WordPress. The best thing about this plugin is that it is highly configurable and has various free advanced features. Of course, you can upgrade the plugin if you want to add more functionality, but the free features alone are worth the plugin’s price.
Here is the list of some major features:
- Easy to Install and Configure, Thanks to the Integrated Setup Wizard
- Simple and Powerful User-interface
- Quick Configuration With Google Search Console
- Google Analytics Integration
- Access Analytical Data Directly From Your WordPress Dashboard
- Track Website’s Performance by Inbuilt Rank Tracker Tool
- Schema Markup Generator and Validation
- Custom Schema Markup Builder Available
- Integration With the Google Trends Tool
Rank Math Plan & Pricing:
Rank Math SEO Plugin is a free WordPress plugin that lets you do on-page SEO of your blog or website. Still, Rank Math premium plans extend the possibilities for advanced optimization.
The premium version comes in two plans:
- Pro – $59/year for Unlimited personal websites (with 500 keywords tracking)
- Business – $199/year for Unlimited client websites (with 10,000 keywords tracking)
7. Ultimate Addons For Gutenberg
As a blogger, if you are looking for a way to make your blog more user-friendly and responsive, WordPress has an in-built tool called the Gutenberg Editor. The Gutenberg Editor is a free block-based editor that allows you to edit and update your WordPress website content and layout. Not only that but also the WordPress team has been working hard to make Gutenberg even better to provide a great experience to the WordPress community.
The Gutenberg editor has many advantages over the classic editor, including being block-based, offering a very flexible editing experience, and offering many new features. However, there are some Gutenberg add-ons available that can enhance its functionality.
Ultimate Addons for Gutenberg, developed by Brainstorm Force Team, is one of the best free WordPress plugins when it comes to creating stunning and responsive web pages or posts in Gutenberg. It was launched in June 2018 and is considered one of the best free plugins for Gutenberg due to its simple, intuitive, and easy-to-use interface. Another great thing about this plugin is that it helps you to effortlessly design stunning pages and posts for your website without writing a single line of code.
Key Addons of UAG Plugin
Ultimate Addons for Gutenberg plugin offers more than 25 powerful blocks that you can use for your WordPress website. These blocks are carefully designed to function across all browsers and to offer you a great user experience. The time limits associated with this post make it impossible to cover every Gutenberg block. Therefore, I have chosen to showcase only the most useful and commonly used ones.
- Advanced Columns Block
- Inbuilt Review and FAQ Schema Block
- Contact Form 7 Styler
- How-to Schema Markup Support
- Stunning Info Box Block
- Advanced Heading
- Post Layout With Additional Settings
- Responsive Price List Block
8. UpdraftPlus Backup
There is no doubt that backup and restoration are important steps when it comes to website security. Most of the time, An up-to-date backup is all that stands between a website and a malicious attack.
There is no way to put a website at risk without backing it up with a backup plugin. Of course, the plugin someone chooses to back up and restore their site has to be reliable and not involve any additional risk to the site.
Fortunately, there is an excellent solution for WordPress users to automatically back up their websites, run scheduled backups, and restore their websites.
UpdraftPlus is your all-in-one backup plugin that backs up your entire site and allows you to quickly restore it if something goes wrong. Another great thing is here that these backups are encrypted and secure, so your data is secure.
When you first install this plugin on your WordPress website, it will back up your website database for you automatically, every hour, day, or week.
Apart from that, UpdraftPlus also has the ability to store your website backups to an offsite cloud location, such as Amazon’s S3 cloud storage, Google Drive, DropBox, or to another computer on your local network. So you now can restore your website from anywhere and at any time with just a few clicks.
Key Feature of UpdraftPlus Plugin UpdraftPlus plugin is one of the most popular and reliable WordPress Backup plugins. It provides automatic backups, which means you won’t have to worry about backing up your websites. This plugin lets you successfully back up your websites in a matter of minutes and has a user-friendly interface that even non-tech-savvy individuals can navigate. UpdraftPlus has a ton of great features that any WordPress site owner needs. Let’s have a look at some of the amazing features:
- Perform Complete, Manual, or Scheduled Backups
- Back-up to a Remote Location Like Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive and Many More
- Easily Clone and Migrate Your WordPress Site in Minutes
- Multisite Compatibility
- Quick UpdraftVault Storage Integration
- For Security, Encrypt Database Backups
- Robust Reporting and Monitoring Capabilities
UpdraftPlus Plan & Pricing:
UpdraftPlus is a handy plugin that enables you to protect and secure your backups from malicious attacks. It is free to download and offers various options for configuring backups. It also offers many great features that only come with the premium version of this plugin, but the best thing here is that it is affordable and worth the price.
The premium version comes in two plans:
- Personal – $70/year for 2 websites
- Business – $95/year for 10 websites
- Agency – $145/year for 35 websites
- Enterprise – $195/year for unlimited websites
Final Thoughts On Must-have plugins for WordPress
In this article, we have listed 8 of the most essential plugins for your WordPress website. These are all useful plugins to optimize your website’s speed, functionality, and maintenance. Furthermore, this article helps you to minimize and avoid common errors that many website owners make.
Hopefully, you found your new favorite plugin(s) here! If you are still curious to know more about more essential plugins, please have a look at the links below: But make sure, before you install a new plugin, please read this article thoroughly. It helps you find the best fit and avoid costly mistakes.
Must Read: A list of the best-recommended tools for blogging, SEO, and affiliate marketing
If you have any doubts or questions about this article, please let us know in the comments section below.
