Top 5 WordPress plugins WordPress, with every new version, is evolving into a platform that can be used by any website.
This has resulted in a large increase in its market share, now more than 3 million (i.e. 66% of all) websites are using WordPress.
What sets apart WordPress from the rest of the content management systems? It’s the plugins or add-ons.
They provide extra power to use WordPress websites without knowing programming and coding.
Plugins also provide enhancements, and the right choice of them can certainly improve your website’s performance.
But choosing from millions of plugins is a very tough task, and many webmasters end up installing the wrong set.
Improving the performance and speed will not only help you increase traffic and followers but also Google rankings.
Why not apply these plugins on your website, when you get these for free of cost?
1. W3 Total Cache
Caching is a very useful feature, and it can impressively increase your website’s performance.
I recommend W3 Total Cache because of the powerful features that it gives although there are other good plugins also.
It allows the user to customize each element separately which is good as you can set different features according to your needs.
Many other plugins even don’t have these features. One special feature of W3 Total Cache that I like the most is Minify, other plugins don’t even have this feature, and you are forced to install a separate plugin for it.
How does it work?
W3 Total Cache does not create or edit any cache in the browser! Every popular browser like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari uses the cache process to speed up the website content loading.
However, browsers like Chrome and other popular programs create and use dynamically rendered content, which is heavy in size.
W3 Total Cache comes in handy, and it minifies dynamically rendered content to static files, then the speed will increase and puts less pressure on your server.
W3 Total Cache is a smart plugin that is helpful when your website gets 30,000’s traffic per day.
When your server has less work to do, then the speed increases.
This plugin has also got very good reviews with more than 1,00,000 active installs.
However, if you are not an advanced user or are not familiar with Caching plugins, then you should not play with the settings yourself.
You should read one of the many tutorials available on the web to set this plugin to give the best output.
PRICE: FREEMIUM
2. RankMatch {SEO Plugin}
The great starting foundation for your WordPress SEO strategy. Why haven’t we listed Yoast?
Rank Math has proven to be better than Yoast in several aspects. It’s faster, and easier to navigate and optimize your content on the fly. Besides that, it is far more intuitive than Yoast.
If you want your SEO plugin to work for you, this is the best choice currently on the market.
With their free plan, you can get advanced SEO options, like a redirect tool, rich snippets, Google crawl errors, the contextual help every step of the way.
Schema has been a trending thing in the SEO world for the past few years. And most SEO people are struggling with the implementation of it.
So, it’s usually manual JSON -LD markup and pastes it back on the WordPress page) or it’s automatic with heavily limited options.
With Rank Math, you can easily generate some of the most popular schema markups like the article, product, recipe, events, the schema for video content, or local businesses. All that is covered with a free plan.
This plugin is constantly developing, and they announced some super cool features to be released soon.
Some of the features that are currently developing: are Google webmaster central, keyword comparison, and Google trends tool.
If you are looking for an option that covers most of the important SEO features, go for Rank Math, you won’t regret it.
Also, if you are currently using Yoast, they have an import tool so that you can easily transfer all your data from Yoast to Rank Math.
PRICE: FREE
3. Spectra WordPress Page Builder
Meet Spectra, by Astra team the WordPress page builder that empowers you to design breathtaking websites effortlessly. With its user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, crafting eye-catching layouts becomes a breeze – no coding skills required!
The magic lies in Spectra’s diverse library of pre-designed templates that cater to various niches. Save time and gain inspiration as you customize your website with ease.
Responsive design? Check! Spectra ensures your site looks stunning on any device, from desktops to smartphones.
Take your pages to the next level with Spectra’s vast element library. Engaging buttons, captivating sliders – the possibilities are endless!
If you run an online store, Spectra seamlessly integrates with WooCommerce, enabling you to create irresistible product pages.
Calling all developers! Customize Spectra with custom addons and integrations to suit your unique project needs.
Regular updates and dependable support ensure your website remains secure and up-to-date.
Explore Spectra’s free version or upgrade to premium for advanced features and premium templates.
Experience the liberation of creative expression with Spectra WordPress Page Builder. Say goodbye to mundane layouts and captivate your audience like never before!
PRICE: FREE
4. GZip Ninja Speed Compression
If you are making a website that largely depends on traffic from Google searches, then you should use this plugin.
Google loves GZip Compression, and this plugin makes that happen with just one click. You have to install this plugin and activate GZip Compression from its panel, and that’s it, you will certainly notice an increase in your website’s speed.
How does it work?
GZIP compression is a compressor, but what does it compress? GZIP compression only compresses text data in your website and if your website is a blog that has more than 2500 words in every article, then it compresses the data.
It isn’t the best one in the market, but it compresses the text data to the ratio that Google can accept it. Thus, your Google rankings won’t get hurt by the compression of text data.
The only requisite for this plugin is an Apache server, and most of WordPress websites run on Apache, so hopefully, you will not face any problems.
PRICE: FREE
5. Publitio WordPress Media Offloading
Page load times play a crucial role in impressing your visitors. Some of the plugins on our list offer some benefits.
But there is no better solution than completely offloading your static assets and optimizing them so that your pages load faster.
Publitio’s Offloading plugins do just that, they take over your static assets and perform many functions such as resizing images to optimum dimensions to save on bandwidth.
and serving videos and audio at qualities suitable for devices. This is also important if storage is limited to your web hosting service as all static assets can be migrated to Publitio.
Besides offloading, Publitio offers a full digital asset management solution.
But how is Publitio different compared to WP Offload Media Lite and WP offload Media Nulled?
These two services are created to offload your media files. But the problem is that they will copy and store your files on cloud management systems like Amazon S3 or Digital Ocean Spaces, and then,
they will serve your files from the storage provider of your choice.
What Publitio will do, if you choose it as an offload media solution, is serve your media files from the closest data center based on your geolocation. Making your images not only offload but also load fast.
With Publitio you can have it all: media offload, media asset management system, files optimization, formatting, transcoding, and watermarking plus a player for your audio and media files.
Pricing: Free, Pro pricing from $9 per month
6. Sitekit by Google
Sitekit is Google’s official WordPress plugin. This plugin will link all the main Google products you probably use like Search Console, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Google AdSense, Google Optimize, and Page speed insights.
Basically, with this plugin, you no longer have to jump from one tool to another, and most importantly,
you will not need to install any other plugin in order to connect your website with any of these tools.
Once installed, you will see a well-crafted dashboard showing the most important metrics about your website, like traffic numbers or crawl errors, and page speed issues.
Besides that, you can also check all data for any page on your website with a built-in overview on the page itself.
Looking for Something Other than Must-Have WordPress Plugins…..
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Thanks for sharing the must-have WordPress plugins. I was looking for such a great guide. Can you please share your thoughts about local SEO?