My goal with this post is to discuss some of the top WordPress plugins I use and recommend. If you have questions about installing WordPress plugins, you may want to refer to my earlier post about installing WordPress Plugins on your blog.
Photo courtesy of ©Depositphotos/merzavka
One of my favorite things about WordPress as a blogging platform, is the ability to extend its features by using WordPress plugins. A few clicks and you are on your way to having a fully functional website with some great features.
Since I posted about setting up a self-hosted WordPress and blog, many people have asked for my recommendations on WordPress plugins, and so this post.
Naturally, it is hard to decide what to install and what to leave from more than 22000 plugins available in WordPress Plugins directory, isn't it? However, with a careful consideration of your needs, you can choose what you need and leave the rest.
[note background=”#CACACA”]Check out how to install and setup your own self-hosted WordPress blog by yourself. In this post, you may also find the best WordPress website hosting companies you can choose from.[/note]
Install WordPress Plugins Based On Your Goals
The plugins you choose should depend on your blogging needs. Just because something is cool, doesn’t mean you really need it. Keeping in mind the fact that every WordPress plugin puts a layer of overload on your web server, you should wisely choose what to install on your website.
However, I am going to share some of those WordPress plugins that I have enjoyed using on my websites and recommended to my clients. I hope this list is going to help you make your selection process easier.
Must Have WordPress Plugins
1. Limit Login Attempts
This is a must have plugin for you if you are serious about your WordPress security. Without it, you don't even know how many bots are continuously trying to hack into your WordPress. This plugins not only protects your WordPress from hackers but also alerts you when there are too many failed login attempts from a particular IP address.
Limit Login Attempts is a simple WordPress plugin to install and configure but has tremendous benefits of it. I highly recommend you to have it if you are already not using it on your blog.
2. Jetpack By WordPress.com
This is one of my favorite WordPress plugins. This plugin provides so many awesome features powered by WordPress.com with little or no overload to your web server.
Some of the top benefits of using Jetpack are:
- Simple, concise traffic stats on your website visitors with no additional load on your server.
- Email subscriptions for your blog's posts and your post's comments.
- Social networking enabled commenting system.
- The WP.me URL shortener.
- Easily embedded media from popular sites like YouTube, Digg, and Vimeo.
- Integration with and automatic posting to your favorite social networks including Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and LinkedIn.
- Automatic spelling and grammar check on your posts and pages as you type.
- Give your site a boost by loading images from the WordPress.com content delivery network. This is absolutely a huge gain for your website’s performance at no cost to you.
Jetpack comes installed along with your default WordPress installation. It just needs to be connected with your WordPress.com account.
So, if you already are a WordPress.com user, your only work is to authorize Jetpack to get connected with your existing account. But, if you are new to WordPress.com, then you will need to do a free signup at WordPress.com and then connect Jetpack to it.
3. Akismet WordPress Plugin
Installing Akismet WordPress plugin is one of the best ways to have a SPAM comment control for your WordPress blog.
Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog's Comments admin screen. It is an easy to install WordPress plugin that just needs to be activated and assigned an API Key (which is free) to get to work.
4. Pretty Link Lite
Pretty Link Lite (Although it also has a pro version which is paid with a lot more features) is one of my top picks when setting up a new WordPress website because of many handy features if comes with for free.
It is basically a URL shortening and redirection plugin that allows you to temporarily (302/307) or permanently (301) redirect any URL (an internal link or an external URL such as an affiliate link) to a custom URL of your choice with your domain name.
Many people use this plugin for creating custom URLs for their affiliate links or redirecting old URLs to the new ones as need arises. I highly recommend this plugin!
WordPress Ping Optimizer (No more needed – refer to this post for details)
If you have not paid attention to the ping settings under the Writing menu of your website’s WordPress admin area, I encourage you to visit that section to see what are the services it is going to ping each time you publish a new post or edit it.
It is important to know that WordPress pings those services every time you publish a new post or edit an existing post. By the way, that is where the problem comes.
Can you imagine how many times you edit your posts in a day and how many times you click on the "Save" or “Update” buttons? Your blog will ping unnecessarily those many times.
Some services do not like that. Therefore, they may easily tag your website as a ping spammer. That is where this wonderful WordPress plugin comes into picture. It simply stops WordPress from pinging the search engines and other ping services allowing the pings to go only when a new post is published.
WordPress Plugins for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
You may have a great blog with some awesome content. But if people are not coming to your website to read your content, you are not being effective. Obviously, you want more and more people to come to consume your content, right?
One of the best ways to bring traffic to your WordPress blog is through proper SEO (Search Engine Optimization) on your blog. It is very important to have proper title tags and meta descriptions when publishing your blog posts.
A good title tag and a proper meta description may dramatically increase traffic on your website. Here are my two favorite plugins when it comes to SEO for WordPress blog:
5. All In One SEO Pack
All In One SEO Pack WordPress plugin allows you to modify your title tags and meta descriptions with ease. This is how search engines rank your website and send traffic to your website.
If you are a WordPress beginner, this is an awesome plugin to start learning and doing some solid SEO for your WordPress blog. This is one of the most popular, powerful and the least complicated Word plugin for SEO out there.
OR
6. WordPress SEO By Yoast
When it comes to choosing a WordPress plugin for SEO, Yoast’s WordPress SEO is my go-to plugin. I simply love the control and the number of awesome features this plugin offers.
WordPess SEO allows you to manage all your SEO related stuff from one place easily and effectively. This WordPress plugin has the usual settings for title tags, meta information, meta keywords and robots.txt commands, etc.
However, in addition, it provides following awesome features as well:
- Keyword Research and recommendations
- Google Snippet Preview
- On Page SEO Analysis
- Webmaster Tools Verification (Google, Bing etc.)
- XML Sitemaps
- RSS Optimization
It’s an incredibly powerful plugin. Used properly, it will maximize the potential search engine exposure of your content. Generally, more traffic means more customers, more money!
WordPress Plugins For Contact Forms
There are two awesome plugins to choose from in this category. Both are awesome and I have used both of these on different websites. However, both of these plugins shouldn't be used on the same website because they are supposed to be mutually exclusive. Make sure you use any one on a given WordPress website.
7. Fast Secure Contact Form
Fast Secure Contact Form is a feature rich contact form WordPress plugin available for free. It lets your visitors send you a quick E-mail message or even book an appointment with you from your website.
One thing I love about Fast Secure Contact Form is the way it handles SPAM with its inbuilt feature of CAPTCHA code challenge. It is easy to configure and implement on any page of your website. Check out their website for more information.
OR
8. Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is also loaded with awesome features with a very simple configuration. This is also a free WordPress plugin available at your disposal and I love its simplicity. Just like Secure Contact Form, it also lets you add a form on your pages where your visitors can send you a quick E-mail message .
Contact Form 7 also handles SPAM well with its inbuilt feature of CAPTCHA code challenge. This WordPress plugin leverages Akismet for spam filtering automatically if you have Akismet enabled on your blog. Check out their website for more information.
Good To Have WordPress Plugins
1. Simply Exclude
As you build your WordPress blog, you may need to create some thank you pages, welcome pages, event pages and some categories for special post types. What if you want to exclude some of them from search, feed, archive, and front page of your website? Well, I've a great news for you.
All you need to do is, install and activate a plugin called Simply Exclude. Upon activation, you will see a new menu item added to your WordPress admin area called Simply Exclude. This menu will give you a lot of choices to select and deselect what you want you want to be visible and what you want to make invisible on your website.
2. SEO Smart Links
One of the best things you can do on your WordPress blog is to interlink your posts and pages. It is a great way to have three distinct benefits:
- Improve your SEO rankings by using keyword-targeted anchor texts.
- Increase the crawl rate and depth.
- Reduce the bounce rate (increasing the click-through rate)
While linking to your older articles when writing the post manually is a must, taking advantage of some smart automation is also very helpful such as linking to tags, categories etc.
SEO Smart Links does such an awesome job of this automatic interlinking and I just love this WordPress plugin. You should definitely try it’s features!
This is yet another awesome WordPress plugin that I enjoy using on my website. This WordPress plugin has become one of the most popular content plugins used by WordPress bloggers today.
Whether showing internal related links, links to partner content, or sponsored posts, the plugin is a great way to increase page views, reduce bounce rate, and even make some extra cash.
To me, it was the goal of reducing the bounce rate that got me to try this plugin and I must say, it is such an awesome thing to have on your WordPress blog.
Cache Plugins For Website Performance
Search engines consider site speed to be an important factor for rankings websites.One of the important thing I noticed was, caching my website helped instantly improve site speed. I use W3 Total Cache plugin to improve performance of my websites and I had recommended it initially.
However, many of my readers asked me to also include WP Super Cache in my listing because that is another powerful plugin that does the same job. Therefore, I am going to include it in my listing as well. You can choose any one of these two cache plugins on your website.
4. W3 Total Cache
W3 Total Cache is a powerful WordPress plugin that improves the user experience of your blog by improving your server performance, caching every aspect of your site, leveraging Browser’s caching mechanism, reducing the download time of your theme and providing transparent content delivery network (CDN) integration.
W3 Total Cache also gives you the ability to minify CSS and JavaScript code on your site that helps improve the website’s performance. If you are concerned about the page loading speed of your WordPress blog, you must give this plugin, a shot.
Visit the plugin’s page to and follow their install instructions to easily configure your WordPress blog with W3 Total Cache and improve your user experience.
OR
WP Super Cache is also very popular cache plugin in the WordPress space. Just like W3 Total Cache, it allows you to leverage browser's caching ability, minification, CDN configuration and much more.
Visit the plugin’s page to learn more about this plugin and to learn about configuration details. You will amazed how popular this plugin is among bloggers once you visit their page and see how many people have downloaded this.
6. WordPress Download Manager
If you have anything digital on your website that you want to offer as a download, you need this plugin.
Any digital product such as an eBook, an audio or a video download can be managed effectively on your website using the WordPress Download Manager plugin. This is the plugin I use on my website for digital download management.
It is a Files and Document Management plugin for your website. This WordPress plugin will help you to manage, track and control file downloads from your WordPress website. You can even set password and set access level any of your downloadable files using this WordPress plugin.
Among many awesome features of these WordPress plugin, here are a few highlights:
- Drag and Drop File Upload
- Control who can access the download
- Password protection
- Download Counter
- Custom download link icon
- File type icon support
- Seatching and Sorting Option
- Custom link label
- Shortcode for download link
- Widget for new downloads
Additional WordPress Plugins For More Features
1. CommentLuv
I didn't include it in my original list because I was trying this plugin to make sure I like it before I recommend it. However, after using this plugin for over year now, I think this plugin deserves an entire post for some of the most incredible features it offers.
CommentLuv gives you a great way to reward your commentators by automatically placing a link to their last blog post at the end of their comment. This allows you to increase the number of comments you receive and also increases engagement at your blog.
I am planning to write a post about my experience with the premium version of CommentLuv and why I decided to replace DISQUS with CommentLuv in a future post. However, at this time, I want to tell you that it is one of the most admired WordPress plugins for managing comments and I highly recommend you to try out the free version of CommentLuv.
2. attentionGrabber
Would you like to grab the attention of your WordPress blog viewers when they arrive? Then you need this stylish attentionGrabber WordPress plugin. It does a great job and by attracting the attention of your viewers you benefit in at least following three ways:
- Increase conversion rates for the product/service you promote on your website
- Increase subscribers to your e-mail list faster
- Increase followers to your Twitter or Facebook page
This is a premium plugin and costs about $12. You can buy this plugin at CodeCanyon website. For more details on the features of this plugin, you can also visit their website.
3. Duplicator WordPress Plugin
I wrote a blog post around taking regular backups of your WordPress websites and why it is important. Out of all the plugins that I discussed in the article, one WordPress plugin that not only stands out from the rest, but it is also available for FREE, is the Duplicator WordPress plugin.
The Duplicator plugin is designed to give WordPress Administrators the ability to migrate a site from one location to another location in 3 steps. Just create a package, download it and install. No need to change all your settings and re-run import/export scripts.
Though I now use ManageWP for my backup and restore needs since I wanted a bit more sophisticated solution, I have used Duplicator plugin and I really encourage you to try this WordPress plugin for yourself.
4. ManageWP
I already have written a detailed review of this awesome WordPress plugin. This is the plugin I use to backup, optimize and manage all my websites. They are premium plugin and therefore, they are a good support along with this awesome plugin as well.
If you are serious about managing your WordPress powered website, you may want to consider trying ManageWP service. They have a plugin to install on your website to function. Once you install the plugin and activate it, you get a fully functional dashboard on their website from where you can manage all your websites from one central place.
5. AutoCompleteZon WordPress Plugin
If you have an Amazon Associates account and you want to have a cool nice looking little widget or search box etc. to promote Amazon marketplace on your website (You can see the Amazon Product Search widget I have on my sidebar), you need this awesome premium plugin.
AutoCompleteZone plugin is a very reasonably priced WordPress plugin with great features to help you promote Amazon marketplace products on your website in a very elegant manner and thus monetize your WordPress blog.
Now, Your Turn To Share
Having shared the list of WordPress plugins that I have used and recommend, I wonder if you would like to answer some of these questions and add value to this post:
- What WordPress plugins have you used and recommend so far?
- Would you like to recommend a new plugin to be included in this list?
- Is there a feature that you want to implement and you haven't found a WordPress plugin that does the job well?
Please share your thoughts in the comments by clicking here. Thank you kindly!
Great collection of plugins listed here. Thanks for share. You are using DISQUS as your commenting system. Why not include that in the listing?
Chandan, Thanks for pointing that out. I would have included them here. But since the commenting systems need a little more discussion than just a mention, I decided to drop them from this article.
I am planning to write a separate post comparing some of the leading ones including why I decided to use DISQUS.
I wish there was any free plugin to schedule the backups and store it on DropBox like the ManageWP does. It would have been a nice plugin to have. I hope I can find something like that soon………………
Agreed. If that happens, I will be able to save a few dollars each month. I hope that happens soon 🙂
Kumar,
You really have supplied a wonderful amount of information here that will surely benefit all who read the article. I have made notes as they relate to my specific needs, and I thank you very much.
Kind Regards,
Bill
there is great new feature in latest wordpress which allows you to interlink your own post – and it is straigh in the “link” window 😉
Oh that’s awesome. I didn’t explore that yet. But thanks for the hint. I think that’s a great feature as you rightly said!
Thank you kumar sir for the list of plugin..I know about some plugins. But some plugins was unknown to me.
I am using some of the plugins listed here,however i don’t like cache plugins…they have messed up my blog lots of time…so i stopped using them…
Actually, you are right. Cache plugins are a bit tricky. But they do help speed up your blog if things work out properly.
Thank you for this guide. It is helping me learn a lot of WordPress and plugins. I plan to start a web development business and so this knowledge is very helpful to me.
Thanks For Providing us the great plugin list. I recommend your list.
I am using Ping as one of my wordpress tool. It’s very useful to indexed fast you website pages.
I am the first time visitor to your website. Sincere thanks for this post as it helped me to know what I need to install on my new website I am setting up. Thanks again.
Great feature on WP plugins man and I’ve found most of my favourites on here – including All In One SEO. The only plug-in I’d probably disagree with is that you didn’t mention Contact Form 7 – it’s by far the very best contact form plug-in I’ve ever used for WordPress.
Oh and PrettyLinks is worth a mention too – I’ve tried a few URL shorteners but PrettyLinks does it for me 🙂
Thank you Neil for your awesome value addition. I think I am going to include PrettyLinks and Contact Form 7 both in my listing soon. It will be a great addition to this list for sure. Thanks again!
First of all, good choice of plugins. I think cloudflare isn’t that good, mostly because I had not-so-good experience with it.
Also, the backup plugins you mentioned does not support multi-site installations yet. You should have mentioned a few multisite compatible plugins as well. For example, BackWPup. It’s a great plugin. There are many others too anyway.
Hi Kalpit,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and adding value with a backup plugin that I wasn’t aware of. I will check out BackWpup and may be include that in the list if I like. Personally, I wrote a seperate post about backup plugins and I like ManageWP which is perfect if you want peace of mind. Let me know what you think of it. Here is the link: https://www.gauraw.com/2012/best-way-to-manage-your-wordpress-blogs-is-to-use-managewp/
Regarding Cloudflare, I am not sure what experience you have had, I have been extremely pleased with their service and many many people I know feel the same way. Well, it depends on the nature or our website as well I suppose. However, I would like to know what challenges you faced with Cloudflare. Will you mind sharing some?
Thanks Bro For Sharing “Top WordPress Plugins With us!!” Will Surely install 4-5 plugins from this guide in my blog.
Hello Deepak, Glad to know you liked the post and thanks for sharing your appreciation. Look forward to get to know more about you.
Great list, Kumar!
I have tried making W3 Total Cache work for me a few times but haven’t had much luck so far, lol.
Either way, where on that list would you place the CommentLuv plugin? I see you are using it, hence my curiosity. Been thinking of getting it!
Hello Arnie,
CommentLuv is something I installed long after I had the post published and therfore I probably didn’t include in the list. But, it is definitely a good commenting system (At least I like it better than my previous commenting system DISQUS which made it complex.
However, if you don’t want to spend 100 dollars on a commenting system (which isn’t a bad strategy), probably you are good with the default commenting system WordPress comes with. Stick to it and have Akismet installed for SPAM control – you are good to go (and I don’t have too much edge over you). But then, I will no remove CommentLuv yet because I’ve paid for it and it works well 🙂
I am using all plugins as you mentioned except E-Commerce WordPress Plugins.
i want to add one more important plugin i.e WP super cache.
Thanks for sharing.
WP Super Cache added to the list Tony. Thank you for the suggestion 🙂
Thanks for this awesome list man!
Really helpful It is 🙂
Cheers.
You are very welcome Vishesh! Have a great day!
Hi Kumar,
When I read posts about WP plugins I alway want them all, however, I am well aware that we can’t just add plugins endlessly.
The funny thing is that just two days ago someone at Hostgator told me that I should have more than 3-5 plugins. I just laugh and I told them that it would be impossible. However, I try not to get anymore than I need, because infortunately we know how plugins crowd up our servers and slow down our site.
Thank you for this update.
Hi Sylviane,
As you said, it’s not possible to have all functionalities with 3-4 plugins until we can code everything inside the core theme which most of us can’t :-). Therefore, a decent number of plugins are needed. I have about 25 plugins active at the moment on this blog to have all that I have so far. I know it’s a bit more than normal, but I couldn’t do with less 🙂
The Plugin Organizer really helped me get optimal performance even though I have so many plugins to support my work here.
Regards,
Kumar
That’s a great list man
Did you think of SmushIt? I think it’s necessary for wp bloggers to get it for automatic image optimization
Oh yes, Smush.It is another awesome plugin. I recommended it in another post recently but actually, forgot to mention it here. Will do it soon 🙂 Thank you for the reminder!
Hi Kumar,
I have not used the forms plug-ins. I’m wondering with W3 Total Cache and with Cloud Flare active, would there be any need to use Word Fence Security plugin, which looks after malware, viruses, etc.?
One plugin you installed for me was Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin, requiring a check box to be clicked from a human, to prevent spam bots.
Another couple I don’t see in your list is the Real IP 4 Comments plugin which give the real IP, and Smush-It which crunches images. Because of this last one, I was finally able to optimize all my images on my website.
Kind Regards,
Bill
You are right about GASP plugin Bill. I didn’t mention about it independently because people who have CommentLuv premium, get it as part of the package. But it’s a good plugin to have for people who are on free version of CommentLuv or who want that feature.
RealIP4 is not something everyone needs. You needed it because your server uses reverse proxy which most people on shared hosting don’t. So, they don’t need that plugin 🙂
But yes, Smush-It is awesome! I should have mentioned it and I will add it to the list soon.
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
Wow….you provided so much information here and I thank you. I use commentluv premium and love it. As for the others, well, I’m just not sure.
I’m not a plug in person so I have to ask my better half (husband) about that. So, I book marked this to study it more with him. He does all my plug ins. I’m all thumbs when it comes to that.
Thanks so much for all this information!
-Donna
Aha! Same thing happens when it comes to technical tasks in my home 🙂 My wife likes to offload them all on me. I guess this is a story of every house 🙂
Have a wonderful week Donna! Thank you for dropping by!
~Kumar
Hello Mr. Kumar
Thank you for this great list that will help so many of us.
As you are aware, I am not too familiar with plugins, but I do know having too many can affect our site.
Currently I use the free version of CommentLuv. What is the difference and would you recommend I change over?
I am trying to keep the budget for my blog as low as possible, but I do want my blog to work.
Thank you again for your research and your recommendations.
Gladys just posted 2014 Goals Will Redefine Your Life
Ms Gladys,
You are doing pretty good without premium CommentLuv and I don’t think you need to invest money at this time for getting the premium version at this time. Your blog is working great and your focus on the aspects of marketing your blog will fetch you better returns I believe.
Thank you for dropping by and sharing your concerns. You have a wonderful week ahead!
Regards,
Kumar
Hey Kumar,
Wow really named some great plugins. As a matter of fact, i was looking for a contact plugin as well as a download plugin to track all my ebook downloads. It feels like I hit the jackpot with this blog post LOL. I like how you organize the plugins in categories. It makes it a lot easier to find the plugins that you want. I’m definitely going to come back to this post for future reference. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for your kind words of appreciation and the enthusiasm about this post. I am glad to know you found some of the solutions you were looking for here 🙂
All the best to you for your eBooks! If I can be of any help, please feel free to send me a note!
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar
Wow this is a very good list of your favorite plugins. I use some of them but will check some of the others out.
I have Comment Luv Premium which combines a few functions and I also have Thesis as my theme which eliminates the need for some others. As I am not a techie I always need to understand what I need outside of those.
A great post and resource you have given us.
Have a great week,
Sue
Thank you Sue for the kind appreciation. And yes, if you have Thesis, you don’t need some of the plugins from this list (such as SEO in particular).
Have a wonderful week!
Hi Kumar,
What a great list! I liked the way you explained each plug in an what they do. I always get confused with this stuff, but now I have a better understanding of which plug in does what!
Thank you for providing this list. I always get a good education when I visit you and I am thankful for that.
-Donna
You have written a nice post for wordpress plugins….It covers most of practically useful plugins.I find akismet stats very useful
Hey Kumar,
I have a yearly post where I write about the plugins that I use myself so without having to list them all here for you that post is published every September which I’m sure you’ve already seen.
On the top of my favorite plugins of all time is CommentLuv Premium.
I’ve heard a lot of people complain that JetPacks slows down their blog and I did install it at one time but I admit, it lagged quite a bit as well so I just got rid of it. I use Share Juice Pro as my social sharing plugin because you can create your own buttons, put them in the order you want, include an author box on your blog and it will automatically pull in the correct image for each post.
Some of these I’ve heard of while some I haven’t and of course wouldn’t need.
Right now I can’t think off the top of my head of a plugin I would want that would do something that I know isn’t available yet. I think I’m doing pretty good actually and still have less than 15. I’ll take the code over a plugin any day.
Thanks for sharing this and hope you’re enjoying your week.
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne,
Thank you for stopping by. I came across your website post September and so I now need to check out your post 🙂
Because of being in business of setting up websites, I need to have such lists and I am sure I will find something in your list that will help me expand my list. Thank you for the mention of your post and the mention of Share Juice Pro. I think that is an awesome plugin as well 🙂
And you are right about code vs plugin. I do the same (and I have coded many small little things in my own theme instead of keeping those functions as plugins forever 🙂
Have a great rest of the week!
Regards,
Kumar
Hey Kumar,
Wow, thanks for the list of great plugins. I try to limit the use so it doesn’t pull too much on the server, but you’ve given us some interesting ones that I must investigate. I already use a couple that you mentioned like SEO for Yoast, Contact Form 7, Akismet and Comment Luv. I also use something close to Simply Exclude which helps me hide certain thank pages or welcome pages. These I feel are critical and I’m glad you mentioned them as it means I’m on the right track.
I’ll definitely check out the others on your list and see if there are any I can use.
Thanks for the great list. Definitely something we all need to see what’s out there that can make our blogs better.
Great job.
Barbara
Thank you Barbara for your kind words of appreciation!
Simply exclude (or something like that) plugin is certainly a must have because we all want to hide certain web pages and categories from appearing in search results and it really does an awesome job!
Have a wonderful rest of the week!
-Kumar
Hello,
Well jetpack is my favorite plugin the listed ones and to be honest I haven’t used few of the plugins mentioned above. I’ll surely consider using it.
Thanks for sharing
Hello Kumar,
This is an awesome collection I must confess! However, there is just a simple plugin I need to add: The HC custom admin URL plugin.
With hackers and their activities on the increase, this plugin simply does a great job of masking your real login URL. Any attempt to imply the former URL simply leads you back to the home page.
Always,
Terungwa
Some new plugins I discovered here, and I would like to suggest few from my own plugin arsenal:
Easy WP SEO: Premium plugin for Keyword optimisation. Notable feature is LSI and readability score.
Optinmonster: For Email subscription
PushPress: For faster indexing
Hi Kumar,
Many thanks for sharing your list it was very helpful. I do not use the cache plugin you mentioned as I had some issues with them . It is great to see your advice because we all need to be careful what wordpress plugins we use.
Rosemary
Thanks Kumar. I didn’t realize that CommentLuv was free or that there was a free version. Have been thinking about buying it, but now I will certainly be checking it out!
Well, now you know 🙂 Glad my post was helpful for you.
Have a great weekend!
Hi Kumar, you have an interesting list of plugins. Some I use like Yoast and love and others I have not heard of like pretty link lite and attention grabber. I’m looking to change a few things up on my blog and these may come in very useful. Thanks for sharing with us Kumar.
Hi Kumar,
I am not surprised to see this list as most of these plugins are there on my list of must have plugins too. I have not disabled CommmentLuv Premium since the day I started using it. Though I have frequently switched between W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache. For now I am sticking with W3TC.
The rest of the plugins you listed here can definitely help you to grow and enhance you site’s usability and user-friendliness. I will surely give a couple of these a try.
Thanks for sharing this with us Gauraw.
Regards,
Vineet
very Awesome list of important plugins for website owners and these plugins are really helpful for every website.
From above plugins iam also using seo by yoast ,wp-super cache,captcha etc.
i also refer to use sexy author bio plugin ,it’s shows author bio after every post in a sexier way which attracts the visitors.i like your website a lot sir, and a continue follower also.
Hello Naveen,
Thank you for the compliments and surely I didn’t know about the “Sexy” plugin 🙂 I am going to check that out today.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and adding value.
Have a great weekend.
-Kumar
WordPress plugin is really mandatory to install because it has a very important function, I was actually more pleased by the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast.
Hi Kumar,
what a great list and write up about these plugins.
There are a few that I had not heard about before.
We are so spoiled for choice when it comes to these great technological ‘add on’ which make blogging easier!
Thanks for sharing this comprehensive post!
Cheers,
Yorinda
Nice post it will help for beginners.!
Hello Kumar! Wow what a great post, I am amazed to see that I do use a majority of the ones you talk about here. I have never really heard of W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache and really have no idea what they can be for?? Well to me this must mean I dont need them HEHE
I do have a question for you my friend? I have heard Kim say many times that having to many plug-ins will slow down your site so I guess I am wondering How Many Is To Many?
Thanks for sharing this great information Chery :))
best collection , i thinks all plugin is very impotent for word-press blog but i don’t no some plugin work. so pls tell me wordpress jetpack plugin how to work and it usefulness .
Hi
Great list of useful plugins. Currently am using SEO by Yoast, Akismet and definitely JetPack. SEO by Yoast is really awesome to optimize the website like a charm. W3TC is boosting website speed and i think it is better than All in one Seo. Entire list is good but am in favor of less plugins.
Cheers
Great List Kumar,
I personally believe that “Cache” plugins are a MUST, especially if you are expecting traffic to your website from Google. Cache plugins make your website load faster, which is an important factor for higher rankings on Google. No matter how useful content bloggers have on their blogs, if the blog loads slow, visitors will less likely visit that blog again.
Excellent article! What are your W3 Total Cache settings? Can you make a post about this, please? Thanks!
Great list Mr. Gaurav. Limit login, Manage WP plugins are very useful. i am using this system from 1 year. Thank you for your information.
Really WordPress has lots of feature.
I am using Limit Login Attempts, WordPress seo by yoast, it’s my favorite plugin.
I want to check all in one seo plugin. but please tell me where can I noindex sub pages in all in one seo pack.
I am using most of them.
Very informative post for newbie and all webmaster.
any way thanks for sharing your experience with us.
Great list of WordPress plugins. Jetpack and All in one SEO plugins are favorite plugins. Some plugins in this list are new to me, I will try them soon.
Thanks for sharing this list.
Great collection of plugins, some names are new to me. I am going to try them soon.
Thanks for sharing this post.
jetpack is very useful but it makes site slow. Akismate is essential one. Nice list kumar.
Hi Kumar,
What a great list! I liked the way you explained each plug in an what they do. I always get confused with this stuff, but now I have a better understanding of which plug in does what!
Thank you for providing this list. I always get a good education when I visit you and I am thankful for that.
Hi
I have a business website.and i have blog for this website. i want do seo for this website.so i want some wordpress plugins.which plug-ins are the best for seo pls replay me.
Hi Gauraw sir,
Superb list of plugins. This is an all in one post about that. I was looking for this type of post. Glad I can finish my research.
Plugins are the arteries of wordpress. It makes that awesome platform stands out from rest. Thank you so much. You gave more than I anticipated. Will install needed plugins soon.
Regards,
Rahul
Great collection of essential wordpress plugins. These are the must have plugins if you are going to start a wordpress blog.
Hello Gauraw, Have a good day.
You have presented a very well list of complusory wordpress plugins in a good way. I go throught the whole article and hardly reached at bottom to leave a comment because your article must be appreciated.
One plugin, I think you are aware of that but missing in this post is ‘WP ROCKET’.. It is excellent plugins as I am using it for months and used for minifying javascript, css etc. Also this plugin is used to clear the cache automatically.
For security purpose I prefer to use iThemes Better Security. Anyhow, the plugins you have mentioned are also great and worthy.
Thank you Kumar Sir for providing great stuff. These all plugins are useful and must be used by all bloggers. I know akismet and wordpress SEO are among the most famous plugins.
This list of wordpress plugins is really extended, it comprises everything I’ve seen so far. I was looking for a plugin to create communities with the users that signs to my website. Do you have any ideas?
Thanks for providing such information. Am a blog designer and I like the way you have analysed it. Also in SEO I would recommend all in one SEO pack.
Thank you.
Hello Sir,
Amazing plugins indeed!
I am using most of them but will install the rest. BTW I visited your blog after such a long time as I was just busy due to exams and I must say your blog is super amazing!
Thanks for sharing this ultimate check list.
I have tried almost all of the mentioned plugins on my different blogs, so I can say with 100% conviction that you have compiled one of the best plugins in the industry.
I read somewhere that nRelate is not a good plugin to use because it request more SQL queries when it show related posts, which ultimately make your WordPress website slow.
Can you please confirm this for me?
Thanks in advance.
Thomas,
nRelate is no more available for use. So, I need to update this post and remove this from my list. Thanks for pointing that out.
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
That’s an full package for who want to start a wordpress blog or who already have. All plugin have here which is require for any wordpress blog. It also help me to find some valuable wp plugin like aksimet, duplicator wordPress plugin also nRelate related content plugin.
Many thanks for this awesome wordpress plugin list.
Kind Regards
Yasin RIshad
Hi Kumar,
Thanks for the great list of plugins. I’ve tried the majority of these and have to agree with you, some of these are great.
Would be brilliant to see a 2015 updated list!