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.
- 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?
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.