11 Must-Have WordPress Plugins For Your Website

WordPress isn’t just a content management system – it’s a powerhouse with over 60,000 plugins ready to up your site’s performance and functionality. But let’s be honest: with so many options, it can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. How do you know which plugins are worth your time?

To help you out, we’ve put together a list of 11 must-have WordPress plugins that will equip your site with the features it needs to succeed. Whether you’re optimizing the backend, enhancing the design, or improving SEO rankings, these plugins have you covered.

11 Must-Have WordPress Plugins

Discover the most essential plugins for WordPress, handpicked by our expert developers, that can enhance all types of websites, from online stores to personal blogs.

1. Build Custom Pages with Elementor

While WordPress allows you to create websites without coding and simplifies much of the backend work, it does have limitations in terms of building blocks, theme templates, and overall design flexibility. To address this, Elementor, a popular website and page builder, integrates with WordPress to offer powerful drag-and-drop visual editing and enhanced web-building capabilities.

With Elementor, your webpage transforms into a canvas where you can add, move, and style elements in real-time. It provides a wide array of widgets and templates for crafting professional-looking pages. Additionally, you can apply custom CSS to entire pages or individual elements, which is particularly useful for integrating tracking codes from tools like Facebook Pixel or Google Analytics into headers or footers.

Unlike many plugins that offer limited features in their free versions, Elementor’s free version is generous with functionality, allowing you to create a simple, yet functional website. If you need additional features beyond what the plugin offers, its extensive ecosystem of third-party extensions allows you to further enhance your website’s appearance and capabilities.

Pricing (freemium): 

• The basic version of Elementor is available in the WordPress plugin repository for free.
• Elementor also provides premium features in tiered subscriptions, starting at $59 per year.

Key features include:

• Dedicated landing page tool
• Popup builder
• Floating buttons
• Revision history
• Zapier and WooCommerce integration

2. Create Contact Forms with WPForms

Contact forms are an essential addition to any WordPress site because they allow your visitors to easily get in touch with you. Beyond facilitating communication, they help you build relationships and foster trust with your visitors, making your site feel more personal and approachable. While WordPress doesn’t include built-in form functionality, WPForms fills this gap effectively.

WPForms is a popular drag-and-drop form builder that lets you add any type of form to your website – feedback forms, payment forms, you name it. The plugin includes over 2,000 professionally designed templates that are fully optimized for all devices and comply with GDPR regulations. You can also convert any form into a landing page to increase conversions, and it offers customizable permalinks for easy promotion across social media, email, and other marketing channels.

Additionally, WPForms comes with various addons that allow you to track the customer journey of your website visitors, enable user registration, and much more. 

Pricing (freemium): 

• The basic version, WPForms Lite, is available in the WordPress plugin repository for free.
• WPForms also offers premium features in tiered subscriptions, starting at $99 per year.

Key features: 

• Built-in spam protection
• Collection of visitors’ geolocation data
• Auto-save of partially completed forms 
• Offline forms for submission collection without internet
• Custom form confirmations with success messages or thank you pages

3. Restrict Content with Ultimate Member 

Now that you’ve built your website – whether it’s a blog, an online store, or a community forum – and you’re happy with the results, you might want to restrict access to certain areas in exchange for a fee. Ultimate Member provides everything you need to manage memberships, subscriptions, and member-exclusive content seamlessly.

With Ultimate Membership, you can establish multiple membership levels, each featuring its own pricing, rules, and benefits. This flexibility enables you to tailor your offerings to suit the unique needs of your audience, whether you’re providing a single product subscription, a tiered content access system, or a combination of both.

Moreover, the plugin is fully integrated with WooCommerce, making it an ideal solution for online business owners who want to provide special pricing, discounts, or exclusive products to their members.

Pricing (freemium):

• The basic version of Ultimate Member is available in the WordPress plugin repository for free.
• Ultimate Member also provides premium features in tiered subscriptions, starting at $249 per year.

Key features:

• Flexible membership plans
• Hassle-free subscription management
• Content restriction
• Automated recurring payments
• Insightful membership reports

4. Fortify Your Site with SiteGround’s Security Optimizer 

A website owner’s worst fears – such as a damaged reputation, loss of traffic, and poor SEO rankings – can become a reality if security measures are lacking. To prevent this from happening, consider safeguarding your WordPress site with the Security Optimizer plugin, developed by the experts at SiteGround and trusted by over 1,000,000 users worldwide.

The plugin brings together all essential security features for your WordPress site into one user-friendly package, eliminating the need for multiple plugins. It covers advanced login protection, firewall configuration, and activity monitoring. Additionally, It secures your site by safeguarding critical system folders, blocking unauthorized access, and tracking all activity for suspicious behavior. If a breach occurs, the detailed activity logs help you quickly understand what happened and take action to fix it.

The Security Optimizer plugin is compatible with every hosting provider, and it comes preinstalled with all new WordPress installations hosted at SiteGround. 

Pricing: free 

Key features:

• Disabling of XML-RPC, RSS, and ATOM feeds
• Enabling of advanced XSS protection
• Limitation of login access and attempts
• Creation of custom login URL
• Enabling of two-factor authentication (2FA) for admins and editors
• Monitoring of visits, bots, and login attempts
• Blocking of suspicious IPs

5. Combat Spam Effectively with Akismet

All websites are targets for bots that scour the internet, attempting to send spam through comments and form submissions. The Akismet plugin, a cloud-based application, filters spam on your WordPress site without using your server resources. Developed by Automattic, the company behind WordPress, the plugin has been downloaded over six million times.

Akismet tackles spam through two primary methods. First, it analyzes comments and form submissions by comparing them to its extensive database of known spam entries. Second, it assesses user behavior on your web pages to distinguish between humans and spambots.  

When spam is detected, Akismet either automatically blocks it or moves it to the WordPress spam folder for you to review, ensuring that your forms do not store any spam entries.

Pricing (freemium): 

• The basic version of Akismet is available in the WordPress plugin repository for free, but only for small non-commercial websites.
• For commercial websites, Akismet offers premium features in tiered subscriptions, starting at $8.33 per month when billed annually.

Key features: 

• Automatic comment spam filtering
• Comment status history tracking
• URL visibility in comment body
• Moderator view of approved comment counts
• Discard feature for blocking severe spam

6. Maximize Performance with SiteGround’s Speed Optimizer

You’ve likely experienced the frustration of a slow-loading website as a user. But as a website owner, it’s important to know that every extra second a page takes to load can lower your conversion rates by an average of 7%. Additionally, Google factors site speed into its ranking algorithm, so a slow-loading website can negatively affect your SEO score.

But no need to worry, with SiteGround’s award-winning Speed Optimizer plugin, you can instantly boost your WordPress site’s speed and performance without installing multiple plugins. It optimizes all aspects of your site, from streamlining code and files for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and fonts to reducing image sizes by up to 85% without compromising quality.

Moreover, it executes WordPress Heartbeat control and scheduled database maintenance, ensuring that no unnecessary backend queries consume resources needed for more critical tasks. The plugin also includes built-in caching, enabling the server to deliver pre-generated pages to visitors instead of generating them dynamically each time, eliminating the need for additional caching addons.

The Speed Optimizer plugin is compatible with any hosting provider, but SiteGround users benefit from additional features like dynamic and object caching, and image compression.

Pricing: free

Key features:

• File-based caching
• Minification of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• Defer render-blocking JavaScript
• Font optimization
• Advanced lazy loading for media
• Enforce HTTPS
• GZIP compression

7. Stay Compliant with iubenda

Websites nowadays have to adhere to a broad range of legal and data protection requirements. While there are many plugins available to help websites meet these compliance standards, choosing a trustworthy one can be challenging. The iubenda plugin offers a comprehensive, user-friendly compliance solution developed with input from legal experts.

The plugin supports GDPR, UK-GDPR, ePrivacy, LGPD, CPRA/CCPA, CalOPPA, PECR, and other regulatory documents. Additionally, its built-in site scanner regularly checks your site and notifies you if any compliance updates are necessary. It also detects and blocks third-party scripts like Google Analytics, Facebook, and PayPal, ensuring these services don’t operate without user consent.

Furthermore, iubenda integrates with Google Consent Mode and IAB’s TCF, providing a standardized approach to managing consent across different platforms. It also enables users to manage their preferences by category giving them greater control over their data.

Pricing (freemium): 

• The basic version of iubenda is available in the WordPress plugin repository for free.
• Iubenda also provides premium features through tiered subscriptions starting at $5.99 a month per site or application when billed annually.

Key features:

• Fully customizable privacy and cookie policy
• CCPA notice with functional DNSMPI link
• Auto-detection of user location 
• Generation of professional Terms and Conditions
• One-click translation of all documents (in 10 languages only)

8. Improve Your Organic Reach with Yoast SEO

Writing captivating content is only half the battle; the next challenge is getting people to see it. Instead of paying per click for search ads in Google’s sponsored section, you can use search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to help your website rank organically for intent-based searches. While WordPress already provides some built-in SEO features, you can take it up a notch with Yoast SEO.

Yoast SEO handles the technical aspects of SEO while also offering tips on creating valuable content. It does so by featuring an inclusive language analysis tool that helps your content resonate with diverse audiences You can also preview how your content will appear on search engine result pages (SERPs), and optimize different elements like meta titles, descriptions, and URL slugs in real-time.

The structure of your website also plays a significant role in your SEO ranking. Fortunately, Yoast SEO provides guidelines for organizing your content and includes a dedicated breadcrumb block to help both Google and users navigate your site more easily. Additionally, with a regular two-week update cycle, the plugin ensures you stay current with the latest developments and updates from search engines.

Pricing: 

• The basic version of Yoast SEO is available in the WordPress plugin repository for free.
• Yoast SEO also provides premium features in tiered subscriptions, starting at $99 per year. 

Key features:

• Frontend SEO inspector
• Advanced XML sitemap configurations
• Schema.org structured data integration
• SEO ranking tracking
• Internal link counter

9. Transform Visitors into Leads with SiteGround’s Lead Generation 

A WordPress site without a lead generation plugin is like a store without a front door – visitors may pass by, but they won’t easily become customers. Such a tool helps you transform casual visitors into email subscribers and, eventually, into devoted customers

With SiteGround’s Lead Generation plugin the process of setting up and managing email marketing forms is a breeze. It allows you to create professional, highly customizable forms that align with your branding. The plugin also adds a subscription checkbox to contact forms, sign-up forms, and comment sections. When selected, this option adds the user to your email marketing leads. 

And when it comes to retaining these leads, SiteGround Email Marketing allows you to  easily create and send email campaigns, targeting different segments of your audience. The platform also offers customizable and mobile-friendly pre-built templates, an AI image and copywriting assistant, unlimited sign-up forms, built-in DKIM and SPF authentication to keep your emails out of spam folders, and more cool features.

❗Keep in mind that although you don’t need to host your website with SiteGround to use the Lead Generation plugin, you will need to purchase SiteGround’s Email Marketing service.

Pricing: 

• While the Lead Generation plugin is available in the WordPress plugin repository for free, the SiteGround email marketing service is a paid offering, currently available at an 80% discount.

Key features:

• Customizable forms
• Responsive design
• Integration with WPForms, Ninja Forms, Gravity Forms and many more

10. Track Analytics with MonsterInsights

Understanding how visitors perceive and interact with your website can help you address areas for improvement, ultimately increasing your traffic and sales. With over three million active installations, MonsterInsights is the one of the most recognizable Google Analytics plugins for WordPress. 

MonsterInsights enables you to link your WordPress site with your Google Analytics account, offering insights into your visitors’ behavior. Additionally, it presents all the essential statistics directly in your WordPress dashboard through intuitive, easy-to-read reports.

While the lite version of MonsterInsights lets you track basic analytics, such as audience demographics, file downloads, and outbound link clicks, the premium version unlocks detailed reports, additional ecommerce tracking features and ad performance monitoring. Recently, the developers added a Conversations AI feature, allowing you to ask questions about your analytics and receive instant answers, facilitating quicker data analysis.

Pricing (freemium): 

• The basic version of MonsterInsights is available in the WordPress plugin repository for free.
• MonsterInsights also offers premium features in tiered subscriptions, starting at $99.60 per year.

Key features:

• Headline analyzer
• Customer funnel report 
• Affiliate link tracking
• Content report for visit statistics
• Landing page report for optimization needs

11. Build An Ecommerce Store with WooCommerce 

Whether you’re selling e-books or handmade jewelry, WooCommerce is an excellent choice. It is one of the most popular ecommerce platforms, managed by the developers behind WordPress. This means that you can manage all elements of your store from within your WordPress dashboard, plus benefit from regular updates that ensure optimized performance.

WooCommerce has many options for customization – from showing reviews and ratings, setting up tiered pricing, and allowing visitors to sort and filter products to find exactly what they need. It integrates seamlessly with various payment and shipping providers, as well as email and social media marketing tools, to streamline your operations. Additionally, WooCommerce is SEO-friendly and supports multiple languages and currencies, making it perfect for global businesses.

You can further enhance your store’s functionality with thousands of free and paid extensions from the official WooCommerce Marketplace. Moreover, a WooCommerce App is available for free for both iOS and Android.

Pricing: free

Key features: 

• 24 languages and various currencies
• Custom shipping solutions
• Extensive payment options with common payment providers
• Geo-location for tailored services
• Email templates tailored for customers at various stages
• Google Analytics and Yoast SEO integration

Final Thoughts on Must-Have WordPress Plugins

While some plugins are tailored to your site’s specific needs, many essential ones can benefit nearly any WordPress site. In this article, we’ve introduced the best plugins for WordPress – whether you’re aiming to improve your website loading time, enhance security, add more engaging features or streamline your workflow. 

You can always add more plugins to your WordPress site to expand its functionalities. However, make sure to download them from reliable sources such as the official WordPress repository, the developer’s website, or reputable third-party marketplaces. Prioritize plugins that are well-reviewed and frequently updated to ensure better security and minimize compatibility issues.

Also, don’t overlook your hosting platform, as it plays a crucial role in ensuring smooth operation. SiteGround offers Managed WordPress hosting plans for up to 400,000 monthly visits. These plans feature easy setup, ultrafast PHP, custom MySQL, SSL certificates, and three-layer caching, all enhancing performance, capacity, and security.

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WordPress Plugins FAQs

What Should Be Considered When Choosing a WordPress Plugin?

Ideally, you want to choose a plugin that meets your specific needs, comes from a reputable developer, offers responsive support, fits within your budget, and is compatible with recent WordPress versions.

How Do I Install a WordPress Plugin?

There are three ways you can install a WordPress plugin: automatically, from a file or manually. The WordPress dashboard contains a dedicated Plugins section where you can add, remove and manage the plugins. We’ve prepared a tutorial for you to guide you through the process of installing plugins on your WordPress site.

Which Is Better: Paid vs. Free WordPress Plugins?

We can’t definitively say one is better than the other, as the choice between paid and free plugins largely depends on your budget and needs. Free plugins can be useful but often focus on basic functionality that can be limiting. In contrast, premium plugins, which require payment, offer more advanced features that may be needed by your website in order to be more secure, load faster, offer better user experience, among other benefits. 

How Many WordPress Plugins Are Too Many?

On average, a medium-sized WordPress website has around 20-25 plugins. If your hosting server is powerful and you use stable and reliable plugins, your website should be able to handle more. However, avoid bloating your site with redundant or useless features, as this can have a negative effect on your speed and performance. 

Do I Need a Backup Plugin?

You may not need to install a WordPress backup plugin if your web host meets all your backup needs. Many hosting providers, including SiteGround, offer built-in backup features accessible directly from your control panel.