My Plugins of Choice for a WordPress Website

If you are running a WordPress.org website, it is inevitable that you will need to install certain plugins to help you with the photo galleries, security, analytics, spam protection etc.

Half a year ago, I created my own website and I wanted to share my perception of chess (I am a chess fanatic) and how it is connected with life and everyday situations we find ourselves in. I purchased my space on the internet at GoDaddy and I installed WordPress.

After the famous 5 minute installation (thank you WordPress!), I had to choose the right theme for my website and the set of plugins I am going to install. I quickly chose the Blox theme by Cyberchimps (because it’s awesome!) but choosing the right plugins for my website required a lot more time and I tried many of them before I found the right ones:

• Akismet – the best plugin for catching spam comments. I love it!
• All In One SEO Pack – one of the best SEO plugins for your blog!
• Google Analyticator – easily add the necessary code for Google Analytics to your blog and monitor the statistics at your Dashboard!
• iThemes Security – a must for each WordPress website, it adds an additional layers of security and protects your website (I’ll cover more about WordPress security in one of my next posts)
• Jetpack by WordPress.com – so many perks you get from this plugin which boosts your blog tremendously, be sure to check it out!
• Limit Login Attempts – adds one more layer of security to your website!
• ManageWP Worker – the best WordPress websites management plugin, no doubt there. Also, I am Head of Customer Happiness team at ManageWP and I must say that, besides being one of the best plugins out there, their support is brilliant! 🙂
• Photo Gallery – my favorite plugin for photo gallery, simple yet effective!
• W3 Total Cache – one of the best caching plugins for WordPress!

This is my choice of plugins which I used on my personal WordPress.org website. What is yours?

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Updated list of plugins – November 2019.

A lot has changed since I wrote this article back in March 2015 and I thought I’d also provide my updated list of the plugins I can recommend for different functionalities on a WordPress website. This updated list is also the one I shared with the attendees of the WordPress workshops in Novi Sad that I’m holding.

• Code Snippets – an excellent plugin for adding PHP code snippets.
• Health Check – I use this plugin when I’m troubleshooting plugin/theme conflicts. It allows you to enter into a troubleshooting mode (enabled only for the administrator) with all the plugins deactivated and a default theme activated.
• Theme Switcha – allows you to switch the theme of the website but only for the administrator of the site. The visitors will still see the old theme.
• Yoast – one of the best SEO plugins out there, it can go toe to toe with All in One SEO Pack that I mentioned back in 2015.
• RankMath – in my humble opinion, RankMath is the absolute best SEO plugin currently available.
• User Role Editor – allows you to manage the capabilities of different user roles on your site.
• Smush – a very good plugin for optimizing images.
• Simple 301 Redirects – for managing 301 redirects.
• Velvet Blues – one of the best search/replace plugins out there.
• WooCommerce – the leading WordPress eCommerce plugin.
• Sensei LMS – I believe this is the best learning management plugin for WordPress.
• LearnPress – another very good plugin for adding a learning management system to your site.
• Akismet – for stopping spam on your site, this plugin is still a must-have.
• Jetpack – it has grown so much since I mentioned in 2015. It was fantastic back then, now it’s even better 🙂
• ManageWP – for me, it’s still the number 1 plugin for managing multiple WordPress websites.
• AIOWPM – one of the best migration plugins out there.
• Duplicator – another really good migration plugin.
• Polylang – a very good multilingual plugin.
• WPML – probably the number 1 multilingual plugin currently (only the paid version exists, though)
• Say What – for changing strings on your site.
• WP Job Manager – a plugin for adding listings to your site. I love it!
• Ultimate Member – for creating a membership site.
• BB Press – for creating a forum
• BuddyPress – for creating a social network on your site.
• MailPoet – a really good newsletter plugin.
• iThemes Security – it’s still a fantastic security plugin.
• W3 Total Cache – still one of the best caching plugins for WordPress.
• WP Super Cache – another really good caching plugin.
• WP Rocket – this one exists only in a paid version but it’s probably the best caching plugin currently.