Hands Down, the Best Plugins for WordPress

When it comes to designing and setting up a WordPress website, the possibilities are truly endless.

There are so many customizations you can make and sometimes the choices can be a bit overwhelming.

Especially when it comes to choosing the best plugins for WordPress.

Plugins are great because they add a ton of functionality to your site in a snap. But, of course, some plugins are better than others.

We’ve tried many plugins over the years and have narrowed our list of favorites down to 10. So, in order to save you the headache of searching the Internet for yourself, here’s our list of the 10 best plugins for WordPress – enjoy!

1. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is amazingly useful and extremely powerful plugin that we use on pretty much all of the website we create. Not only does it help you set up your site map and all of the basic SEO features, but it also helps you to create optimized content for blog posts and web pages. And over time this feature can really help your website rank for different keywords. It’s super simple to set up, plus it’s free to get started.

2. Gravity Forms

Gravity Forms is probably our favorite for building forms on websites. Not only does it save a ton of time, but it also allows you to store submissions that you receive from the forms and set up notifications so that you never miss a lead. We’ve used Gravity Forms for everything from simple contact forms to robust order/quote pages – the possibilities are endless. It isn’t free, but it’s definitely worth the price.

3. Ninja Forms

Ninja Forms takes a close second to Gravity Forms when it comes to form building plugins. The functionality is quite similar to Gravity Forms with only some small differences. You can build as many forms as you want and keep track of the submissions you receive from each which is great for tracking leads over time. Ninja Forms is also free to set up on WordPress which is a bonus if you’re looking for a cheaper option.

4. Backup Buddy

Most people don’t think they need a backup of their WordPress site until it’s too late. While it would be great if nothing on the Internet ever broke, that reality just simply isn’t true. Backup Buddy is a great plugin to install on your site because it creates and stores automatic backups on a regular basis. This way, if something does ever happen to your site, you won’t have to start over from square one. It’s not free, but totally worth it in the long run.

5. Envira Gallery

Have you ever wondered how to set up a gallery page or section on your website? Well, if you don’t want to get too deep into the code, a gallery plugin can be a great – and functional – alternative. Enter Envira Gallery. You can easily create a beautiful gallery in seconds using Envira’s drag-and-drop technology, and it’s simple to move galleries around when you need to. Plus, it’s free to download and set up.

6. WP Smush

Site load speed plays a major part in the overall SEO of any website, and one of the main things that can slow your site down is huge images. It takes a long time for these images to render, causing your site to be incredibly slow and visitors to leave before they’ve really even had a chance to look around. WP Smush helps solve this issue by automatically condensing the images on your site, and therefore increasing load speed. It’s awesome!

7. Redirection

Redirection is truly a time-saver if there ever was one. Have you ever had a broken link on your website or needed to redirect one page to another? Traditionally this process is long and confusing, especially if you don’t know how to get into the code. However, with Redirection, you can redirect pages on your site in a snap. It’s incredibly simple and works really well. Plus, it’s free so you have nothing to lose here.

8. W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache is another great plugin for improving the load speed and overall performance of your website. Caching essentially allows your website’s data to be stored temporarily in a cache – or temporary storage location – so that everything loads quicker the next time a reader opens a page. This free plugin enables caching on your WordPress posts and pages, drastically improving load time, site performance, and even SEO results.

9. Really Simple SSL

Adding an SSL to your website can be an excellent way to increase the security of your site, and can even help to improve your SEO results. However, actually installing an SSL can be a bit of a headache. Really Simple SSL is a WordPress plugin that makes the SSL installation process a whole lot easier. You don’t need a ton of coding knowledge to set everything up – just install the plugin and follow the instructions provided.

10. Simple Social Icons

Connecting your website to your social media profiles is a great way to spread the word about your site and engage with people online. The Simple Social Icons plugin makes it incredibly easy to add social media buttons to the footer, header, or sidebar of your site so you can do just that. It’s also free and very easy to customize so you can create social media buttons that match your overall branding and colors.

What Are Your Favorite Plugins?

This list is really just the tip of the plugin iceberg. While these are plugins that we use on a regular basis, there are so many others out there that are probably equally as fantastic as these.

If you need any help picking the right plugins or have some of your own to add to the list definitely let us know – we’d love to hear from you!

The 10 Best Plugins for WordPress