This post is inspired by Katy from Chaos & Kiddos. I’m sharing what I consider to be the top 65 WordPress plugins but first to answer what are my must-have WordPress plugins? The tweet that started it all:
So true @BlendedMarriage! What are your must-have @WordPress plugins? #sitsblogging
— Katy Blevins (@chaosandkiddos) July 19, 2014
Katy just recently made the switch from Blogger to WordPress and said that the sheer amount of plugins and what they can do blows her mind. I completely understand her enthusiasm. Plugins indeed are neat little things and one of the best things about WordPress.
However, not all plugins are made equal, and some are better than others. I mentioned the importance of keeping your plugins up to date, and as Katy from ExperiencedBadMom (totally different Katy than the one who initiated this post!) suggested waiting a day or two after the initial update release since she had a negative experience with rushed updates.
There is always a debate going around in WordPress circles: “How many plugins is too many?” I know some bloggers who run around 50ish plugins on their site and have no issues. I know a few who barely run 20 and have huge problems. I know some WordPress developers who frown upon you if you have more than 10 plugins installed.
There is no magic answer to this question. It depends on too many factors: What kind of site are you running? A simple blog? A full blown company management site? A news site like CNN or Huffington Post? Which hosting provider are you using? Shared or dedicated hosting? Are you using a Content Delivery Network? etc…
In this post, however, let’s just focus on us simple bloggers. When it comes to me, I personally tend to stick to about 15 plugins (and some of those are very specific which most of you probably will not use). This post will somewhat also be a massive one: I went on a hunting spree of every plugin I ever tried and compiled a list of top 65 WordPress plugins that I have used and can vouch that they work. They may not all be my personal favorite, but they are all plugins which are regularly updated, rated 4 stars and up on the repository, and a good majority of them are free. Some of them I have used on my client’s sites, some I use on mine.
My Top 10 WordPress Plugins
These are my favorite plugins which I install on every site without thinking twice.
1. Wordfence Security – Anti-virus, firewall, and high speed cache. This basically means your blog is protected from hackers, it scans your site for file changes in themes and plugins against WordPress repository, limits the number of log in attempts and it also speeds up your site.
2. CommentLuv – need I explain this?
3. Growmap AntiSpam Bot – A replacement for Akismet. Nothing wrong with Akismet, but if you are making money off your blog, you cannot use the personal license. However, sometimes, even Akismet lets in spam comments through. In some instances, it even marked a couple of legitimate comments as spam. Since I switched to Growmap AntiSpam Bot, I had no issues with spam comments at all.
4. Simple Social Icons – a very nice set of social icons to display your social media profiles.
5. Shareaholic – I’ve tried many sharing plugins, and somehow this is the one I always come back to. Some people frown upon it and say it slows down their site, however I haven’t had any issues with speed and I like their Related Posts feature as well.
6. Better WordPress Minify – minifies your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files which reduces your page load time.
7. WordPress SEO - developed by Yoast, I really do like this plugin for the SEO features it has, and for the ability to establish your Google+ authorship, add Twitter cards, and Facebook open graph data. On top of that it automatically builds a sitemap so no need for a separate plugin for that.
8. WordPress Ping Optimizer – VERY useful if you edit your posts often, especially after publishing them. Basically, every time you make an edit and then update your post, WordPress pings the necessary services. If you do this often, you risk getting flagged as a spammer. This plugin solves that issue by allowing you to set the amount of pinging in a set amount of time.
9. Contact Form 7 - simple and straight to the point, very little configuring that needs to be done and it allows for building slightly more complex forms.
10. WP Smush.it - reduces your image sizes and improves general performance. Useful if you have a lot of images.
Those are my favorite plugins. Now, onto the massive list!
Top 65 WordPress Plugins
Social Sharing & Following
1. Floating Social Bar - simple and lightweight sharing plugin for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest; developed by the guys behind WPBeginner – a very useful blog with WordPress tutorials, written in a language that’s very beginner friendly. They are usually my first stop when I get stumped with something. (It still happens!)
2. HS Social Media Buttons – a very slick set of social media buttons that stay to the side of your blog.
3. Click ToTweet – inserts a box in your post allowing you to pre-set a tweet for your readers to share.
4. Evergreen Post Tweeter – tweets out your old posts
Email & Newsletters
5. MailPoet Newsletter - don’t want to sign up for an email service like Mailchimp or MadMimi? Send emails straight out of your WordPress dashboard! It’s free for up tp 2000 subscribers (which matches Mailchimp) and comes with built in templates.
6. Scroll Triggered Box - adds a pop up box to your blog allowing your users to sign up for your newsletter. The box only appears after your users have scrolled down far enough.
7. SumoMe - another pop up that appears after a set amount of time, aimed to build your email list
8.Mailchimp for WP - integrates your Mailchimp list with your blog allowing you to place a form in your sidebar, or at the bottom of the post, and by adding a checkbox in your comments form.
Comments & Growing Your Community
9. Disquss – alternative commenting system. Popular too, although sometimes it can be annoying when it needs reloading.
10. Google PlusOne Comments - add Google comments instead of the native comment system.
11. What Would Seth Godin Do - adds a welcome message to the top of your posts for new visitors, and displays a different message for returning visitors. Nice little touch to invite your readers to subscribe to your newsletter, follow you on Twitter/Facebook/Pinterest or to check out a specific page on your blog.
12. Comment Redirect Plugin – after someone comments for the first time on your blog, redirect them to a page of your choice, such as a thank you page where you can invite them to explore your site further, or to check you out on Instagram… your limit is your imagination!
13. Subscribe to Comments Reloaded – allows the readers to receive email notifications about comment replies.
14. Thank Me Later - sends a thank you email to your commenters after a set time, inviting them to come back to your site.
SEO
15. All In One SEO - optimize your posts for search engines, alternative to WordPress SEO.
16. SEO Friendly Images - ever forgot to include a title and an alt tag for your images? Problem solved with this plugin
17. Thirsty Affiliates – not strictly SEO related, but it does make your affiliate links look prettier and allows you to set a custom base for them like myawesomeblog.com/recommends/bluehost.
18. Google XML Sitemaps - generates a sitemap for your blog, if you don’t have WordPress SEO plugin.
Anti-Spam
19. Akismet – I do believe this one doesn’t need explaining.
20. WP SpamShield – a very decent alternative to Akismet, literally blocks all spam comments and you don’t even get to see them because they are not stored in your WordPress database which is a bonus as well.
Security & Back Up
21. iThemes Security – a nice little plugin that secures your site, from limiting log in attempts to making your WordPress version hidden and protecting vital files from being exposed.
22. Limit Login Attempts – simple plugin that does what it says.
23. UpdraftPlus – a back up plugin for your site that integrates nicely with Dropbox, Amazon S3, Google Drive… It makes backing up your site and restoring a breeze.
24. VaultPress – back up solution that comes straight from WordPress team; Automattic, at a very affordable price. Comes bundled with JetPack, however you do need to purchase it to be able to use it.
Images, Sliders, & Galleries
25. NextGEN Gallery - a very popular gallery plugin that allows you to create Pinterest style galleries, share your images, watermark them. The plugin is one of the most downloaded plugins and it’s under constant development.
26. Nivo Slider - I first used Nivo slider on a static website. I fell in love with its simplicity and elegant look so when I discovered there is a version for WordPress I had to check it out. It’s simple, responsive, and really adds a pop to your blog.
27. Meta Slider - a slider that offers 4 different sliders in one. You can choose between Flex slider (another responsive slider plugin), Nivo Slider, Coin Slider, and Responsive slides. Nice to have more option to choose from.
28. BJ Lazy Load - loads your images only when you get close to seeing them. Makes your site load faster.
29. Regenerate Thumbnails - very useful if you change the thumbnail sizes in your WordPress. This plugin regenerates them, making sure they don’t look blurred or fuzzy.
30. EWWW Image Optimizer - it does the same job as WP Smush.It – reduces the size of your images, and optimizes them for the web.
Performance
31. W3 Total Cache - an advanced caching plugin meant to speed up your site. Can be a little tricky to configure right.
32. WP Super Cache - a beginner friendly caching plugin and a good alternative to W3 Total Cache.
33. WP Optimize Database - sometimes, you need to optimize your database. If you don’t have access to phpMyAdmin or have no idea what to do there, this plugin makes the task easier and removes old post revisions, comments that are in trash or spam folder, post trash…
Design & Functionality
34. Ultimate Coming Soon Page - I use this plugin every time I need to work on a site (usually when changing or tweaking themes). It gives the visitors a nice page that tells them site is being updated and allows me to see the changes I’m making.
35. WP Landing Pages - ever wanted a landing page for your blog but have no idea how to do it or your theme doesn’t have that template? WP Landing pages makes this process easy. It comes with basic 5 templates and auto responder integration – while very basic it gets the job done.
36. WP Easy Columns - allows you to add columns to your posts and pages.
37. Orbisius Child Theme Creator - by now you should know that any changes you make to your theme files should be done in a child theme. This plugin makes creating a child theme a breeze, in case you don’t want to do it manually.
38. Scroll Back to Top - adds a nice little button that allows your readers to scroll back to the top of your page.
39. Page Builder by Site Origin - a plugin that allows you to create different layouts for your blog pages. It has a drag and drop interface and you don’t have to mess with any code.
40. Custom Sidebars - different sidebars on different pages. You could have your Contact Page to show an simple About me widget and your About Me page to show a contact widget. Nifty.
41. Greg’s Threaded Comment Numbering - adds number before the comments.
Genesis Specific
42. Genesis Optimized Social Share – a very simple no frills sharing plugin for Genesis child themes specifically
43. Genesis Responsive Slider – responsive slider built for Genesis
44. Genesis Enews Extended – adds a beautiful newsletter sign up box
45. Genesis Layout Extras – add additional layouts to your Genesis theme
46. Genesis Simple Hooks - gives you an easy access to all the Genesis hooks available and allows you to add code to them, be it HTML or php.
47. Genesis Post Teasers - display your featured posts in a grid style manner.
Miscellaneous
48. RecipeCard - display your recipes with style and optimized for search engines
49. Easy Recipe - another plugin to display your recipes with a little more flare.
50. S2 Members - makes it easy to make your blog membership based, have special content just for users who signed up for your blog.
51. Poll Daddy -add polls to your blog!
52. WooCommerce - lets you have a store right there on your blog. You can sell digital items, virtual items and even physical items straight from your blog. Integrates with Paypal, and comes with a nice set of extensions.
53. Easy Digital Downloads - sell digital downloads on your blog.
54. WP Download Manager - a nice and easy solution to give your users ability to download files from your site.
55. Google Font Manager - add Google Fonts to your site in an easy manner – either change the typography for your theme or use them in your post editor and change the font with every post.
56. Pay With A Tweet - allow users to get specific content by tweeting about it. They don’t have to pay and it spreads the word out about your site.
57. Restrict Content - only allow specific users to get access to your content. An alternative way of making your site membership based.
58. WP Page Navi - replace Older Posts/Newer Posts with a numbered pagination
59. WP Edit - adds more bells and whistles to the default WordPress post editor.
60. Events Manager - running an event? Let your readers register straight from your blog.
61. Editorial Calendar - want an editorial calendar but don’t want to switch constantly between WordPress and Google calendar? Why not have it in your WordPress dashboard.
62. Co-Schedule - a paid plugin but I had to mention it. It’s editorial calendar on steroids. It lets you schedule your posts, but goes a step further and allows you to plan your social media updates as well.
63. P3 Plugin Checker - ever wondered which plugins slow down your site? This plugin has the answer.
64. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin - show related posts under your post and give the readers the opportunity to discover more of your great content.
65. Fancier Author Box - display your author bio, social media profiles and your latest posts in a stylish way. Useful for blogs with multiple authors or even if you are the only author.
Phew. That was a long list! I hope you find something useful and maybe test a couple of different plugins. Just don’t go overboard!
I didn’t mention Jetpack on this list because I have a love-hate relationship with it. I really do like the idea behind it, however, it can really be a memory hog. I have it installed on OBM, however I use only two modules: Publicize, and Notifications, since it lets me see the replies to my comments as well as get notified about new comments on my phone. Since I am not using all of its modules, it’s not that bad, but I’ve had a few examples where it really did slow the site down.
What are your favorite WordPress plugins?
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