The Best WordPress Plugins Guide

One of the things people love about WordPress is the huge library of third-party plugins.

With 60,000 free plugins listed on WordPress.org alone and thousands more listed elsewhere, it can be difficult to find the only (and correct) plugin you need.

Introduction

To save you time, we have reduced from the tens of thousands of existing plugins, a list of the best WordPress plugins to a huge variety of different uses.

Our list may still look too long, but it’s better than 60,000!

From SEO plugins to project management plugins, you are about to discover the best WordPress plugins for everything!

The best SEO plugins for WordPress

If you want your WordPress site to rank well in search engines like Google, you need an SEO plugin that will help you perform SEO optimization on your page. Here are two of the best…

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is the SEO plugin that we officially recommend, it is also the plugin that we use on this site, and it is the first plugin that we make sure to have on every site that we maintain.

It offers a beginner-friendly way to handle most of the SEO on the page, and includes among others:

• The setup wizard of setting up SEO for the entire site
• Analysis tool to help you optimize individual pages
• Sitemap tool in XML
• Open graph support (this allows you to control the appearance of your content on social networks)
• Lots of other little settings

Rank Math SEO

Rank Math SEO is another interesting plugin that is rapidly gaining popularity in the industry.

Easy to work with and powerful at the same time with changes to specific settings.

Some of the most notable features of Rank Math include:

• Google Keyword Ranking Tracking.
• 15+ Types of Schema Markup.
• Optimization for Woo-commerce images.
• Sitemap support for ACF, AMP, bbPress, BuddyPress, and XML.
• 404 Error logging and built-in reference module.

The best security plugins for WordPress

Similar to security, performance is also something that your web hosting server plays a big part in.

But you can also further improve your site’s performance with the right set of performance enhancements.

Sucuri Security

Sucuri Security is a freemium plugin that offers comprehensive access to WordPress security.

In the free version it offers:

• Monitor file integrity to monitor file changes
• Remotely scan malware
• Blacklist monitoring
• Security activity audit
• Security alerts.

With a paid plan, you can also add a firewall to the site.

WP Security Audit Log

WP Security Audit Log helps you keep track of any changes made to the site or by other users.

By monitoring the activity of different user accounts, you can identify any suspicious behavior and stop it before it becomes a problem.

For example, if someone edits a previously published post, you can see it in the log, plus a host of other actions.

With paid extensions, you can even get automated reports on certain actions and see what other users are doing in real-time.

Google Authenticator

Google Authenticator helps you lock your landing page with 2-step verification. Did you need to enter a code sent to you in a text message to log in to your bank account? It’s kind of like that – but for WordPress!

Just instead of sending code via text, use the free Google verification app.

If you’re worried that malicious people will find your or your users’ account information, this is a great way to prevent this.

WPS Hide Login

WPS Hide Login helps you increase your login security by allowing you to move your site’s login page to another address (which you can choose from).

For example, you can select ‘yoursite.com/new-login-page’.

It’s super easy to install, and it also has the added benefit of preventing bot traffic that could put pressure on the storage server that would have attacked your login page.

The best performance plugins for WordPress

WP Rocket

WP Rocket is a caching plugin (“cache”) and a fine performance that makes a variety of changes to speed up your WordPress site (this is a paid plugin). It is also the plugin we use on this site and our customers’ sites.

Beyond page caching, WP Rocket can also help you:

• Reduces your HTML, CSS and JavaScript files
• Unifies your CSS and JavaScript files
• Adds “lazy loading” to photos and videos
• Optimizes your database
• Performs full of minor changes, such as removing query strings, disabling emojis and more.

Query Monitor

Query Monitor helps you track bottlenecks in the database of your WordPress site. It is more intended for developers, so beginners may struggle to extract significant information from the plugin.

But if you have some technical knowledge, Query Monitor lets you see:

• All database queries performed according to the current request
• Slow queries
• Duplicate queries
• Queries with errors
• And you can also filter by query type, component and relevant function.

It can also help you troubleshoot other issues by showing PHP errors, scripts, stylesheets, HTTP requests, and more.

Best Page Builder plugins for WordPress

Visual content editors and page builders help you create more complex designs without the need to use code. If you have ever felt limited by a regular WordPress editor, a page building plugin can be your best friend.

Elementor

Although it was only released in 2016, Elementor has skyrocketed rapidly and is now one of the most popular page builders in existence with more than 5 million active installations, according to WordPress.org.

It offers a generous free version that allows you to build intricate designs using a simple “drag and drop” method and a live visual preview.

And Elementor Pro – the paid version – allows you to build the entire WordPress theme (site template) using the same drag and drop interface.

Visual Composer Website Builder

Visual Composer is a complete web content / visual content editor that offers an easy-to-use drag and drop editor. Its free version is enough to build a simple website, but the premium version will give you access to build the design templates for the website.

The concept of Visual Composer is a cloud-based library of elements, templates, plug-ins, and extensive design options called the Visual Composer Hub. In addition, it offers an API for developing plugins and integrating design templates.

The best social networking plugins for WordPress

Social media can work in two ways: you want to improve the exposure of your site on social networks by getting more shares / likes or you want to display your own content on social networks within your site. The social media plugins in this section can help you do both.

Instagram Feed

Instagram Feed helps you view Instagram photos from any non-private Instagram account. You can use it to view your own Instagram update or collect feed updates from other people’s content.

You can even do both because the plugin allows you to view several different feed sources.

If you want Instagram content to be a part of your site, this is a great plugin to use – a 5-star rating on more than 1 million active installations is good proof of that!

The best gallery plugins for WordPress

If you want to display a large number of images on your site, an image gallery is a way to do it. If you are not satisfied with the options available in the management interface of WordPress or Gutenberg, here you will find the best plugins for this function.

Modula

Modula is a lightweight gallery plugin that allows you to quickly create galleries with great looks.

Its simple wizard allows you to create a gallery quickly. Then, users who want more control can dig into the optional settings to adjust exactly how the gallery will look and function.

The free version comes with a limit of 20 images per gallery. But you can raise this limit as well as get access to more advanced features like filter galleries and more, starting at $ 19.

Envira Photo Gallery

Similar to Modula, the Envira Gallery plugin comes in both a premium and free version. The free version is fine for basic galleries, but this plugin stands out most in the deep functionality that exists in its Pro version.

Here are some of the most powerful things the premium version can do:

• Combined with WooCommerce, allows you to view galleries for sale photos
• Automatic Watermark
• Gallery sync to Adobe Lightroom collections
• Password protection
• Download security tools to protect your photos
• Proofreading in front of a client (great for photographers)
• And much more

Best Contact Form Plugins for WordPress

No matter what Types Of WordPress Websites you create, you will probably want at least a basic contact form. But form extensions can also do much more than just contact us – they can also help you sign up for subscriptions, make payments and perform a plethora of other important functions.

Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is the most popular free plugin for contact forms for WordPress. When contact form 7 is installed on your website, users can reach through effective contact forms that also include reCAPTCHA and Akismet functionality to prevent spam.

Ninja Forms

Ninja Forms is a free add-on that can be expanded with various paid add-ons.

If you just need to create basic forms, the free version is powerful and makes things easy with the user-friendly drag-and-drop interface. And with paid extensions, you can add functionality like:

• Logical conditioning and multi-page forms
• Payment forms
• Email marketing combinations
• And more…

The best eCommerce plugins for WordPress

Based on market data, WordPress is the most popular way to build an e-commerce store (with WordPress Woocommerce Theme). And when it comes to WordPress e-commerce, there are two main e-commerce plugins, depending on what you want to sell.

Woocommerce

Woo-commerce is not only a popular WordPress e-commerce plugin but the most popular way to build an e-commerce store. point. The plugin runs ~ 42% of all online e-commerce stores.

You can use that to sell physical and digital products (though many people choose the next plugin in this section for digital products).

Beyond the Woo.. core plugin, there is a huge market of official and third-party extensions that can help you add all sorts of additional functions to your store.

Easy Digital Downloads

(EDD) focuses on the specific option of selling digital products. Easy Digital Downloads As the name implies, This is a great option if you sell products like:

• Digital photos
• Music files
• Software products (many WordPress developers sell plugins and designs using EDD)

Basically – everything that can be provided “transport” directly through the Internet!

Best Image Optimizer for WordPress

Smush Image Compression and Optimization

Smush Image Compression and Optimization is a popular plugin that helps you automatically or manually:

• Image compression
• Resize images

Smush allows you to optimize images indefinitely, albeit with two caveats:

• In the free version the compression method is lossless compression only
• 1 megabyte limit per file

If you would like to remove these restrictions, you can get the Pro version of Smush as part of a WPMU DEV Membership subscription program.

Imagify

Imagify is an easy-to-use image compression plugin for the same developers as WP Rocket. Can help you manually or automatically:

• Compression of the images you upload to your site in three different methods (including compression without loss of quality)
• Resize the actual dimensions of your photos to the maximum size you choose

Imagify is a free plugin up to 25 megabytes per month (~ 250 images). Thereafter, paid plans start at $ 4.99 for 1GB of data per month.

You can also purchase one-time programs, which are useful if you need to optimize your entire existing media library in large quantities.

For more information on How To Optimize Images For WordPress, you can read the article I wrote.

The best CRM plugins for WordPress

CRM, short for customer relationship management, helps you better understand your customers, which is important for almost any business.

Thanks to WordPress CRM plugins, you do not have to use an expensive external platform just to get to know your customers.

Jetpack CRM

Jetpack CRM, all based on simplicity and practicality – provides you with all the information you need to understand your customers without any interruptions in the way that may interfere.

This is great for e-commerce sites, agencies, start-ups, small businesses, and anyone else who wants to better manage customer relationships.

Best course plugins for WordPress

In recent years, online courses have exploded as an industry in itself, with endless talented instructors selling courses in almost anything!

LMS plugins – short for learning management systems – can help you monetize your courses using WordPress.

LearnDash

LearnDash is a popular LMS plugin used by both large universities – such as the University of Michigan – and smaller digital entities – such as WP Elevation and Pro Blogger.

It helps you create detailed online courses, which include gameplay, engagement, and content.

Whether you want to create free courses or get paid and monetize your courses directly, LearnDash has the functionality it needs.

LifterLMS

LifterLMS is another high-quality WordPress LMS plugin that you can use to create courses. It is especially popular on WordPress sites. For example, it is used by both WP101 and Divi Academy.

Unlike the previous LearnDash plugin, the LifterLMS plugin is essentially free and can be downloaded from WordPress.org which you can expand with a variety of plugins such as:

• Social learning
• Advanced quizzes
• Tasks
• payment options
• And more.

The best forum plugins for WordPress

Want to create a discussion area on your WordPress site? So you need one of these forum plugins!

bbPress

Originally launched in 2004 as a solution for the WordPress Support Forum, bbPress is the WordPress forum plugin. In fact, even today it is still used in WordPress.org support forums, so this is the best demo you will get!

BbPress’ goal has always been to stay lightweight, so there are not a lot of features at its core. But because it is so popular and has been around for so long, you can find many useful extensions if you want more functionality.

The plugin is also supported by Automattic, so you can be sure it will not disappear anytime soon.

BuddyPress

BuddyPress is another plugin supported by Automattic that can help you add a forum to your WordPress. Unlike bbPress, it does not just focus on forums – it is built to help you create whole online communities.

Of course, as part of this, you can include forums. And you can even combine BuddyPress and bbPress together to create a forum with more detailed user profile functionality.

Best Donations Plugins for WordPress

If you run a non-profit WordPress site, or just want to get donations as part of your site, there are some great donation plugins that can help you get one-time donations or run full fundraising campaigns.

GiveWP

Give is a free plugin with a variety of paid extensions. According to the numbers, it is the most popular plugin for donation to WordPress.

In the free version, custom donation forms can be built directly in the WordPress Dashboard. You can even add goals and let donors choose between pre-set or customized amounts.

To run your campaign, you can view detailed information about donation activity directly through the control panel. And even manage your donors and offer them tax-deductible receipts.

For more functionality, you can find a variety of premium additions to features such as:

• Repeat donations
• Additional payment rates
• Tax receipts in PDF
• And much more

Charitable

After Give, the Charitable plugin is the next popular donation plugin you will find on WordPress.org. It works according to a similar payment model – a free plugin with paid expansion options.

In the free version, you can set up custom donation forms for unlimited campaigns. Add donation targets (including time-sensitive dates), and visitors can choose between pre-set amounts or enter their own amounts.

On the back, you can manage your donor activity and create receipts for donations automatically.

For more functionality, you can purchase paid add-ons for features like:

• Repeat donations
• Fellow recruitment campaigns
• Additional payment rates
• And more.

Best Subscription plugins for WordPress

Membership / subscription sites allow you to manage friends and what content is available to different types of members… plus a host of other small features! To create a subscription site, you will need a dedicated plugin.

Ultimate Membership Pro

Ultimate Membership Pro helps you create a fully functional membership site. Users can be allowed to sign up for free or require to pay a one-time or recurring subscription.

Beyond that, you also have a variety of options for restricting content on your site, including the option to “drip” content to friends at a pre-set schedule.

There are a lot of options here, so you will need to check out the full list of features if you want to know all that this plugin can do.

Subscriptions for WooCommerce

This WooCommerce subscriptions plugin lets you easily scale your WooCommerce site into a subscription model. You can sell both simple and variable subscriptions using the plugin.

Plus there are many other features like below that lets you run a successful subscription business.

• Supports both simple and variable subscriptions
• Offer free-trial of custom interval
• Set up sign-up fee
• Schedule sale price to reflect on custom intervals

Best quiz plugins for WordPress

If you want to create a fun BuzzFeed-style quiz or a more serious survey, one of these quiz plugins can help you get the job done.

Quiz And Survey Master

In keeping with its name, Quiz And Survey Master helps you create all kinds of quizzes and surveys on the site.

A variety of questions can be combined such as:

• Multiple choice
• True and false
• Open answer
• A scroll is selected
• Fill in the blanks
• A number

And every quiz you create can have unlimited results pages, depending on how the respondents answered. You can even allow people to share their results on social media to help your quiz go viral.

Poll, Survey & Quiz by OpinionStage

Stage Opinion allows you to create professional quizzes along with surveys.

One of its greatest strengths is the ease of use. You can start from scratch or use one of the hundreds of pre-made templates to get started in minutes.

The plugin allows you to create personality quizzes or trivia (knowledge), and you are able to define a score and a result of success. They look beautiful and will definitely stand out on your site. Plus, you can fully customize their look so that they fit the site perfectly.

It includes analysis tools that will help track the outcome and performance of your quizzes and optimize them for maximum reach and success.

The best PDF plugins for WordPress

If you need to view PDF files or embedded documents on your WordPress site, these two PDF extensions will be of great help.

PDF Embedder

PDF Embedder is a simple way to embed PDF files in your WordPress site. It uses JavaScript, instead of iFrames. And your visitors will be able to use the next / previous buttons to navigate through your PDF documents. They can also switch to full screen reading without distractions.

WooCommerce PDF Invoices, Packing Slips, Delivery Notes & Shipping Labels

This WooCommerce PDF invoices is a great solution to meet all the shipping related needs of your store. It comes with both its free and premium versions.

While the free version lets you automatically generate invoice, shipping labels, packing slips, delivery notes, etc., the pro version of the WooCommerce invoice plugin lets you generate additional documents including, pick lists, credit notes, proforma invoices, etc.

All these documents are fully customizable to meet your customer specific needs. Customization can be done by using a dynamic customizer for invoice documents and a code editor available for those who want to do advanced customization by editing code.

The best age blocking plugins for WordPress

Age Gate

Age Gate offers functionality similar to Age Verify, but with a more sleek design.

You can choose the minimum age of the site users, as well as whether to apply age verification to all content or only to some content.

The existing designs right out of the box look great. And you will also get some more advanced features that allow you to:

• Add an age test to the registration form
• Option for users to select the ‘Remember me’ box
• Ignore logged in users
• Blocking the visibility of verification from search engines

The best project management plugins for WordPress

Did you know that you can use WordPress to manage your work or the projects of your business? All you need is a project management plugin!

WP Project Manager

WP Project Manager is a freemium project management plugin with a wide list of features. The free version, allows you to manage unlimited projects that will help you navigate a safe route.

For each project, users can send back and forth messages and use to-do lists and milestones to stay organized.

And with paid additions, you can add design boards like ‘Kanban’, Gantt charts, time tracking, and more.

Best Download Management Plugin for WordPress

Want to allow users to download files from your site, but with more restrictions than just publicly hosting the files for everyone to use? If so, one of these WordPress Download Manager plugins can help give you a little more control.

WordPress Download Manager

The WordPress download manager helps you both upload files and determine who can download those files later.

On the upload front, the plugin allows you to support uploading parts of files so that you can bypass the maximum upload limit of your site for extra large files. And you can also connect to cloud storage providers to store your files there.

You can then determine who can download your files using options like:

• Category access control
• Password protection
• CAPTCHA PROTECTION
• IP blocking
• And more

Download Monitor

Download Monitor allows you to manage your downloadable content as a type of custom post. You can easily insert downloads into your other content. And you can also track download counts and / or restrict downloads only to registered users.

The best backup plugins for WordPress

If your site is not hosted on a site that offers automated backups as we provide, you need a WordPress backup plugin to maintain your site’s data security.

ManageWP Worker

ManageWP Worker helps make managing your WordPress sites easier. Some of these “facilitations” are their premium cloud backup service.

In the free version you can back up your sites to an off-site location on a monthly basis (which is too slow for a busy site). But for a fee, however, you can get access to on-demand backups as well as weekly, daily, or hourly backup cycles.

The best lead generation plugins for WordPress

If you want to build an email mailing list, you need a lead generation plugin to help you do that. Here are two of the best.

OptinMonster

OptinMonster helps you create a variety of interactive forms for your WordPress site using the Drag and Drop Editor. Beyond that, the plugin is known for the detailed functionality it allows you to focus on and through the activation of the forms, as well as easy A / B testing that will help you optimize these forms.

Although a standalone SaaS platform, OptinMonster originally started as a WordPress plugin.

It still maintains a dedicated WordPress plugin that allows you to manage your campaigns from within the WordPress control panel.

MailOptin

The MailOptin plugin offers motivation for actions, email selection forms, “strip” alerts, WordPress pop-ups, and a newsletter feature.

It is a sophisticated plugin for WordPress leads, customer recruitment, and a marketing package wrapped in one package. Can create forms with Elementor and combine them with MailOptin.

MailOptin’s LeadBank feature stores lead along with vital data such as conversion time and where the conversion took place.

And in short, you get a lot more information than regular lead supplements.

Best Advertising Plugins for WordPress

If you are looking for an easier way to place and manage ads on your WordPress site, choosing a dedicated advertising plugin can save you time and solve new possibilities.

Ad Inserter

Inserter Ad is a flexible plugin that allows you to “inject” a variety of different types of ads almost anywhere on your WordPress site. You can insert ads at specific points, or use random criteria like ‘random paragraph’.

You can also swap rotating ads to see the statistics and performance of different ads, plus lots of other useful features.

The best Code plugins for WordPress

Are you one of those people who constantly add snippets of code to a site? These supplements can make your life easier!

Code Snippets

Code Snippets give you a user-friendly interface to add all the snippets of code you would previously add to the function.php file of your site template.

It is helpful for two reasons:

• Each code snippet is separate, so you can enable / disable individual snippets of text as needed.
• The code snippets will stay with you even if you ever change a design template.

Head, Footer and Post Injections

Head, Footer and Post Injections is a plugin very similar to the previous one, but it focuses on adding snippets of code in designated places:

• Header
• Footer
• Contents of the posts

This is useful both for embedding ads and for adding all kinds of scripts to your site title, such as Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager.

The best spam treatment plugins for WordPress

Because of the popularity of WordPress, God sites are a juicy destination for spammers all over the world. But by using one of these anti-spam plugins, you can stop most spam.

Akismet

Akismet is the godfather of anti-spam (spam) plugins. Developed by Automattic, the plugin has been around since the beginning of WordPress and is even installed automatically on every new WordPress, and of course, it does a great job of filtering out most spam.

You will need an API code to use it through registration. On non-commercial sites, it can be used for free, but for commercial use, you will have to pay.

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What do you think are the best plugins for WordPress?

But what about you? If you had to recommend the best WordPress plugins, which plugins would you add? Send us a message, let us know and we will be happy to hear your opinion.