If you use WordPress, then you know that one of the most important aspects of it is its many plugins. Unfortunately, the robustness of plugins can also lead to some confusion. If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, “What do the plugins do? Why do I need them? How to use them on my website?” – you’re not alone.
WordPress is one of the more user-friendly platforms to use for your business and marketing, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to take some time to figure it out. So, we’ve created a guide about the 20 best WordPress plugins that you definitely need to know about. Hopefully after reading this, you’ll feel a lot more confident about what these plugins do, why you might need them, and which ones are best for you.
MonsterInsights is an extremely useful tool for tracking your Google Analytics right on your WordPress dashboard! MonsterInsights offers universal tracking, eCommerce tracking, custom reporting, and hundreds of integrations — all within one plugin. Talk about convenience!
2. WooComerce
WooCommerce is a fully customizable eCommerce platform built on WordPress. You can set up a new store in minutes with this WordPress Plugin. WooCommerce offers a 30-day money-back guarantee if you aren’t satisfied with your purchase. But based on the reviews, you won’t be disappointed!
Ultimate Member is a must-have plugin if your business requires user profiles, user registration/login, role editing, or content restriction. You can create beautiful member directories, and user profiles, and it has many user-centered customization options to create the ultimate user experience.
NextGEN Gallery is a free WordPress plugin that offers 3 premium packages: Plus, Pro, and Enterprise. It is the most popular gallery plugin on WordPress. You are able to manage, display, proof, and sell photos all from one plugin. NextGEN also offers one of the most beautiful displays for your images.
Constant Contact Forms is an awesome plugin if you are looking to capture customer information fast right from your website. Of course, Constant Contact allows you to customize your sign-up forms and automatically optimizes mobile forms. You can set up automatic welcome letters to new subscribers, and with a one-time code, you never have to worry about updating your plugin! User-friendliness all around.
6. Akismet
Akismet is one of the best anti-spam plugins you can find for WordPress. Akismet is programmed to filter out any spam comments from the web. You’ll never have to worry about spam again!
Newsletter allows you to manage everything from user subscriptions to email automation, list building, and follow up notifications – all from your website! Newsletter also includes premium extensions for even more powerful features.
W3 Total Cache (W3TC) is an extremely useful tool that improves your user experience as well as your SEO by reducing load times and increasing the website performance. W3TC is the only trusted web host agnostic website performance optimization (WPO) framework for WordPress.
The Events Calendar is WordPress’s first, and most trusted, online event management system. It’s entirely customizable so you can adjust the designs to fit your brand. This plugin is great for recurring events, featured events, time zone support, and more!
10. Smush
Newsletter allows you to manage everything from user subscriptions to email automation, list building, and follow up notifications – all from your website! Newsletter also includes premium extensions for even more powerful features.
11. Redirection
Redirection is a free plugin that allows you to keep track of 301 redirections, 404 errors, and tidy up any loose ends on your site. Using this plugin helps improve your site rankings!
12. RafflePress
RafflePress is a fun plugin to have if you host a lot of contests or giveaways. From 1 click entry protection, refer-a-friend, giveaway landing pages, and social media integrations, RafflePress has you covered.
13. Wordfence
Wordfence is an incredible tool offered by WordPress, providing you with the best security available. Attackers can no longer bypass encryption, leak data, or get into your server. It does cost money, but $99.00 is not bad to protect your assets. Wordfence also offers discounts if you buy for 2 to 3 years at one time, so you can get a great deal if you’re able to plan in advance!
14. Tutor LMS
Tutor LMS is a fabulous tool if your company offers courses. Tutor LMS allows you to extensively build your courses with a user-friendly interface and unlimited customization. You can also build quizzes for your courses and easily manage your eLearning with course enrollments, course pre-requisites, and custom award certificates!
15. UpdraftPlus
UpdraftPlus simplifies backing up and restoring your website. UpdraftPlus schedules backups and directly uploads them into the cloud to Dropbox, Google Drive, and Google Cloud Storage.
16. LiveChat
LiveChat helps qualify leads and make more sales while chatting with your customers. And it’s completely customizable, so you can proactively solve customer problems right from your website!
17. Beaver Builder
Beaver Builder is top-of-the-line web design plugin. Beaver Builder comes with templates to make help save you time without sacrificing lovely designs. We love it!
18. JetPack
JetPack offers security protection and safely stores website backups, all in one place! A perk of this plugin is that it offers code-free customization, so you don’t have to be a tech expert to have killer website protection!
19. CustomFonts
Just as the title states, this plugin allows you to upload custom fonts to your website for the ultimate level of customization! Currently, this plugin works with the Astra Theme, Beaver Builder Theme, Beaver Builder Plugin, and the Elementor Page Builder. If you aren’t currently using any of those, you can still write custom CSS to apply to the fonts.
20. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is the top SEO plugin on WordPress. Yoast SEO offers a free and premium version of this plugin. What’s really awesome is that they walk you through every step of the optimization process. So there is no need to hire an SEO expert, they will help you! Yoast SEO is offered in multiple languages, provides keyword optimization, and automatically reminds you to update content after 6 months! Where can we sign up??
Whew!
As you can see there are a lot of different plugins that you can utilize for WordPress, and this definitely isn’t an exhaustive list. Now that you have more information about the plugin offerings, you’ll be able to customize your site and make it efficient with ease.
If you’re still feeling overwhelmed with WordPress, don’t worry about it at all! This stuff is hard, even for people with a lot of tech experience.
It is really unique helpful information, Great list! Keep it up.
I have one more best plugin suggestion for the business website- Portfolio Designer Lite. This plugin offers an easy way to add a business portfolio to your WordPress website. It comes with a grid layout and masonry layout to showcase your projects in the image gallery.
Thank you.