As you may know, WordPress is an incredible piece of software that allows you to build beautiful websites and blogs very quickly and easily.
While WordPress offers a lot of features and flexibility there is still a lot of functionality missing.
By using plugins you can fill the missing gap and obtain the functionality you need without having to code anything yourself.
At this point in time there are 46,405 WordPress plugins available but there are only 13 that I always install on every site I own and build.
All of these plugins are 100% free.
Akismet
Akismet helps you fight spam by checking every comment.
If the plugin thinks the comment is spam it will put it in a separate section for you to review it.
Installations: 1+ million
Rating: 4.8/5
XCloner
XCloner is an excellent Backup plugin that allows you to backup your entire website, including your database.
It is critical that you backup your website(s) and if you need assistance with XCloner then follow this video guide.
Installations: 70,000+
Rating: 4.2/5
404 Redirection
404 Redirection permanently redirect all broken links (404 pages) your main website URL.
This will ensure that your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) does not suffer due to broken pages and that you maintain a good user experience.
Installations: 60,000+
Rating: 5/5
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is the most popular SEO plugin that helps you optimise your website for search engines, as well as write better content.
The plugin can be daunting at first but it is fairly easy to use once you get the hang of it.
Here is a video guide to get you started.
Installations: 1+ million
Rating: 4/5
AMP
AMP stands for Enable Accelerated Mobile Pages and is a fairly new concept being pushed by Google.
AMP aims to improve the load speed of pages on mobile devices.
This plugin makes it extremely easy for you to implement AMP because all you need to do is install it, no configuring is required.
Installations: 80,000+
Rating: 3.7/5
Glue for Yoast SEO & AMP
Glue for Yoast SEO & AMP is a plugin that helps Yoast SEO and AMP work effectively together.
Installations: 80,000+
Rating: 3.7/5
Comment Notifier
Comment Notifier lets your users subscribe when they leave a comment on your website so they can be notified via email once someone response to their comment.
This should really be part of the core functionality of WordPress.
Installations: 2,000+
Rating: 5/5
Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 allows you to create contact forms for your website.
The plugin allows you to create multiple forms that you can customise very easily.
Installations: 1+ million
Rating: 4.5/5
Enable Media Replace
Enable Media Replace allows you to replace a file in your Media Library by uploading a new file in its place.
This means you will no longer need to delete, rename and upload files!
Installations: 1+ million
Rating: 4.5/5
EWWW Image Optimizer
EWWW Image Optimizer automatically optimises the images you upload to your website by making the file size as small as possible.
This allows you to save storage space on your web server and it makes your webpages load faster
The plugin can also optimise images that you have already uploaded.
Installations: 300,000+
Rating: 4.5/5
Limit Login Attempts
Limit Login Attempts allows you to limit the amount of failed login attempts.
This helps prevent hackers breaking into your website.
Installations: 1+ million
Rating: 4.7/5
Revision Control
Revision Control allows you to control the amount of revisions your posts and pages store.
By minimising your revisions to 5 or less helps save space in your database which also decreases the amount of items the database has to load.
Installations: 100,000+
Rating: 4.4/5
WP-Optimize
WP-Optimize is a simple but effective plugin to extensively clean up your WordPress database and optimise it without having to use any database commands.
Installations: 500,000+
Rating: 4.8/5
