12 + 12 Best, Most-Loved, Most-Important WordPress Plugins
One of the great things about building a website with WordPress is the versatility of the platform. You can build high-traffic blogs, money-making machines, and lead-generating business websites with WordPress. Even then, there are so many directions you can go in.
There are thousands of WordPress plugins. Some are universal in nature in that they are useful for the vast majority of WordPress users. Others are very specific in nature in that they provide solutions to very specific use cases.
Rather than devote all your time to building out every feature from scratch, you install trustworthy plugins to do the heavy lifting for you.
Here are the best 12 plugins and their best alternative for your WordPress Website
1. Best Caching Plugin – W3 Total Cache
W3 Total Cache creates cached HTML files for each page monumentally increasing your site’s load speed. It can also combine CSS and Javascript files into compressed, smaller versions. It can handle CDN’s, browser caching, database caching, object caching, and a whole slew of other caching functions.
Alternate:
WP Rocket
WP Rocket is a great paid solution for a caching plugin. If you want minimal setup and instant results, WP Rocket is a great solution.
2. Best SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is the undisputed world champion of all WordPress SEO plugins. The creators of this plugin have gone to extreme lengths to take all the complications out of SEO.
Alternate:
All-in-one SEO
All-in-one SEO is probably the second most popular WordPres SEO solution. With easy setup, and a solid track record, this might be a great alternative if Yoast seems like a bit too much.
3. Best Forms Plugins – Ninjas Forms
Ninja Forms offers intuitive and powerful form building. Even in its free version, you have everything you need to build beautiful and highly functional forms inside WordPress with a simple and straight-forward builder interface that any beginner can pick up in no time.
Alternate:
Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is a staple in the WordPress community. It’s probably the most widely used of all WordPress forms plugins, and has been around for a very long time.
4. Best eCommerce Plugin: WooCommerce
Right out of the box, WooCommerce is by far the most robust eCommerce plugin for WordPress. Not only that, but there is also a huge collection of WooCommerce addons and specialized themes that have been created allowing WooCommerce to take care of anything you can possibly imagine.
Alternate:
Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads is the solution after much debate and consideration among our team. Ultimately, it came down to the fact that EDD had a much simpler and versitle setup for ecommerce shops who strictly have digital products.
5. Best Redirection Plugin – Redirection
Redirection is the go-to plugin for creating and managing 301 redirects across your site. It’s also incredibly terrific for personally branded affiliate links.
The plugin also tracks and logs 404 errors showing you which pages users have visited that don’t actually exist. You can then use that knowledge to create 301 redirects so that future visitors who land on those pages will be redirected to the appropriate post or page.
Alternate:
301 Redirects
301 Redirects helps you manage and create 301, 302, 307 redirects for your WordPress site to improve SEO and visitor experience. With a user-friendly interface, 301 Redirects is easy to use.
6. Best Editorial Calendar Plugin – Co-Schedule
Getting serious about your blog means you need a plan of attack. If you’re like me, it’s crucial to be able to visually map out and see what your plan is. It not only helps you stay on track, but it gives you an extra boost of motivation.
There is no better plugin for visually planning and coordinating your blog’s content than CoSchedule.
Alternate:
Editorial Calendar
https://wordpress.org/plugins/editorial-calendar/
Editorial Calendar is a functional and free alternative if you’re just looking for a simple drag and drop calendar for your WordPress content. For many, CoSchedule may just be overkill but Editorial Calendar is just right.
7. Best Backup Plugin – Updraft Plus
You can manually create backups of your complete website or you can schedule backups to be created at particular intervals. It even allows you to create off-site backups by storing the backups on Google Drive, Dropbox, or any of several other options. This means that if your site gets attacked, your backup won’t be touched.
Alternate:
BackWPup can be used to save your complete installation including /wp-content/ and push them to an external Backup Service, like Dropbox, S3, FTP and many more, see list below. With a single backup .zip file you are able to easily restore an installation.
8. Best Security Plugin – Wordfence Security
Wordfence is a free, open-source security plugin for WordPress that provides enterprise-level security. It can scan your entire file system comparing files to the core WordPress repository including themes and plugins. This is excellent for detecting altered files which is almost always an indication of a hack or security breach.
Alternate:
All In One WordPress Security
The All In One WordPress Security plugin will take your website security to a whole new level.
It reduces security risk by checking for vulnerabilities, and by implementing and enforcing the latest recommended WordPress security practices and techniques.
9. Best Social Sharing Plugin – Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed
Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed allows you to beautifully display your recent Instagram photos in WordPress.
You will need to generate an Instagram access token. After that you can use the available shortcodes to display the feed anywhere on your site including posts, pages, or sidebar widgets.
Alternate:
AddtoAny
AddtoAny is a social sharing tool also available as a WordPress plugin. It offers many social media platforms, floating and standard social sharing bars, and a universal sharing menu.
10. Best Email Opt-in Plugin – OptinMonster
OptinMonster does all the heavy lifting for you making it easier than ever to create stylish popups that compel visitors to want to sign up to your email newsletter.
Alternate:
PopupAlly is a great tool if you’re a beginner getting started with pop-up opt-in forms. You can get a good amount of functionality for free, and get your feet wet in the world of advanced lead capture.
11. Best Custom Fields Plugin – Advanced Custom Fields
Advanced Custom Fields allows you to take full control over the WordPress post editor screen, and it’s the ideal solution for custom data management. It makes it incredibly easy to create field groups, add your fields, and have it ready for data in a matter of minutes.
Alternate
Custom Field Suite (CFS) lets you add custom fields to your posts. It’s lightweight and battle-tested (there’s not much to break).
12. Best Analytics Plugin – Monster Insights
Using Google Analytics to track crucial metrics for your blog is a given these days. There’s no such thing as having a website without installing Google Analytics.
Unlike other Google Analytics plugins, MonsterInsights allow you to enable all advanced Google Analytics tracking features with just a few clicks.
Alternate:
ExactMetrics
The ExactMetrics Google Analytics for WordPress plugin helps you properly setup all the powerful Google Analytics tracking features without writing any code or hiring a developer.
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