Looking for the must-have WordPress plugins for your WordPress website to take your business to the next level in 2023?
WordPress plugins are the building blocks of your WordPress site and help to add functionality to your website from basic to complex.
The WordPress Plugin Repository has over 60,000 plugins at the time of writing this post. It’s hard to choose the important ones for your website.
For your ease, I have listed 10 must-have WordPress plugins for any WordPress website. So if you are planning to create or optimize your WordPress, add these plugins to your checklist and start installing them.
Let’s get started!
1. Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms is one of the most friendly WordPress contact form plugins. This plugin allows you to create smart online forms with just a few clicks.
With their pre-built form templates and the drag & drop builder, you can create a new form in less than 2 minutes without writing a single line of code.
Key features of Gravity Forms:
- Form Notification: You will get instant notification after the form submission and for any form-related query.
- Form Templates: You can use your pre-built templates to create forms, which will save you time.
- Mobile-Friendly: You can get a 100% responsive form. No need to add extra code to make your form responsive.
- Spam Protection: By using Gravity Forms plugin, you can also get spam protection because it utilizes CAPTCHA and Honeypot methods to protect your website from spam form submissions.
- Form Confirmation: You can add a custom success message or redirect to a custom thank you page after form submission.
Click here to learn more about Gravity Forms.
How to set up the Gravity Forms plugin?
You can easily install and activate the Gravity Forms plugin. Follow these steps for the process of installing and activating the plugin.
Step 1: Navigate to Gravity Forms’ official website and log in to your account.
Step 2: Click on the Downloads tab.
Next,
Step 3: Click on the Download Gravity Forms button and download the zipped file of the Gravity Forms plugin on your computer.
Step 4: Navigate to your WordPress Dashboard.
Go to Plugins > Add New > Click Upload Plugin.
Step 5: Click on the Choose File button and select your Gravity Forms zip file.
Step 6: After your file is uploaded, click on the Install Now button. It will start installing the plugin for your WordPress website.
Step 7: Once the plugin is installed, click on the Activate Plugin button.
Step 8: Next, You need to add the license key. For that navigate back to your Gravity Forms Plugin account.
Step 9: Click the Download tab and copy the License Key.
Step 10: Copy it and add it to the License Key field in your Gravity Forms plugin settings from WordPress admin Dashboard.
Step 11: After that, click on the Verify Key button, and your license will be added.
You will see a notice – your site is receiving automatic updates.
That’s it!
Now, you can add forms to your website.
2. Akismet
Akismet is a WordPress plugin, which prevents spam from website forms. Moreover, it filters spam from comments, trackbacks, and contact form messages.
Akismet blocks millions of spam comments every hour. Also, it checks your comments and contact form submissions against our global database of spam to prevent your site from publishing malicious content.
Key features of Akismet:
- Automatic spam filter: You will get automatic checks on comments, no need to add extra code lines. Moreover, it filters out the ones that look like spam.
- Comment History: You can quickly review the status history of comments and see which comments were caught spammed by Akismet.
- Misleading links: You can find URLs in the comment body to reveal hidden or misleading links.
How to set up the Akismet plugin?
Follow these steps for the process of installing and activating the Akismet plugin:
Step 1: Navigate to your WordPress Admin Dashboard
Step 2: Click Plugins > Add new
Step 3: Type Akismet in the search box and click install now.
Step 4: Wait for the Install to finish, then click on the Activate button.
Step 5: After the plugin has been activated, go to Settings > Akismet Anti-Spam and
Note: If you have Jetpack installed, you’ll find the Akismet under Jetpack > Akismet Anti-Spam.
Step 6: If you have an API key, click the Manually enter an API key section link, enter your API key, and click save changes.
Otherwise, click on the Set up your Akismet Account button and follow the guide.
That’s all!
Now just leave it to do its thing.
If Akismet thinks the comment is spam it will be put in the spam folder otherwise the comment will be published to your website as usual.
3. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is one of the best WordPress SEO plugins. It helps you with your website optimization. Also, this plugin is easy-to-use, flexible, and provides a good base for SEO.
Do you know, until now, Yoast SEO has helped more than 7 million websites worldwide to rank higher in search engines?
Key features of Yoast SEO:
- Keyword Optimization: You can analyze and optimize your website pages for your focused keywords, which helps you drive qualified traffic from search engines to your website using this plugin.
- Meta Descriptions: You can tell Google exactly what your page is about by adding metadata using the Yoast SEO plugin easily.
- Indexable: You can efficiently gather information about all linked and related pages to best optimize your page. Moreover, Indexable is a custom data type that represents anything that could be indexed on your site.
- No outdated content: You can update the old content of your website without changing its date using the Yoast SEO plugin. Also, it keeps your data clean, fresh, and up-to-date.
- Readability check: You can check the current readability of your website content pages like transition words, paragraph length, sentence length, subheading distribution, sentence beginning, and Flesch reading ease using this plugin.
- Breadcrumbs: You can enable the breadcrumbs to feature for your website using the Yoast SEO plugin. Moreover, Breadcrumbs is a way to help your users better navigate your site and its structure. You can also customize the breadcrumbs title using this plugin.
Also, this plugin helps to protect your website from duplicate content, marking your links as no-follow or sponsored, working in the block editor and classic editor, Internal linking suggestions, focus keyword export, content insights, etc.
A free version is full of powerful features; however, if you are after more power, you can go premium to unlock more power.
How to set up the Yoast SEO plugin?
Follow these steps for the process of installing and activating the Yoast SEO plugin.
Step 1: Navigate to your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
Step 2: Click Plugins > Add new.
Step 3: Type Yoast SEO in the search box and click install now.
Step 4: Wait for the installation to finish, then click on the Activate button.
Step 5: Navigate to the Yoast SEO tab and update the settings according to your website requirements – That’s all!
4. Shared Counts
Shared Counts is a WordPress social media share buttons plugin. The buttons look great and load fast.
Website visitors can easily share your posts and pages with their friends on social media using this plugin. The Shared Counts plugin also helps to increase the traffic on your website.
Key features of Shared Counts:
- Share button: You can add social media icons on your pages and posts using the shared count plugin. It is an easy way to market yourself and grab more traffic to your website.
- Link button: You can directly link your business profile on social platforms by configuring this plugin clicking on the Facebook icon redirects the User to your official Facebook page. Moreover, these buttons aren’t specific to a post; you can add them in the header, footer, and sidebar too.
- User-friendly: All the things are customizable so that you can make endless adjustments. Also, you can easily access all the data; this is because the counts are stored and cached in post meta.
- Popular content: You can also view the popular content or the content with the most traffic by month or category using this plugin.
How to set up the Shared Counts plugin?
Follow these steps for the process of installing and activating the Shared Counts plugin.
Step 1: Navigate to your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
Step 2: Click Plugins > Add new.
Step 3: Type Shared Counts in the search box and click install now.
Step 4: Wait for the Install to finish, then click on the Activate button.
Step 5: Navigate to Settings > Shared Counts tab and update the settings according to your website requirement – That’s it.
5. Sucuri
Sucuri is one of the best WordPress security plugins. It automatically checks your WordPress files and alerts you if any files have been added, modified, or removed.
Also, this plugin offers a set of security features, each of them designed to have a positive effect on the security posture.
According to the survey, the average website is attacked 44 times every day. So, you must have a security plugin installed on your website.
Key features of Sucuri:
- WordPress Hardening: You can increase security in areas of your website that could become avenues for attack. Also, you can do this by adding a set of rules to the website .htaccess file and verifying secure configurations.
- Email Alerts: You can customize the email and recipients for any alerts generated by the plugin. Moreover, these alerts will keep you informed of any suspicious activity observed on your website.
- Malware Scanning: You can protect your website from malware. Moreover, SiteCheck remote scanners are constantly updated to address the spread of malicious content, blacklisted status, website errors, and out-of-date software.
- Core Integrity Check: You can check the integrity of the core WordPress files like PHP, JavaScript, CSS, and other files that come with your original WordPress version.
How to set up the Sucuri plugin?
Follow these steps for the process of installing and activating the Sucuri plugin.
Step 1: Navigate to your WordPress Admin Dashboard
Step 2: Click Plugins > Add new.
Step 3: Type Sucuri in the search box and click install now.
Step 4: Wait for the Install to finish, then click on the Activate button.
Step 5: Navigate to Sucuri Security > Dashboard and click the button that says Generate API Key to activate Sucuri’s event monitoring feature.
Step 6: Click the submit button.
That’s it.
Once the Sucuri plugin is active, you will start receiving email notifications which include user authenticating or failing to authenticate, when a file is uploaded, a post or page published, and so on.
6. UpdraftPlus
UpdraftPlus is one of the most popular free WordPress backup plugins with over two million active installations. You can set up automatic backup schedules. It is also useful to restore and migrate websites.
Key features of UpdraftPlus:
- Backup: You can perform complete, manual or even scheduled backups quickly and easily.
- Website Migration: You can easily migrate your WordPress site with the Migrator addon of this plugin. It performs a direct site-to-site migration and has several useful functions which you’ll need during a site migration, including search and replace.
- Remote Location: You can secure your data from server-wide risks using this plugin. This plugin is best known for a remote backup option rather than merely storing your backups on your website hosting.
- Restore Backup: You can quickly restore your WordPress site with the Importer addon of this plugin. Also, it helps you restore your website from any other backup plugins.
How to set up the UpdraftPlus plugin?
Follow these steps for the process of installing and activating the UpdraftPlus plugin.
Step 1: Navigate to your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
Step 2: Click Plugins > Add new.
Step 3: Type UpdraftPlus in the search box and click Install now.
4: Wait for the Install to finish, then click on the Activate button.
Then, Step 5: Navigate to Settings >UpdraftPlus Backups tab. Step 6: Click the Settings tab.
Step 7: By default, UpdraftPlus stores backups locally on the server.
To use a remote storage location, in the Choose your remote storage list box, select where you want to store your backup files.
Step 8: Click Save Changes.
That’s it!
To create a backup immediately, click the Current Status tab, and then click Backup Now.
7. WP Rocket
WP Rocket is one of the best WordPress caching plugins. It helps to speed up your WordPress website, drag more traffic, and increase conversions.
Moreover, this plugin is the most user-friendly caching plugin around, with the most straightforward setup.
Key features of WP Rocket:
- Reduce loading time: You can reduce the HTTPS requests to reduce the loading time of your website using this plugin.
- Bandwidth: You can decrease the bandwidth with GZIP compression.
- Cache: You can have to cache all the pages for quick viewing for all logged-in users and for mobile visitors too.
- Other features: Database optimization, DNS prefetch, CDN integration, Minification and concatenation of JS and CSS files, and many more.
How to set up the WP Rocket plugin?
Follow these steps for the process of installing and activating the WP Rocket plugin.
Step 1: Visit the WP Rocket site and click Buy It Now.
Step 2: Choose the plan that works for you and is best for your website requirements.
Next, Step 3: Complete all the necessary steps to place your order.
Step 4: On the confirmation screen, click Download WP Rocket & Install It to download the ZIP folder.
Make sure you do not extract the files.
Step 5: Navigate to your WordPress Dashboard. Go to Plugins > Add New > Click Upload Plugin.
Step 6: Click on the Choose File button and select your WP Rocket zip file.
Step 7: After your file is uploaded, click on the Install Now button. It will start installing the plugin for your WordPress website.
You’ll receive an email confirming a new domain has been added to your WP Rocket account.
Step 8: Once the plugin is installed, click on the Activate Plugin button. You will be redirected to the settings menu.
As soon as you activate the plugin on your WordPress app, WP Rocket will begin caching your pages.
However, there are numerous settings you can configure to suit your site.
Like:
- Enable the lazy loading of images, especially if you have a lot of images on your site.
- You can enable mobile caching as long as you are using a regular or responsive theme without any mobile plugins.
- Enable caching for logged-in users if you have users who log in to access your site.
- If you have an SSL certificate for your site, then you must enable SSL caching in WP Rocket and so on.
8. Smush
WP Smush optimizes your WordPress website images for faster loading pages and a better user experience without losing quality.
Key features of Smush:
- Lossless compression: You can strip unused data without affecting image quality. The Smush plugin helps with the lossless compression of images for your website.
- Incorrect size image detection: You don’t need to detect wrong-size images manually. Also, Smush quickly locates images that are slowing down your site, automatically.
- Image resizing: You can set a max width, height, and large images will scale down as they are being compressed.
- Process all image types: Smush plugin process all types of images like PNG, JPEG, and GIF for optimum results.
- Multisite compatible: You can have both global and individual multisite settings in this plugin.
How to set up the Smush plugin?
Follow these steps for the process of installing and activating the Smush plugin.
Step 1: Navigate to your WordPress Admin Dashboard
Step 2: Click Plugins > Add new.
Step 3: Type Smush in the search box and click Install now.
Step 4: Wait for the installation to finish, then click on the Activate button.
Then,
Step 5: Navigate to Media > WP Smush tab. From here, configure the settings according to your website requirements.
Bouns point: Setup Smush to Optimize & Compress Images
Step 1: Navigate to your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
Step 2: Click the Smush link in your main Dashboard menu.
Step 3: You will then see a setup wizard pop-up, click the Begin Setup button.
Step 4: On the next screen, select if you want to Automatically optimize new uploads then click the Next button.
Step 5: Choose if you want to Enable enhanced multi-pass lossy compression is enabled then click Next.
Step 6: Select if you want to Strip my image metadata then click Next.
Step 7: Choose if you want to Enable Lazy Loading then click the Next button.
Step 8: On the last page select if you want to Allow usage data tracking then click the Finish Setup Wizard button. It will then check your site to determine what images need to be optimized and compressed.
That’s all!
You can enable or disable automatic compression and select which size of images Smush works on.
9. WP Mail SMTP
WP Mail SMTP allows you to send WordPress emails using an SMTP server. AlsYou can make email deliverability easy and reliable.
This plugin also fixes your email deliverability by reconfiguring WordPress to use a proper SMTP provider when sending emails.
Key features of WP Mail SMTP:
- Manage notifications: You can control which email notifications your WordPress site sends by using the WP Mail SMTP plugin.
- Email log: No need to track the email manually. It automatically keeps track of every email sent from your WordPress site.
- Authenticate the accounts: You can check the authenticity of every user account with this plugin. Also, WP Mail SMTP uses OAuth to authenticate your account, keeping your login info secure.
How to set up the WP Mail SMTP plugin?
Follow these steps for the process of installing and activating the WP Mail SMTP plugin.
Step 1: Navigate to your WordPress Admin Dashboard
Step 2: Click Plugins > Add new.
Step 3: Type WP Mail SMTP in the search box and click install now.
Step 4: Wait for the installation to finish, then click on the Activate button.
Next,
Step 5: Navigate to Settings of the WP Mail SMTP plugin tab and configure the plugin according to your website.
Step 6: Scroll down to the ‘Other SMTP’ section. Make sure to toggle the ‘Authentication’ button. Click save changes.
Your form will now send FROM the email you entered above, but you should add the code below to further secure your credentials in the wp-config.php file. Please do this step with care or seek help from professionals if you don’t know how to code. A wrong code can break your site.
define( ‘WPMS_ON’, true );define( ‘WPMS_SMTP_PASS’, ‘your_password’ );
That’s all! All done.
10. MonsterInsights
MonsterInsightsis the most popular Google Analytics plugin for WordPress, with almost 15 million downloads and over 2 million active installs.
Also, this plugin allows you to easily add, customize and manage the Google Analytics website tracking services on your WordPress site.
Key features of MonsterInsights:
- Google Analytics: You can have a quick and easy Google Analytics setup with the MonsterInsights plugin.
- Tracking code: No matter whether you are switching themes, you can always keep your tracking code with the help of this plugin.
- Real-time stats: No need to search or find the stats, you can find it on your website dashboard. Also, the MonsterInsights plugin displays real-time stats in your WordPress dashboard.
- Popular sources: You can easily view the popular posts, pages, and referral sources of your WordPress website using this plugin.
How to set up the MonsterInsights plugin?
Follow these steps for the process of installing and activating the MonsterInsights plugin.
Step 1: Log in to your MonsterInsights account by clicking the Login link at the top of the page.
Step 2: Navigate to MonsterInsights Downloads area.
Next,
Step 3: Click the Download link on the right next to the MonsterInsights Pro or Plus plugin according to your website requirement.
Step 4: Navigate to your WordPress Dashboard. Go to Plugins > Add New > Click Upload Plugin.
Step 5: Click on the Choose File button and select your MonsterInsights zip file.
Step 6: After your file is uploaded, click on the Install Now button. It will start installing the plugin for your WordPress website.
Step 7: Once the plugin is installed, click on the Activate Plugin button.
Step 8: Next, click on Insights > Settings in your WordPress dashboard menu.
Next, Step 9: Click the Authenticate with your Google account button to start the process.
Step 10: Select your profile.
Next, Step 11: Click the Allow button to give MonsterInsights access to your Google Analytics data.
Step 12: Select the website profile you want to Authenticate with the MonsterInsights plugin. Then, click Complete Authentication.
That’s all!
It can take up to 24 hours to start monitoring the performance.
Conclusion
Wrapping up, WordPress plugins are vital. No matter what kind of site you’re running, there are certain plugins that your website should have.
WordPress plugins greatly improve the user experience which leads to higher engagement and better chances of reaching wider audiences.
I have shared the 10 must-have WordPress plugins above for any WordPress website. By installing these core and foundational plugins, you’ll definitely find your website with better performance for your business.
Feel free to comment below to share your reviews about these plugins, I would love to hear from you. Or, if you need any help.
Also, what essential plugins do you use for your WordPress website?
Source: https://wpsupportdesk.com/blog/must-have-wordpress-plugins/
