If you’re building a website in WordPress which represent 43% of websites worldwide then you do need install plugins.
WordPress has over 60,000 WordPress plugins, which means there are endless options to choose from.
You might be asking yourself which plugin(s) do you need to install specially when you have a brand new website.
In this guide we have listed some essentials plugins (we will keep updating the list) that every WordPress website needs to have also it comes down to type of website you have so maybe you don’t need all of them.
If you want to learn more about What is WordPress plugin, why do we need to install them and how to install WordPress plugins then check out our beginner’s guide on How to. install WordPress plugins step by step.
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Table of Contents
- Best SEO plugins
- Best Backup plugins
- Best Caching plugins
- Best Sharing plugins
- Best contact form plugins
- Best Advertisement plugins
- Best design plugins
- Best FAQ plugins
- Best security plugins
- Best marketing plugins
- Best Image Optimization plugins
Best SEO plugins
Yoast: is a SEO (Search engine optimization) plugin for WordPress packed with features and designed to help visitors to get the most out of your website. The plugins offers lots of features, some of them are for free, to get more features then they offer two premium plans.
the most popular one for $99/year USD and other one for $229/year.
You can see a comparison between plans here (scroll down to the bottom to see plan comparison), in terms of discount they do offer a discount if you get minimum 2 licenses you can check out this page for more details.
Pricing
- Free version
- Pro version comes with two options the most popular one for $99/year USD and other one for $229/year USD. You can see a comparison between plans here (scroll down to Get started with Yoast SEO)
Download
- Click here to download the plugin
Really Simple SSL: helps you to configure your website to use SSL, it adds extra security features to protect your website and It also improves your SEO rankings.
Pricing
- FREE version
- Pro version comes with different packages starts from $49 USD, check out this page for more details.
Download
- Click here to download the plugin
Best Backup plugins
Updraft plus: is one of the most popular WordPress plugins for backup your website with installations over 3 millions, allows you to backup and restore your site, you have the option to backup your site to a cloud service of your choice such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3 and Rackspce and if you have premium then you can backup to Microsoft One Drive, Microsoft Azure, SFTP and WebDAV.
With updraft plus you can use the FREE or get premium version which offers more features for example you get incremental backups, dedicated support and more.
To backup your site with updraft plus, all you have to do,
Install > activate > then setup the plugin to start backing up your website to your chosen cloud platform.
Pricing
- FREE version
- Pro version comes with a different plans such as Enterprise, Agency, Business, personal or Gold and each one of them comes with different pricing and features. Click here to view/Buy now
Download
- Click here to download the link
Best Caching plugins
WP Rocket: is one of the best plugins you can use for caching which helps to speed up your site performance.
Pricing
- There is no FREE version
- Pro version comes single, plus and Infinite license, the single license starts from $47 this is after 20% discount, to get the discount then click on this link
Download
- Click here to download the plugin
Best Sharing plugins
Sassy Social Share: basically allows your website visitors to share your content over social media services such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Whatsapp, Tumblr, Pinterest, Reddit and over 110 more social sharing and bookmarking services.
Pricing
- FREE
Download
- Click here to download the plugin
FS Poster: is a social media auto-poster is developed to make WordPress users achieve the best social media experience and grow their online presence.
Pricing
- There is no FREE version
- Pro version starts from $45 for the regular license
Download
- Click here to download the plugin
Best contact form plugins
Contact form 7: is a WordPress plugin lets you manage multiple contact forms, you can also customize the form. The good thing is that you can get Contact form 7 for free, there is no annual fees.
Pricing
- FREE
- You can make donations or purchase the plugin for $17 USD to support the team to continue the development for this plugin. You can pay the $17 USD here if you want to.
Download
- Click here to download the plugin
Best Advertisement plugins
Wp-Insert: is a powerful optimized advertising WordPress plugin enables you to easily manage ads in WordPress, the plugins comes with lots of features for instance the plugins comes with the ability to hide ads on specific page, builtin support for Google page level ads, Google Adsense auto ads, Geo-targeted ads country specific and more. You can click here to read list of features.
Pricing
- FREE
Download
- Click here to download the plugin
Best design plugins
Modula gallery plugin helps you to build stunning lightbox galleries, masonry grids, custom grids and more in no more than a few clicks right from the WordPress dashboard.
With Modula you can add custom, unique and responsive galleries to your website.
Pricing
- FREE version
- Pro version comes with different plans, the basic one starts from 35 euro, you can check this page for a comparison between the free and the Pro
Download
- Click here to download the plugin
Best FAQ plugins
Easy accordion is the best responsive and drag & drop Accordion FAQ builder plugin for WordPress with a lot of customization options. It helps you to display multiple accordions into your site or blog quickly without writing any code.
Pricing
- Free
- Pro version comes with different plans, basic one starts from $29, simple navigate to ShapedPlugin then search and select Easy accordion plugin
Download
- Click here to download the plugin
Best security plugins
Shield is a security plugin for WordPress which provides protection and intrusion prevention before repair. With Shield, your site will start to block visitors as they probe your site looking for vulnerabilities, and before they can begin to do any damage.
Pricing
- Free version
- Pro version comes in different options, the basic one starts at $12 USD monthly or $99 USD year, you can out this page for a comparison between the free and Pro version
Download
- Click here to download the plugin
Best marketing plugins
This plugins helps you grow your email list. You can use it to create good looking and accessible sign-up forms or you can integrate it with any other existing form on your WordPress site, like your contact, comment or checkout form.
Pricing
- Free trail for 14 days
- Pro version comes with different packages, the basic one starts from $20 / month, you can check this page for a comparison between all plans to see which one is the right one for you.
Download
- Click here to download the plugin
Best Image Optimization plugins
EWWW Image Optimizer gives you the tools you need to help improving the speed of your website, it can optimize existing images from any plugins and EWWW take care of new image uploads automatically.
Features
1- Pixel-perfect optimization using industry-leading tools and progressive rendering.
2- Best compression/quality ratio available with premium compression for JPG, PNG, and PDF files.
3- Intelligent conversion options to get the right image format for the job (JPG, PNG, GIF, or WebP).
4- Communication is secure with SSL encryption
5- Free image backups which stores your original images for 30 days
Pricing
- Free version
- Premium version comes with unique features such as Compress API, Easy IO CDN and SWIS performance.
* You can use this discount code MWE15 to get 15% discount.
They also offer different plans, for the premium version so make sure to take a look to find the right one for your website
Below is a comparison between the free and premium version in terms of features.
Download
- Click here to download the plugin