Welcome to the ultimate guide on the top WordPress plugins that you’ll need in 2024.
WordPress is ever-evolving and it’s crucial to stay ahead of the curve and optimize your website for the best user experience.
The great part about WordPress is that it offers a diverse range of plugins that can help you achieve your website goals, from improving site speed to enhancing SEO and security. The problem is that there are 55,000+ plugins to choose from in the WordPress.org plugin repository.
I’ve used WordPress for 16+ years and have tried and tested countless plugins.
In this guide, I’ll explore the latest and greatest plugins with you that will help you create, launch, manage, and grow your website.
Whether you’re a blogger, business owner, or marketer, these plugins are essential tools to have in your arsenal.
So, let’s dive in and discover the top WordPress plugins you need.
How to Choose The Right Plugins for Your Site?
Over the years, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes when it comes to adding plugins, but each experience has helped me understand what works best.
First, I would suggest that you be clear on exactly what you need for your website such as a contact form that allows users to submit PDF files to you. Or a calculator form that shows users the next question based on their answer. This would allow you to take the user down a personalized path.
This makes it easier to identify the right plugin for the job.
For most plugins, you need to make sure they hit the basic checkmarks that include:
- Ease of Use: It should be easy to set up, use, and navigate. Anything that’s too complex will slow you down.
- Support: It helps if the plugin has a setup wizard, great support team and plenty of documentation to help you set up and find your way through the process.
- Customization: Look for customization options especially for plugins that help you create galleries, forms, social media feeds, popups, and so on. This will help you match the design to the rest of your website so it doesn’t look out of place.
- Performance: Plugins can impact the performance of your site. Look for ones that are lightweight, well-coded, and optimized for performance. This will ensure fast page load speeds.
- Compatibility: Plugins can be incompatible with other plugins and your version of WordPress. This can lead to functionality problems and conflicts. Ensure that the plugin is compatible with your current version of WordPress and with other plugins or themes that you are using.
- Security: Choose plugins that prioritize security. Look for features such as regular security updates, secure coding practices, and measures to protect your site from vulnerabilities.
- Growth: If you plan on scaling as your website grows, consider plugins that make it easy to expand your site without compromising performance or stability.
- Translation: If you have a multilingual audience, consider plugins that support multi-language functionality or provide easy integration with translation services.
- Integrations: Check if the plugin integrates well with third-party services or tools that you may be using, such as email marketing platforms, analytics services, or e-commerce solutions.
- Analytics: It’s a plus to have analytics and reporting features to track the performance and usage of the plugin on your site.
My advice would be to begin with essential plugins that are fundamental for any website, such as SEO, caching, and security plugins. These are the building blocks that will lay a strong foundation for your site.
Make sure you do your own research and read reviews of plugins before installing them. Pay attention to user feedback, ratings, and compatibility with your WordPress version.
What that, you’re ready to navigate the world of WordPress plugins with confidence and choose the right ones that will enhance your site’s functionality and performance.
Best WordPress Plugins
Since this is an extensive list, I’ve categorized them so you can find what you’re looking for faster. Here’s a table of contents with quick links. Feel free to skip to the section that interests you the most.
- Website Design
- SEO Optimization
- Analytics & Performance
- Speed Optimization
- Backups & Security
- Lead Generation
- Website Monetization
- Selling Online
- Customer Relations
- Admin & User Experience
Let’s get started with the first thing every website owner needs, design and creation!
Website Design
1. SeedProd
SeedProd is the best WordPress website builder as well as a page builder. You can build any kind of page or post you need for your site.
It’s easy to get started as there are 200+ templates and a drag and drop page builder.
With this plugin, you can even create custom WordPress themes and landing pages without needing to write any code. This is ideal for beginners or those who don’t want to mess with complex themes.
Added to that, when you’re setting up your website, you don’t want visitors to come by and see a half complete design.
With SeedProd, you can create professional-looking coming soon or maintenance mode pages to hide your site from visitors while it’s under construction or undergoing maintenance. You can toggle these modes on and off on your site with just one click.
Alternative: Thrive Suite, Elementor, Divi, and Beaver Builder
If you’re looking for more web design options, here are the Best WordPress Builders »
2. WPForms
WPForms is the best drag-and-drop form builder plugin for WordPress. This means you can create forms visually using your mouse. You won’t have to create a form with coding or technical info and then preview it on the frontend. You build it as you would see it on your website when it’s live.
This plugin was popularly known as a contact form plugin but has grown by leaps and bounds since it first started. I’ve used this builder to set up contact forms, feedback forms, subscription forms, payment forms, and more. It also includes pre-built templates for common use cases.
When someone submits the form, you can set up automated notifications and confirmations to be emailed to the admin, a team member, as well as the user.
You can easily add the form any on your site using blocks, widgets, or shortcodes.
What I liked about WPForms is that it comes with plenty of add-ons, so you can enable features as you need.
One thing to keep in mind with setting up forms on your site is that you’ll get a lot of spam from bots and spammers. What I loved about this form builder is that it comes with built-in anti-spam features including CAPTCHA to prevent spam submissions.
There’s a free version to get started with and it comes with all the essential features you need including Stripe payments. This lets you sell, collect donations, and payments online securely.
For more options on setting up forms, see our comparison of the Best Form Builder Plugins for WordPress.
3. Envira
Envira is a user-friendly drag-and-drop gallery builder plugin for WordPress. It allows you to create stunning galleries showcasing your photos or videos without any coding knowledge.
First, you can choose from pre-designed gallery templates or customize them to match your website’s style.
Then you can easily arrange your photos and videos in a grid, carousel, or other layouts using the intuitive drag-and-drop interface.
Your galleries will be optimized for all devices, ensuring a seamless viewing experience on desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
Need a step-by-step walk through on setting this up on your site? Follow this tutorial on How to Add a Stunning Image Gallery in WordPress.
4. Soliloquy
Soliloquy is designed specifically to help you create beautiful and responsive image and video sliders for your website.
There are plenty of WordPress slider plugins to choose from but this is my top pick for good reason. You can drag and drop pictures or videos to create fancy presentations that automatically change over time.
These “sliders” can show off your best products, latest blog posts, or anything you want visitors to see first. They can grab the visitor’s attention and encourage them to click through to learn more.
Soliloquy works on phones, tablets, and computers, so your sliders will always look great.
That’s it for website design. Next, we’ll optimize your site for SEO, speed, and performance.
SEO Optimization
There are tons of SEO tools and plugins out there that you can use to optimize your site. I’m giving you just 3 of the ones I use the most and love. I’ll also link you to other resources where you can find more helpful SEO plugins and tools.
5. All in One SEO
All in One SEO is the best SEO solution for WordPress. It’s a comprehensive solution that gives you all the tools you’ll need to make your website more discoverable by search engines like Google.
Yoast SEO used to be my go-to plugin, but I made the switch because I felt AIOSEO offered a lot more for lesser.
When you install this plugin, there’s a setup wizard to walk you through optimizing your site the right way.
The plugin will run an audit and give you suggestions on how you can improve your site. So if you’re new to SEO, this will do most of it for you.
It also makes the technical SEO aspects of SEO so easy. You don’t need to be an expert to set up sitemaps and schemas or optimize for local SEO or WooCommerce. Everything is done with just clicks of your mouse.
Added to this, you can optimize every post and page before you publish them. AIOSEO comes with a section right inside the WordPress editor where you can add a meta description, title, keywords, and more.
Get started with All in One SEO »
6. SEO Boost
SEO Boost is the best content optimization tool! It helps you every step of the way to create content that ranks.
First, you can run topic research and build briefs. Then optimize the content before you publish it with all the right keywords and headings.
Once done, you can easily manage audit and manage your content from the same dashboard.
What I love about this tool is that you can create projects and assign tasks to team members. So it works great it you have more than one person creating and managing the content on your site.
7. LowFruits
LowFruits is a keyword research tool designed specifically to help you identify low-competition keywords for your website.
Instead of competing for keywords already saturated with established websites, Lowfruits helps you find keywords with lower competition. This increases your chances of ranking higher in search results for those terms.
Lowfruits excels at finding long-tail keywords, which are more specific phrases people might search for. By targeting these longer phrases, you can attract visitors who are more likely to be interested in what your website offers.
Those are my picks for SEO Optimization but it’s always good to explore your options. Here are more resources to follow:
- Best WordPress SEO Plugins to Boost Rankings & Traffic
- Best Keyword Research Tools to Boost Your SEO Strategy
Now if you want your site to be successful, you need to stay on top of what’s working with your audience and what’s not. This will help you steer your SEO, marketing, and growth strategy in the right direction. So next, I’ll show you tools to track your site’s performance.
Analytics & Performance
8. MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights makes it easy to connect your website to Google Analytics.
You can use Google Analytics to track key performance indicators (KPIs) for your website, such as conversion rates, bounce rates, and average time on page.
By understanding how visitors interact with your website, you can identify any usability issues or areas where visitors are dropping off. This information can help you improve the user experience and make your website more user-friendly.
But it isn’t easy for beginners to connect their websites to the Google Analytics platform. Plus, it’s not easy to navigate the dashboard and understand the reports.
That’s where MonsterInsights comes in and in my opinion, is a must-have tool on every website.
You can see your website’s performance and metrics right inside your WordPress dashboard. Every report is easy to understand so even if you’re new to this, you’ll be able to get all the insights and data you need.
Get started with MonsterInsights »
Alternative: ExactMetrics
Here are more of the Best WordPress Google Analytics Plugins To Measure Success. Now let’s make sure your website is loading at the fastest time possible.
Speed Optimization
9. WP Rocket
WP Rocket is a WordPress speed and performance booster plugin. What I love about this plugin is that they’ve simplified complex technical techniques into an automated process.
When you activate the plugin, it automatically adds various optimization techniques behind the scenes. This helps your website load faster and deliver a smoother experience for your visitors.
In more technical terms, WP Rocket creates cached versions of your website’s pages, significantly reducing loading times for returning visitors. It also minifies and compresses your website’s code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) to reduce file size and improve loading speed
The plugin also gives you access to more advanced optimization options such as lazyload, image optimization, minification, and more. It can also help clean up your WordPress database, removing unnecessary data that can slow down your website.
Learn how to use WP Rocket to speed up your site here »
You can also see our list of the Best WordPress Caching Plugins for Speed and Performance
Now that we’ve optimized your website, let’s make sure everything you’ve built is safe and secure at all times.
Backups & Security
Most website owners assume that they’re website is safe. The truth is there’s so much that can go wrong fast – hackers, incompatibility issues, human error, server errors, just to name a few.
You need to protect your site and be prepared for such occurrences. The first thing I suggest doing is taking a backup of your site. This will come in handy when things go wrong. You can simply restore your data and have your site running again.
Then install a security plugin on your site. This will constantly scan and monitor your website for any unusual activity. It will also block known hackers and bots.
10. Duplicator
Duplicator is the best backup and migration plugin for WordPress. You can create complete backups of your WordPress site, including files, themes, plugins, and database, which you can restore anytime.
You can store them in different locations such as Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, One Drive, and so on. When it comes time to restore your site, it’s a really simple process to follow.
If you need to set up multiple websites, this plugin lets you duplicate your site to create multiple copies. This can be helpful for multilingual sites or different versions for various regions.
Alternative: UpdraftPlus
Explore more backup solutions here: Best WordPress Backup Plugins to Keep Your Site Safe.
11. Sucuri
Sucuri is a well-known WordPress plugin that provides comprehensive website security solutions. It offers a range of features to protect your site from malware, hacking attempts, DDoS attacks, and other security threats.
Sucuri comes with a robust firewall to monitor, detect, and respond to security issues effectively, ensuring your website remains secure and operational.
It includes performance optimization features such as a content delivery network (CDN) that helps speed up your site while keeping it secure.
Get started with Sucuri or get the free WordPress plugin here: Sucuri Free WordPress Scanner Plugin
You may also want to explore more options: Best WordPress Security Plugins to Shield Your Website
Now you’ve set up, optimized, and secured your site, it’s time to generate leads and start monetizing it. Let’s start by getting more leads that could convert into loyal subscribers, blog readers, online shoppers, donors, and so on.
Lead Generation
12. OptinMonster
OptinMonster is hands down the most powerful lead generation tool I’ve come across. It lets you create different types of popups, forms, and slide-in boxes that appear on your website.
What I found works best is to add freebies (lead magnets) like ebooks, discounts, or exclusive content to these campaigns. Leads are much more willing to exchange their email address for it.
The platform lets you connect to your email marketing services with your login or API keys. Then all new leads will automatically get tagged and added to your contact list.
Now, you can design these popups to appear at specific times or based on visitor behavior. For example, you could show a popup offering a welcome discount to new visitors, or a popup reminding people to subscribe before they leave your website.
Other targeting rules include:
- Time Delay: Set a delay to show the optin form after a certain amount of time has passed since the visitor arrived on the page.
- Scroll Depth: Show the optin form when a visitor scrolls down to a specific percentage of the page, indicating they are engaged with the content.
- Inactivity Sensor: Trigger the optin form if a visitor remains idle on the page for a certain amount of time.
- Referrals: Show different optin forms depending on the website that referred the visitor to yours.
- Show on Specific Pages: Configure your optin form to appear only on specific pages or categories of pages on your website.
- Cart Abandonment: Trigger an optin form specifically for visitors who add items to their cart but leave before completing the purchase.
- Past Purchases: Target optin forms based on a visitor’s past purchase history.
These are just to name a few. There are endless possibilities of various triggers and conditions, so you can ensure the right message reaches the right visitor at the right time. This significantly increases your chances of growing your email list and fostering customer relationships.
Get started with OptinMonster »
13. RafflePress
RafflePress lets you create engaging and viral giveaways and contests on your website. It’s a fun and interactive tool to attract new visitors, boost engagement, and grow your audience.
You can use templates to get started and set up your contest in 5 minutes. Then you can ask participants to complete tasks in order to get entries into your contest. This can include subscribing to your email list, following you on social media, or visiting specific pages on your website.
This WordPress giveaway plugin also comes with a refer-a-friend feature that makes it easy for participants to share your giveaway with their friends and followers, potentially bringing in even more entries.
Get started with RafflePress »
14. Smash Balloon
Smash Balloon is a suite of WordPress plugins designed to make it easy for you to display social media feeds directly on your website. Think of it as a bridge between your social media accounts and your website, allowing visitors to see your latest posts without leaving your site.
Smash Balloon offers individual plugins for popular platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and even review sites.
You can choose the plugins you need for the social media channels you’re active on.
It’s got a user-friendly setup process, allowing you to connect your social media accounts to your website without needing any coding knowledge.
Then there are plenty of customization options so you can tailor the appearance of your social media feeds to match your website’s style and branding.
You can also choose what posts are added to your feed using filters, hashtags, post types, and more.
The best part is it’s automated. This means you set up and configure your social media feed. Once done, the plugin will check for new content on your social media profile and automatically refresh your feed and display it on your website.
Get started with Smash Balloon »
Here’s a tutorial to help you get started: How to Create an Instagram Feed in WordPress (In 10 Minutes)
You may also want to explore the Best WordPress Social Media Plugins to Grow Your Online Presence.
15. Sugar Calendar
Sugar Calendar lets you create and manage events, appointments, and schedules directly within the WordPress platform.
You can choose from various display options to showcase events, including monthly, weekly, or daily calendar views, as well as list views. These views can be customized to match the design and layout of the website.
Users can customize settings such as event colors, categories, event recurrence, time zones, and more. This flexibility enables users to tailor the plugin to suit their specific needs and preferences.
It’s great for businesses and websites that need to run events where people need to register or schedule bookings and appointments.
Get started with Sugar Calendar »
16. TrustPulse
TrustPulse is a social proof notification tool that helps you increase conversion rates and build trust with your audience.
It displays real-time notifications of recent user activity on the website, such as purchases, sign-ups, or downloads, to create a sense of urgency and credibility. These appear in small non-intrusive popups on your site.
These notifications, known as “social proof,” leverage the psychological principle that people are more likely to take action when they see others doing the same.
That’s it. For more tools, see our comparison of the Best WordPress Lead Generation Plugins.
Now there are plenty of ways to monetize your website in different ways. I’ve listed out the ones I’ve used and can recommend.
Website Monetization
17. MemberPress
MemberPress is a powerful and user-friendly WordPress membership plugin designed to help you create and manage membership sites.
Whether you’re looking to offer premium content, online courses, or a community forum, MemberPress provides the tools you need to build a robust membership platform.
With features like content access control, subscription management, and payment gateway integration, MemberPress is an essential plugin for anyone looking to monetize their WordPress site through memberships.
Get started with MemberPress »
Alternative: MemberMouse and Wishlist Member
18. LearnDash
LearnDash is an incredibly powerful and user-friendly WordPress plugin that can transform your website into a dynamic Learning Management System (LMS).
You can create and manage professional-grade courses easily. Whether you’re offering simple tutorials or comprehensive training programs, LearnDash has you covered.
- Generate revenue by selling your courses through various pricing models, including one-time payments, subscriptions, and memberships.
- Keep your learners engaged with interactive quizzes, assignments, forums, and other engaging elements.
- Tailor personalized learning paths and prerequisites to guide learners through your content at their own pace.
- Track learner progress, course completion rates, and other critical metrics to continuously improve your courses.
You can deliver engaging and structured learning experiences, monetize your knowledge, and build a thriving online learning community.
Alternative: Thrive Apprentice
19. AffiliateWP
AffiliateWP lets you set up and manage an affiliate marketing program. In simpler terms, it helps you track and reward people who promote your products or services on their own websites.
The plugin is easy to use and set up. It takes just minutes to create your own affiliate program.
You can recruit affiliates, manage their accounts, and track their performance all from your WordPress dashboard.
AffiliateWP integrates with popular payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal, making it easy to pay your affiliates.
It also tracks referrals using cookies to ensure affiliates get credit for the sales they generate. You’ll get detailed reports so you can see how your affiliate program is performing.
Get started with AffiliateWP »
Alternative: Easy Affiliate
You can also sign up as an affiliate with different sellers to earn a commission. Learn more here: 17+ Best Affiliate Plugins for WordPress to Boost Revenue
20. Pretty Links Pro
Pretty Links Pro lets you create, manage, and track custom shortened URLs for your website. This is meant for you if you’re promoting affiliate products on your site to earn a commission.
Referral links from sellers are usually long and don’t look neat and can be off-putting.
This plugin lets you create shortened links that are easier to read and share. You can even brand them using your own domain name, making them look more professional and trustworthy.
Pretty Links helps you organize your links into categories, making them easier to find and manage. This is especially useful if you have a lot of affiliate links or track clicks for different marketing campaigns. You can also track the performance of your links to see which ones are getting the most clicks and conversions.
Get started with Pretty Links Pro »
Alternative: Thirsty Affiliates
21. WP Charitable
WP Charitable is hands down the best plugin for non-profit organizations and individuals to raise funds online through their websites. You can create and manage donation campaigns easily and effectively.
Setting up donation campaigns takes just minutes. You can choose to accept one-time or recurring donations, set fixed donation amounts or offer flexible options, and even establish fundraising goals with automatic campaign closure upon reaching the target.
WP Charitable integrates with popular payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net, ensuring secure and convenient donation processing for your supporters.
You can track and manage your donors, including their contact information and donation history. This gives you valuable insights into your fundraising efforts with built-in reporting tools. You can track donation progress, analyze donor behavior, and identify areas for improvement.
Get started with WP Charitable »
You may also be interested in Crowdfunding Plugins.
If you plan on selling physical or digital products on your site, here are the best platforms for it.
Selling Online
22. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a free, open-source eCommerce plugin specifically designed for WordPress websites. It essentially transforms your WordPress site into a fully functional online store, complete with features to manage products, inventory, payments, shipping, and more.
It also offers a high degree of customization and control over your online store. You can tailor it to your specific needs and brand identity.
You can set up your online store quickly and easily through the familiar WordPress interface.
It’s easy to add detailed product descriptions, high-quality images, and variations (like size and color options).
You can also manage stock levels and set competitive prices – all from your WordPress dashboard.
WooCommerce itself is free to use, making it an attractive option for entrepreneurs starting their online businesses. You’ll only incur costs for web hosting, domain name, and any premium extensions you choose to add.
Get started with WooCommerce »
If you’re setting up a WooCommerce store, here are the Best WooCommerce Plugins to help you build and grow your store.
23. WP Simple Pay
Unlike WooCommerce which requires setting up a full online store, WP Simple Pay focuses on streamlining the process of accepting payments for specific purposes. It’s perfect for small businesses and individuals.
It allows you to create and embed payment forms on your WordPress pages or posts to collect payments for services, donations, subscriptions, or any other need.
You can collect one-time payments, recurring subscriptions, or offer flexible payment amounts with WP Simple Pay. So this WordPress payment plugin caters to various payment scenarios you might encounter.
This makes it ideal for situations where you only need to collect payments for specific items or services without the complexity of managing a complete online store.
Get started with WP Simple Pay »
24. Easy Digital Downloads
With Easy Digital Downloads, you can sell digital products like ebooks, software, music, courses, and more through your WordPress website.
It comes with a user-friendly platform to manage your entire digital store, from adding products and setting prices to processing payments and delivering downloads to customers.
You can sell an unlimited number of digital products without any hidden fees. It integrates with popular payment gateways like Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.net to accept secure payments from your customers.
Added to this, it comes with advanced features like discount codes, promotional offers, automatic downloads after purchase, built-in reporting, and so much more.
Get started with Easy Digital Downloads »
Whether you monetize your site or not, one of the keys to a successful online venture is to build good relations with your audience and customers. This can be through email, push notifications, live chat, or a phone line! Let’s review the best options around.
Customer Relations
25. Constant Contact
Constant Contact is a popular email marketing platform to create, send, and track email campaigns. It offers a variety of features and tools to help you engage with your audience, grow their subscriber list, and drive conversions.
Constant Contact gives you a drag-and-drop email editor to easily create visually appealing emails without the need for coding skills. It lets you choose from a variety of customizable templates or create your own designs from scratch.
You can easily can manage your contact lists, segment subscribers based on various criteria such as demographics or engagement history, and personalize email campaigns to target specific audience segments.
Get started with Constant Contact »
26. LiveChat
Offering live support can make your visitors feel valued and cared for, leading to a better overall user experience and potentially higher retention rates.
The LiveChat plugin makes it easy for you to provide instant support to your visitors, resolving their issues in real-time. This can significantly reduce response times and increase customer satisfaction.
You can proactively engage with potential customers, answer their questions, and guide them through the buying process, which can lead to higher conversion rates.
There are also AI chatbots that don’t need you to manage them. You need to provide them with a knowledge base and they’ll generate answers on your behalf. Check them out here » Best Live Chat WordPress Plugins for Better Customer Support.
27. PushEngage
PushEngage is a powerful WordPress plugin designed to help you engage and retain your website visitors through web push notifications.
Web push notifications are messages sent directly to your visitors’ browsers, even when they are not actively browsing your site.
Now this is so easy to set up and customize with PushEngage.
You can also create audience segments based on user behavior, demographics, or other criteria to send targeted notifications.
So for instance, you can send a welcome notification to new subscribers to make a great first impression.
Next, you can also notify your subscribers about new blog posts, product updates, or important news. You can even remind your audience about upcoming events, webinars, or product launches.
Plus, you can manage it all from a simple dashboard.
28. Nextiva
Nextiva is popularly known for its VoIP Business Phone Service but it’s actually a comprehensive business communications platform. It offers a wide range of communication channels like voice, video, and chat into a single platform, simplifying your communication strategy.
You’ll get high-quality voice calls with advanced features like call forwarding, voicemail-to-email, and more.
It also offers tools for team messaging, file sharing, and video conferencing to enhance internal communication.
If you’re looking for a full-fledged CRM platform, check out HubSpot. Now let’s take a look at tools that make your life easier as well as improves the user’s experience.
Admin & User Experience
29. Uncanny Automator
Uncanny Automator makes it easy to automate tasks and connect different elements on your WordPress website. It essentially allows you to create automated workflows, or “recipes,” that trigger actions based on specific events.
You define a starting point (trigger) for your automation. This could be a user registering on your website, purchasing a product, submitting a form, or any other event supported by the plugin.
Then you choose actions to be performed in response to the trigger.
So for instance, you can create a recipe for when a new user registers, they are automatically enrolled in a specific course you choose. This ensures that new users are automatically added to your course and can start learning immediately.
Overall, you can streamline workflows, automate repetitive tasks, and eliminate the need for manual tasks associated with managing your website and user interactions.
Get started with Uncanny Automator »
If you’re interested in automating processes on your site, check out 13 Best AI Plugins to Automate Your WordPress Site.
30. WP Mail SMTP
If you’re sending emails from your WordPress site, this is a must-have plugin for all WordPress users.
WordPress uses a PHP mail() function that often results in emails landing in spam folders or not being delivered at all.
WP Mail SMTP offers a user-friendly interface and a setup wizard to guide you through the process of configuring your SMTP settings. No coding knowledge is required. helps resolve these issues by setting up SMTP on your site, which significantly improves the chances of your emails reaching their intended recipients.
It’s designed to be simple for anyone to use. Plus, there’s a setup wizard to guide you through the process of configuring your SMTP settings. No coding knowledge is required.
Get started with WP Mail SMTP »
Know more about WordPress SMTP Plugins to Fix Email Issues.
31. WPCode
WPCode gives you a safe and user-friendly interface to add code snippets.
This lets you add custom features and functionalities without needing to hire a developer. You also won’t need to directly edit your theme’s functions.php file, which can be risky and potentially lead to theme breakage.
So for instance, you can add social sharing buttons, custom CSS styling, or affiliate marketing integrations.
The plugin comes with a library of ready-made code snippets for various functionalities. You can easily find and activate snippets to add features like Google Analytics tracking, header scripts, and more.
The best part is its built-in error feature. This prevents errors in your custom code from crashing your website. This ensures your site remains accessible even if a snippet encounters an issue.
32. WPML
WPML lets you serve your website in different languages. It supports over 40 languages, allowing you to reach a wider global audience.
You can easily translate your website’s content, navigate visitors to the appropriate language version, and manage the entire process from a single interface.
There are different methods for translating your website content. You can manually translate content yourself, use automatic translation services, or hire professional translators.
Then you can enable a language switcher on your website, allowing visitors to easily switch between available languages.
The plugin can also automatically detect a visitor’s language and redirect them to the corresponding website version.
33. SearchWP
SearchWP gives you the power to create a search engine like Google but only for your website’s content.
It works on top of the default WordPress search feature and creates a more robust search experience for your website visitors.
You can set up the engine to search through post titles, excerpts, custom fields, media content (like PDFs), e-commerce product details, and even comments.
The WordPress search plugin provides users with advanced search options like filtering by categories, tags, custom taxonomies, or even by post dates. This allows users to refine their searches and find exactly what they’re looking for.
What I love is that SearchWP can handle typos and misspellings in search queries. This ensures users don’t miss relevant results even if they make a mistake while typing their search term.
Need a step-by-step guide? Learn How to Add A Search Bar in WordPress here.
34. UserFeedback
UserFeedback adds a simple chat popup that collects user feedback directly on your website.
While Google Analytics gives you data on what’s happening, it’s hard to figure out ‘why?’
With UserFeedback, you can ask your users directly. You can ask questions like how was their experience on your site? Or ask them for suggestions on how you can improve.
The plugin lets you ask as many questions and receive an unlimited number of responses, there’s no limit.
Also, there are smart targeting rules to run your surveys only on specific pages and devices.
Get started with UserFeedback »
Bonus WordPress Plugins
- FunnelKit helps you create sales funnels with landing pages, opt-in forms, and email marketing tools to turn website visitors into customers.
- HeroThemes offers beautiful pre-made WordPress themes to streamline the process of creating a website for a helpdesk, knowledge base, or other customer support resources. They also offer a WordPress plugin called Heroic KB designed to help you add a searchable knowledge base to your existing website.
- Thrive Quiz Builder allows you to create engaging quizzes for your WordPress website to capture leads, grow your email list, and learn more about your audience.
- WP Tasty makes it easy to add mouthwatering recipe content to your WordPress website, complete with step-by-step instructions and beautiful layouts.
- WC Vendors transforms your WooCommerce store into a multi-vendor marketplace, allowing other sellers to list and sell products alongside yours.
- GrooveHQ is a helpdesk software that centralizes customer support conversations across email, live chat, and social media in one platform.
- Beacon lets you create professional lead magnets, opt-in forms and libraries of gated content.
- AdTribes is an advertising marketplace that helps website owners connect with advertisers to display targeted ads on their website and earn revenue.
- Jetpack gives you access to security, performance, and marketing tools made for WordPress sites by the WordPress experts.
That’s the list of the best WordPress plugins! Need help installing plugins on your site? Here’s a free beginner’s guide you can use: How to Install a WordPress Plugin.
One more thing, no matter which plugin or theme you use, make sure your site is hosted on a good reliable hosting plan. This can make a huge difference to your site’s speed, performance, and uptime. Many web hosting providers also take care of SSL, malware scanning, backups, and more. See our list of the Best WordPress Hosting. Which One is Right for You?
Now there are a few important things to remember when you’re using plugins on your site. I recommend reading the best practices below when you install plugins on your site.
WordPress Plugin Best Practices to Follow
Regularly Audit Your Plugins: Periodically review the plugins on your site and deactivate or uninstall any that are no longer needed. This helps in maintaining a lean and efficient plugin ecosystem.
Check for Regular Updates: Ensure that the plugins you choose are regularly updated by developers. Updated plugins are more likely to be secure, compatible with the latest WordPress version, and optimized for performance.
Avoid Plugin Overload: While it may be tempting to install numerous plugins to enhance your site, be cautious of plugin overload. Too many plugins can slow down your site, cause conflicts, and compromise security.
Test Before implementation: Before installing a plugin on your live site, test it on a staging environment. This allows you to check for compatibility issues and see how the plugin functions without affecting your live site.
Backup Your Site: Always back up your site before installing or updating plugins. In case something goes wrong, you can easily restore your site to a previous state.
Stay Informed: Stay updated on WordPress trends, security best practices, and new plugin releases. Continuous learning and staying informed will help you make informed decisions when choosing plugins for your site.
Want to hire professionals to maintain your site and plugins? Check out WPBeginner Pro Services. You’ll get:
- 24/7 WordPress maintenance and support
- Around-the-clock uptime monitoring
- Comprehensive WordPress security monitoring
- Consistent WordPress core, theme, and plugin updates
- Routine cloud backups and malware removal
- Essential performance optimization
You’ll also have access to a dedicated account manager.
If you’re just getting started with WordPress, you may want to learn how to use this platform to maximize your online reach. Sign up for our video tutorials and unlock your website’s full potential: