Essential WordPress Plugins Every Site Should Have via @sejournal, @martinibuster

WordPress is the astir fashionable CMS with bulk marketplace share. Out of the box, it’s a almighty platform, but it’s the WordPress plugins that truly adhd the functionality and versatility to beryllium configured successful galore antithetic ways.

The WordPress plugin assemblage is what truly brings the level to beingness and enables publishers and developers to build websites that heighten the experience for tract visitors and publishers.

Based connected my ain acquisition and from others successful the WordPress community, the pursuing plugins were chosen for their reliability and effectiveness successful helping SEOs and marketers turn audiences, summation sales, and amended tract information and usability.

Plugin Categories

The pursuing is simply a database of indispensable plugins, organized into six categories, that galore publishers whitethorn find useful.

• SEO Plugins: List of apical six WordPress SEO plugins.
• Site Security: Keeps your tract from getting hacked and losing rankings.
• Website Backups: Protects websites from mistakes and offers a mode to travel backmost from getting hacked.
• WordPress Search Engine Plugins: Gives tract visitors a amended mode to find your contented and products to buy. Plus, it tin amended user engagement and restitution signals.
• Website Staging: This is simply a mode to support your tract from crashing, arsenic good arsenic to trial retired improvements and updates earlier rolling them retired to the unrecorded site.
• Contact Forms: Because it’s important to pass with tract visitors

WordPress SEO Plugins

SEO plugins streamline basal tasks similar adding meta descriptions, rubric tags, nonfiction excerpts, and Schema.org structured data.

These are the six astir fashionable SEO plugins, listed by fig of installations:

1. Yoast SEO (10+ cardinal installations).
2. Rank Math (3+ cardinal installations).
3. All-in-One SEO (3+ cardinal installations).
4. SEOPress (300,000+ installations).
5. The SEO Framework (200,000+ installations).
6. SEO Plugin by Squirrly SEO (100,000+ installations).

A peculiar enactment astir The SEO Framework:

The SEO Framework caught my attraction respective years agone for its modular approach, allowing users to activate lone the features they needed – a unsocial method astatine the clip for creating a plugin that won’t dilatory your website down.

This thoughtful attack continues successful the latest versions, which see automation to streamline deployment, adjuvant suggestions, and accessibility optimizations specified arsenic enhanced colour opposition for colorblind users, keyboard navigation, and surface scholar compatibility.

The SEO Framework is ad-free, privacy-focused, and tin import settings from Yoast, Rank Math, and SEOPress.

Premium extensions supply further features, including section SEO optimizations, broad Schema.org structured information for quality sites and bloggers, and more.

WordPress Security Plugins

Site security is often overlooked arsenic a income oregon SEO-related consideration. All it takes is to beryllium hacked 1 clip to recognize however straight related website information is to publishing and ranking a website.

Read: The WordPress Security Guide To Keep Your Site Safe

Wordfence

• Installed connected 5+ cardinal websites.

The escaped mentation of Wordfence protects a website against outer threats by locking down areas of the tract that are commonly exploited – and has a malware scan to cheque for intrusions.

It does things similar blocking malicious files from executing successful WordPress folders wherever they commonly hide, sending alerts erstwhile plugins and themes request updating, and providing an enactment to unit beardown passwords.

It adjacent provides the enactment for instituting two-factor authentication – antecedently a Premium feature, present disposable successful the escaped version.

The standout diagnostic is its firewall. Wordfence’s built-in firewall rules automatically observe and artifact malicious activities oregon suspicious idiosyncratic agents.

These blocks are impermanent and automatically lifted aft a pre-set duration to forestall database bloat. While the firewall efficaciously blocks outer threats, adding customized rules delivers a decisive stroke to malicious bots (learn how to usage Wordfence customized rules).

Wordfence is besides authorized by the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Program arsenic a CVE Numbering Authority. This gives it the authorization to lend vulnerability accusation that its researchers observe and adhd it to the CVE® Program, a database of vulnerabilities. I notation this lone to amusement however Wordfence is an authoritative and adept organization.

Over 5 cardinal users spot Wordfence, and for a bully crushed – it’s casual to configure, and it works.

The Premium mentation of Wordfence offers a much precocious proactive stance that receives up-to-the-minute menace signatures that support against recently discovered vulnerabilities.

Sucuri Security

• Installed successful 700,000+ websites.
  

Sucuri, which is presently owned by GoDaddy, is simply a information auditing, malware scanning, and website hardening solution.

It doesn’t duplicate the features successful Wordfence, truthful it tin enactment unneurotic with Wordfence arsenic a two-part information solution.

Sucuri features a record integrity scanner that alerts users to changed files, hardens the website against intrusions, and offers information notices similar erstwhile idiosyncratic logs in.

The paid mentation of Sucuri offers a firewall that actively blocks threats.

Using the escaped mentation of Sucuri, unneurotic with Wordfence, offers an outstanding level of WordPress security.

Patchstack

• 20,000+ installations.

Patchstack provides 48-hour aboriginal informing alerts of information vulnerabilities connected plugins and themes, providing an other furniture of protection.

This aboriginal informing mostly provides users a accidental to instrumentality proactive enactment earlier hackers are capable to instrumentality vantage of the vulnerability.

Users of the paid mentation person real-time alerts and patches to mitigate the vulnerabilities.

Pricing for the premium plugin starts astatine $5 per month, which makes it a highly affordable solution.

Akismet Spam Protection

• Installed connected 6+ cardinal websites.

Akismet Spam Protection is utilized by implicit 6 cardinal users. It was created by Automattic, which is simply a for-profit institution founded by Matt Mullenweg, co-creator of WordPress.

You tin number connected seamless integration betwixt Akismet and the WordPress CMS.

Akismet is casual to instrumentality to support interaction forms and remark sections. It’s a utile plugin to instal connected immoderate tract that has comments turned connected and/or a interaction form.

WordPress Backup Plugins

Backing up and archiving a WordPress tract is captious to protecting a tract from catastrophic failure.

For example, if a tract becomes hacked, a implicit backup from earlier the tract was hacked volition guarantee that a tract tin beryllium restored connected a staging server and afloat updated with the latest information patches, with a cleanable WordPress installation, and past restored to the unrecorded server.

A backup tin prevention a tract from a atrocious update that crashes the website oregon a mistake that wholly wipes retired the important data.

UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup

• Installed connected 3+ cardinal websites.

UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup plugin is trusted by implicit 3 cardinal users. It’s an easy-to-use backup solution that makes it elemental to rotation the tract backmost to a erstwhile version.

I’ve utilized it to successfully migrate a tract from 1 server to different server. It besides helped maine retrieve aft pushing the incorrect fastener and deleting my website template. Yeah, I did that once.

Migrating from 1 server to different is arsenic elemental arsenic backing up with UpdraftPlus, mounting up WordPress connected the caller server, adding the plugin to the caller installation, and past utilizing it to retrieve the tract from a backup. That’s it.

Moving a tract with UpdraftPlus is truthful casual – it feels similar magic.

BlogVault

• 90,000+ installations.

This plugin offers real-time incremental backup that offers escaped offsite retention and a 90-day archive. The plugin backs up the WordPress database, themes, plugins, settings, images – everything.

The authoritative WordPress repository leafage for the plugin advertises that BlogVault is the authoritative tract migration plugin for Cloudways, FlyWheel, LiquidWeb, Pantheon, and WPEngine.

BlogVault besides provides a escaped staging environment. The paid pro mentation offers automation features, one-click recovery, and migration, positive precedence lawsuit enactment starting astatine $149.

Higher tiers connection built-in malware scans. The escaped mentation offers galore of the backup and retention functionalities that astir websites need.

The escaped staging capabilities are a beardown bonus that whitethorn let users of the escaped plugin to make a staging tract that tin beryllium utilized for investigating caller plugins and themes earlier deploying connected a unrecorded site.

The BlogVault plugin was developed by the aforesaid institution down the MalCare WordPress information plugin, which has implicit 400,000 WordPress website installations. Its products are advertised to beryllium trusted by companies similar eBay, Intel, and different endeavor brands.

WPvivid Backup & Migration

• 600,000+ website installations.

WPvivid enables users to make website backups and tin beryllium utilized for site migrations.

It tin besides beryllium utilized to make a staging tract connected a subdirectory truthful that caller versions of the WordPress core, plugins, oregon themes tin beryllium tested for compatibility earlier being pushed to the unrecorded accumulation site.

The quality betwixt the escaped and the paid pro mentation is that the pro mentation offers incremental backups, exclusion/inclusion rules, partial backups, and clang extortion for tract migrations.

Both versions connection backups to third-party unreality servers, similar DigitalOcean Space, Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and different fashionable unreality retention providers.

The tract is trusted connected implicit 600,000 websites. I reached retired to the developers, and they confirmed that they are based successful California.

The plugin has received implicit a 1000 five-star reviews, indicating the precocious level of restitution users experience.

WordPress Search Engine Plugins

The default WordPress hunt motor is basal and offers constricted functionality.

Its algorithm cannot grip misspellings oregon usage stemming to present broader, much applicable results, which tin harm idiosyncratic acquisition and trim sales.

Replacing it is indispensable for superior websites. The pursuing plugins code these limitations and should beryllium considered indispensable for galore WordPress websites.

Relevanssi

• 100,000+ installations.

Relevanssi is simply a escaped WordPress hunt plugin that offers features that different plugins complaint for.

For searching, it offers sorting by bid of relevance (in spot of date) partial connection match, supports the “and,” “or,” and quotation people nonstop lucifer hunt operators.

The hunt results tin beryllium acceptable to show excerpts that amusement the discourse of the hunt effect connected the leafage (shows the passage) and item the hunt presumption connected the webpage erstwhile users click through. The plugin besides integrates with WPML and Polylang.

The developers of the plugin enactment that it uses “hundreds of megabytes” of database space. They suggest taking enactment of the existent size of the wp_posts database array and tripling it to recognize however overmuch server retention abstraction volition beryllium required.

The paid Pro mentation contains the “Did you mean?” feature, enables hunt results with PDF, including taxonomy (navigational data), and weighs hunt results.

What’s particularly utile astir the paid mentation is that it offers stemming, which is simply a earthy connection processing diagnostic that allows hunt results to lucifer the taxable of the leafage alternatively of conscionable mean keyword matching.

This allows a wider scope of applicable hunt results that don’t needfully incorporate the nonstop lucifer keywords. It besides has the blessed broadside effect of reducing the size of the hunt index.

The yearly interest is $109 USD, but there’s besides a beingness woody of $379 USD, which includes beingness enactment and upgrades.

Ajax Search Lite

• 80,000+ installations.

This plugin replaces the default WordPress hunt container that tin hunt successful posts, pages, and customized station types similar events, portfolio items, and WooCommerce products. It tin hunt successful titles, descriptions, nonfiction excerpts, and customized fields.

A useful diagnostic is the quality to exclude circumstantial categories and posts. Plus, it tin integrate with Google Analytics. It’s besides multilingual-friendly and compatible with Polylang, QtranslateX, and WPML.

The paid pro mentation adds enactment for fashionable leafage builders, supports much kinds of contented (PDF, Events Calendar, etc.), and WooCommerce plugin, positive galore different features.

A beingness licence starts astatine $49.

SearchWP

• 50,000+ installations.

This paid hunt plugin is fashionable with developers and publishers. Pricing astatine the clip of penning is connected merchantability for $99 per year.

The algorithm utilized by this plugin tin prioritize often clicked hunt results, allows customized weighting, has an include/exclude feature, and tin scale customized fields, PDFs, media files, and customized station types.

There are besides ecommerce optimizations that tin see results from merchandise attributes and taxonomies and are compatible with WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and BigCommerce plugins.

Pricing presently starts astatine $99/year.

WordPress Website Staging

Website staging is simply a relation that allows users to make an nonstop transcript of a website and past marque changes to trial if the website functions usually without immoderate glitches.

It’s utile for investigating a tract earlier updating the WordPress core, plugins, oregon themes. It’s besides utile for previewing what a website would look similar with a caller template, debugging, and customizing it.

WP STAGING WordPress Backup Plugin

• 100,000+ website installations.

The escaped mentation of the WP STAGING plugin enables users to clone their website to a subfolder of the website, including the database.

The clone tin beryllium utilized for staging a website, arsenic good arsenic for backup and migration.

The pro mentation of the plugin enables users to backmost up the website to third-party unreality providers and offers precocious tract migration capabilities.

The escaped mentation of the plugin advertises that it’s truthful lightweight that it tin adjacent beryllium utilized connected a low-powered shared hosting environment. The paid mentation of the plugin starts astatine $93 per year.

WP Stagecoach

WP Stagecoach is simply a paid premium solution that offers an casual mode to signifier a website safely connected the WP Stagecoach servers and past propulsion it to the unrecorded accumulation server erstwhile it’s ready.

I’ve utilized WP Stagecoach and recovered it to beryllium elemental and convenient.

Pricing starts astatine $99/year.

WPvivid And BlogVault

WPvivid and BlogVault some connection website staging capabilities successful summation to backing up websites.

• WPvivid plugin users tin signifier a tract successful a subdirectory.
• BlogVault offers escaped staging connected their unreality servers.

Scroll up to the WordPress Backup Plugin conception to work much astir WPvivid and BlogVault.

Theme Switcha

• Installed connected 6,000+ WordPress sites.

This is simply a plugin for taxable developers and not truly for the mean user.

The bundle developer created this plugin for their ain website projects and subsequently released it for escaped connected the authoritative WordPress plugin repository.

This plugin enables taxable previews for logged-in users and tin beryllium restricted to admin-level users. It’s a mode to preview a taxable and spot what it looks like. Developers similar it due to the fact that it’s an casual mode to amusement clients a redesign.

Emphasizing that this is simply a developer-focused plugin, the bundle developer cautions that it doesn’t enactment with Gutenberg blocks, though immoderate users person reported that it works. The plugin writer writes:

“Please recognize that this plugin should not beryllium utilized unneurotic with WordPress features specified arsenic Gutenberg Block Editor, Theme Customizer, Widgets, Menus, and different theme-related options. Doing truthful whitethorn effect successful backstage changes being made nationalist connected the existent progressive theme.”

The plugin was developed by Jeff Starr of Plugin Planet, which offers escaped and paid WordPress plugins that are utilized by implicit 1.5 cardinal users.

A reappraisal published successful the backstage Dynamic WordPress Facebook radical (membership indispensable to view post) noted that it enables the convenience of staging a website for reviewing a template without having to clone files oregon reproducing it connected different server.

Contact Form WordPress Plugins

There are galore interaction signifier options to suit a wide assortment of website needs.

While a theme’s built-in interaction signifier is often sufficient, third-party plugins connection importantly greater functionality and customization.

WPForms (WPForms Lite)

• Installed connected 6+ cardinal sites.

WPForms is simply a basal interaction signifier that’s casual to usage and that I person acquisition with. It doesn’t present the eventual configurable interaction form, but if each you privation is an easy-to-deploy interaction form, this is for you.

It integrates easy with implicit 200 apps, including leafage builders similar Divi and Elementor.

There are antithetic paid mentation levels, each providing progressively blase features and abilities.

The escaped mentation is simply a good solution erstwhile each you request is simply a interaction form.

Ninja Forms

• Installed connected 700,000+ websites.

Ninja Forms is different easy-to-use interaction signifier builder – but this 1 has progressively analyzable functionalities.

What’s charismatic astir Ninja Forms is that it uses a modular attack that allows 1 to acquisition add-ons that widen its functionality. Paid add-ons see functionality similar multi-step forms and conditional logic.

That said, the escaped mentation of Ninja Forms has options that are premium features connected different interaction forms.

For example, it is Akismet and Google ReCaptcha affable and tin accommodate uploads, judge payments via PayPal and different gateways, integrate with MailChimp, Constant Contact, aggregate CRMs, and more.

It’s a bully prime to commencement with and grow connected disposable features arsenic the tract grows.

Formidable Forms

• 400,000+ website installations.

Formidable Forms is perfectly named due to the fact that it is impressive, has a ample fig of features and capabilities, and is susceptible of accomplishing acold much than galore different interaction forms.

It’s much than a interaction signifier due to the fact that it besides functions arsenic a pb procreation signifier builder susceptible of creating quizzes and surveys.

An particularly charismatic diagnostic is that it creates WCAG/A11Y compliant forms, which means that it is accessible.

The escaped Lite mentation is simply a highly susceptible signifier builder. The premium mentation of Formidable Forms extends the plugin with pb procreation features and different precocious capabilities.

Gravity Forms

• Approximately 900,000+ installations.

Gravity Forms is simply a paid interaction signifier that offers extended precocious features that are utile for sites with analyzable needs and integrations.

Gravity Forms markets itself arsenic a signifier manager that is utile for information capture. It’s powerfully suited for selling campaigns and monetization.

Even the Basic mentation has beardown integrations with services similar SendGrid, HubSpot, Emma, and MailChimp.

Useful WordPress Plugins

Which plugin is the “best” is determined by what functionalities are needed.

The WordPress ecosystem offers thousands of plugins that widen the functionality of websites to assistance them fertile better, make much sales, make a amended idiosyncratic experience, and lend to wherefore WordPress is the No. 1 CMS prime successful the world.

More Resources:

• 8 Awesome WordPress Plugins That’ll Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly
• How To Build A WordPress Site In 24 Hours
• WordPress SEO Guide: Everything You Need to Know

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