Best WordPress Plugins
With the right suite of plugins integrated into your backend, you can significantly (and instantly) improve the functionality, aesthetics, and efficiency of your site for you and your viewers.
However, with the myriad of options available to the average webmaster, the challenge of finding the best WordPress plugins may seem almost impossible.
After all, it only takes a single line of code or a choppy installation to turn your once beautiful and elegant website into a mess of nonsensical code, wacky themes, and broken functionality.
Do not worry.
We’ve done everything necessary for you, installing and testing countless WordPress plugins to determine once and for all those that are worth your time and those that are not.
So without further ado, here is our list of the 12 best WordPress plugins for 2020.
1. Contact Form 7
If you need a plugin that will allow you to create and manage multiple contact forms easily, use the reCaptcha check and make sure all spam submissions are filtered with Askimet (more on them in a second), then Contact Form 7 is the last WordPress plugin you will need.
This simple plugin allows you to skip any additional coding so that you can quickly create and publish beautiful contact forms that will blow up your inbox by your users.
With more than 5 million active installations, 1,100 5-star reviews, and the free low price, we can promise you that you won’t find any better contact form plugin anywhere on the interwebs.
Get contact form 7 at WordPress.org
2. Yoast SEO
When it comes to page search engine optimization, few plugins can shine a candle at the efficiency and functionality of Yoast SEO.
Assuming you have already done basic keyword research, the Yoast plugin will guide you step by step through the process of optimizing your new content for search engines.
From the density of your target keyword to the optimization of your title and H2 tags, essential readability, and metadata, Yoast SEO makes search engine optimization on the page so easy that a man of caves could do it.
You can download the free version here or click here to learn more about the premium Yoast plugin.
3. Akismet Anti-Spam
Akismet Anti-Spam is the only plugin you will need to keep spammers at bay and maintain the long-term integrity of your site.
The plugin examines and filters all comments shared on your website, providing a status history for each so that you can determine which words have been found spammed by Askimet or the moderator.
You can also view the number of comments approved for each user, consider the URLs in the body of the word, and remove any unhelpful links you might find.
The best part? Askimet is free to download and use for all personal sites, and the premium version costs money on the dollar, allowing you to keep your site beautiful and spam-free regardless of your budget.
4. WooCommerce
For those of you who have chosen a slightly less conventional path with your e-commerce adventure (aka using Shopify), eCommerce is the most open source e-commerce platform for webmasters.
With a plethora of features, extensions, and customizations built into the platform, WooCommerce makes it easier to sell your WordPress site than ever before.
From a plethora of themes (each one comes with unlimited customization) to the ability to sell physical, digital, and authorized products to countless conversion optimization tools, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a single plugin that can match WooCommer in terms of user-friendliness or pricing. (Only $ 12.95 / month for their most advanced package).
Get WooCommerce from WooCommerce.com
5. TinyMCE Advanced
If you’ve always wanted to track real-time traffic details from your website without logging in or accessing the Google Analytics website, then Google Analytics Dashboard for WP is the plugin you’re looking for.
This simple and free plugin allows you to add, remove and rearrange the buttons displayed in the Visual Editor toolbar, which will enable you to configure up to four rows of buttons that include (but are certainly not limited to) font sizes, font family, text/background colors, tables and much more.
With one click, TinyMCE allows you to dramatically streamline and simplify your WordPress backend experience, which means you can focus on what you do best and leave all the “button searching” behind.
6. WordFence Security
With the spread of cyber attacks and website hacks in 2018, website security is more important than ever
With a free and paid version, WordFence Protection gives you access to several tools, including:
Verification and repair of original WordPress files.
Malware, virus, and backdoor analysis.
A firewall that includes speed-limiting blocking fake Google bots, IP whitelisting, and IP blocking.
Real-time traffic, including Google crawlers, RSS readers, and all other robots and robots.
Warnings and email alerts for critical issues.
Protection against piracy by brutal force.
And much more.
If you are concerned about the security and integrity of your website, then WordFence Security will keep you safe, knowing that your website is in good hands as well as Alstate customers.
7. Google XML Sitemaps
Another useful SEO plugin for WordPress, Google XML Sitemap helps search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo (people still use it, doesn’t it?) To index your website better with a special XML sitemap.
As soon as you install and activate the plugin, it automatically creates an XML sitemap that allows search engine bots to easily view, crawl and index your site so you can get a boost in your ranking and some additional SEO Juice. ” for the coming years.
8. WP Super Cache
In 2020, the speed of your website is paramount. And with WP Super Cache, you can quickly and painlessly increase the raw speed of your website.
This plugin generates static HTML files from your dynamic WordPress site, which means that the web server will use this file instead of processing the heavier PHP scripts.
With its nominal price and its ease of configuration, WP Super Cache is an essential plugin for any webmaster. Who is seeking to increase the speed of its site and take advantage of it?
9. Google Analytics Dashboard for WP by ExactMetrics
If you wanted to track real-time traffic details from your website, attempting to navigate the Google Analytics website. Google Analytics Dashboard for WP by Exact Metrics is the plugin you were looking for.
This plugin allows you to monitor not only real-time traffic statistics and acquisition channels but also:
Sessions, organic searches, page views, bounce rate analysis statistics
Locations, pages, referrers, keywords, 404 error analysis statistics
Traffic channels, social networks, traffic media, search engine analysis statistics
Device categories, browsers, operating systems, screen resolutions, mobile brand analysis statistics
And, as it’s free for personal and commercial sites, you have nothing to lose by clicking download and trying.
10. UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin
Nothing is more frustrating for the average webmaster than the prospect of losing their work due to faulty updates. It can be anything.
Fortunately, with UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup, the world’s popular scheduled backup plugin, you can put those fears and frustrations away.
All you have to do is click on “install,” and all your data is correctly backed up in the cloud.
11. Elementor Page Builder
If the Divi Builder and BoldGrid had an original idea that was converted to a WordPress plugin, the Elementor Page Builder would be.
Elementor Page builder is one of the most influential and easy-to-use WordPress page creation plugins on the market today.
At just $ 50 / year for a single website, Elementor will allow you to create great pages professionally.
12. Smush Image Compression and Optimization
Nothing will stop your website or slow your load times faster than large and unoptimized images.
Fortunately, with Smush Image Compression and Optimization, you can compress, resize, and optimize all the images on your website.
Find out why Smush Image Compression and Optimization is considered the best free image compression plugin.
