WordPress plugins help improve the use experience and allow you to run your website efficiently by simplifying tasks and processes. With thousands of plugins available on the official WordPress store, webmasters may find it difficult to choose the best one,In this topic, we suggest to you a set of premium and free WordPress plugins that we believe are necessary additions for most sites, however you can choose the plugin according to the nature of the site and the tasks you need, as we have indicated there is an ample amount of plugins available for download.
But before you choose any add-on, you should check some criteria so as not to cause the site to crash, errors or conflict with other add-ons. We recommend that you always check for active downloads, the higher the number, the better. It is important to check user reviews of the add-on you intend to download as well as look at the frequency of updates for the add-on. If you find an add-on that hasn't been updated in several years, try to get another alternative. Finally, it is a good idea to check that the plugin is compatible with the version of WordPress you are using.
It is important to note that the following list includes WordPress plugins that we think you should install on any type of site, be it blogs, stores, personal sites, and others. We have tested all of these plugins with the latest WordPress version to check features and compatibility and they all work very well and we have verified that the selected plugins have been updated recently and within a period of no more than 3 months.
Top 10 WordPress plugins we recommend to use
Add TablePress to create tables
Creating tables in WordPress can be a complicated issue for those who do not have enough technical experience, but the TablePress extension makes the process of creating tables very simple and makes you treat the tables as if you were using an Excel sheet and all you have to do is fill the rows and columns with the content you want. The extension is completely free with a rating of 5/5 and over 800,000 active downloads.
One of the great advantages of this add-on is that it allows you to import or export tables from an Excel file, so if you want to use data stored on your computer in your next article, the process will only take minutes.
Add UpdraftPlus for Backup
Nobody wants things to go wrong on their website, but with WordPress sudden problems are often inevitable. This is the primary reason why it is important to create regular backups of your website, allowing you to restore lost data or downgrade in the event of a sudden crash or glitch.
With over 3 million downloads to date, UpdraftPlus is one of the best WordPress backup plugins with which you can create and restore backups in one click, schedule routine backups, and export backups to cloud storage services like Google Drive or Dropbox.
Yoast SEO plugin for SEO
Yoast SEO is one of the most popular WordPress plugins, it makes it easy to optimize posts and pages to rank higher in search engines. The extension analyzes your content for both readability and keywords, so you can balance high-quality content with your SEO criteria. The extension helps you provide an article description, choose keywords, create proper XML sitemaps, connect your site to Search Console, optimize it for social media, and more.
We also recommend All in One SEO as one of the best alternatives to Yoast as it is overseen by a team of innovators who keep adding new SEO features to help you improve your site's ranking in search engines.
Add WPForms to create forms
The WPForms extension allows you to create beautiful contact forms, feedback forms, subscription forms, payment forms, and other types of forms for your site in minutes. The extension comes with pre-made form templates to help you save time, and you can add, remove, or rearrange fields as necessary. The free version provides you with the possibility to take advantage of a limited number of forms such as the contact form, and if you want to get more advanced forms, you have to rely on the paid version.
If you want to add to activate a contact form quickly and easily, you can instead rely on Contact Form 7 which focuses on creating multiple contact forms with the ability to flexibly customize the form and mail contents using simple code.
Add Elementor to build pages
WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems due to the nature of the open source platform, which focuses on editorial features such as posting articles. Elementor opens the door to more functionality and capabilities for WordPress by providing a page builder system with drag and drop functionality so that users can customize their pages and posts in no time. The extension offers more than 100 pre-made page templates to start any type of website with dozens of options for user interface elements such as social media icons, images, videos, titles, maps, audio files, ratings, progress bar, buttons, and more.
WooCommerce Ecommerce Add-on
Best free ecommerce plugin for wordpress. The extension provides basic e-commerce functionality such as storefront creation, product listing, order management, etc. It also supports major credit cards and integration with 140 different payment gateways. Managing your online store with WooCommerce is easy due to the integration of your dashboard as well as the WordPress dashboard. All you have to do is use the dashboard sidebar to manage products, orders, reports, and more.
Added LiteSpeed Cache to manage cache
WordPress caching is essential to ensure the best performance of your website. LiteSpeed Cache extension is one of the best free solution for effective cache management as it is easy to use addon.
The extension offers many powerful caching control features such as registered users, PHP resources, login page, clear cache for specific URLs, caching tools for site acceleration, and more.
Redirection add-on to manage redirection
A very useful add-on that helps you manage 301 redirects, track 404 error pages, and reduce redirect errors, which helps boost your site's ranking. The most unique feature of the extension is the ability to create a custom redirect such as redirecting if the user is using a specific browser or if the user visits the link from another page, etc., along with basic operations such as redirecting when the permalink is changed.
Add Wordfence Security for security and protection
Wordfence is the most popular WordPress security plugin. The extension provides an integrated approach to protection and security including firewall activation, malware scanning, vulnerability detection, and more. The extension offers a host of other security features such as enabling two-factor authentication, a captcha-supported login page, blocking logins for administrators using known compromised passwords, and other security features.
Add Site Kit by Google to Google services
The official Google add-on for the WordPress platform that allows you to activate and link Google services to your WordPress site, including the Google Analytics service, through which you can get insights and reports on how users find your site and how they interact with it.
In addition, you can activate the Google AdSense service to generate revenue on your website, as well as link the site with the Search Console service, which helps you track the number of people who viewed your site in search results, and what search queries they used to search for your site. All you need to do is download the extension, log in with your Google account, and add your website.