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When I created my first blog on WordPress, I was immensely happy, as I had little knowledge about blogging. But then, my joy turned into sadness, as I realized it was not even half the work done.
So, I kept reading a lot on the internet and found out that I needed the best WordPress plugins for optimizing the performance of my blog. I also discovered that there were thousands of paid and free WordPress plugins that help optimize the blog’s performance, according to your blogging niche.
But I struggled constantly with just one question over this period – Which plugins would be best for my blogging niche?
However, after slogging for almost three years, I must say that the below-mentioned plugins for WordPress blogs are adequate for almost all types of blogging niches.
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List of Best WordPress Plugins in 2020
If you are running out of time, then you can refer to the below table to know which are the most essential WordPress plugins for fulfilling your daily needs.
| Problems | Solutions |
| SEO for WordPress blog? | Yoast (Paid)/Rank Math (free) |
| Having difficulty managing multiple forms? | Contact Form 7 |
| Speed up your WordPress blog with Caching? | WP Rocket |
| Need a readymade table of content? | Easy Table of Contents |
| Hate coding and looking for drag-and-drop page builder? | Elementor |
| Do your posts need image optimization? | EWWW Image Optimizer |
| Is your site slack on speed? | Jetpack |
| Are you trying to send push notifications? | One Signal push notification |
| Do you want to back up your blog/website files? | Use Updraft Plus- Backup/Restore |
| Be socially present? | Grow by Mediavine |
| Want to redirect your page? | Redirection |
| Handling spam comments? | Akismet |
| Want to hide WordPress login URL? | WPS hide login |
| Need extra security for your blog? | WordFence |
| How to stop self-ping back? | No Self Pings |
| Handling affiliate links? | Easy Affiliate Links |
| Capture visitor’s emails? | OptinMonster |
| How to check all broken links? | Broken Link Checker |
| Update content without changing the blog post date? | Limit Modified Date |
| How to easily manage Ads? | WP Advanced Ads |
| Easy solution for the database? | WordPress Advanced Database Cleaner |
Top WordPress Plugins for a Blog/Website
I whittled out this below list for you that informs you about the nitty-gritty of the top 11 WordPress plugins.
Yoast SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the only way to make your business visible on the search engine in today’s competitive world.
Yoast SEO is the best SEO plugin for WordPress, free alternative to famous SEO plugin – RankMath. Few features of Yoast are given below:
- It syncs with editing plugins like WordPress Gutenberg and Classic Editor.
- An easy-to-use interface makes it suitable for beginners.
- Track the ranking of your article’s keywords by using this plugin.
Contact Form 7
Do you know the importance of having all your forms in one place? If you do, then Contact Form 7 can save you.
It is one of the most standard free contact form plugins for WordPress that also has a paid version to suit your requirements. Let me take you through some of its great features.
- Drag and drop feature adorns the UI.
- Offers a spam protection facility through captcha recognition.
- Set up a form for yourself from the innumerable available templates.
EWWW Image Optimizer
In these few years of blogging, image optimization challenged me more than anything. But I learned that through image optimization, one can achieve an increased page download speed.
Wondering which is the best WordPress plugin for image optimization?
I tried many; however, none fits me better than the free version of EWWW Image Optimizer.
Let’s see, How it’s different from other Image optimization plugins?
- High Torque allows a standard compression/quality ratio.
- Adaptive Steering feature allows the conversion of images to different formats.
- Strong SSL encryptions secure your communications over it.
WP Rocket
Struggling with the loading speed of your page? You can increase the page loading speed by using WP Rocket that is known to be the most powerful WordPress cache optimizer.
How does it help?
- It preloads cache to achieve superfast loading time which improves the website’s indexing.
- Using the minification process, one can decrease HTML, JavaScript & CSS file weight.
Easy Table of Contents
If you are ever writing a blog that needs a table of content, just download this user-friendly Easy Table of Contents (TOC) plugin for your ease.
Making TOC had never been so easier for me before. If you too need a TOC, look no further than this WordPress plugin.
Key Features
- Auto-generate your TOC and also disable it on posts that don’t need it with this plugin.
- This plugin offers several options to understand when, where & why you need a TOC.
Download Easy Table of Contents
Elementor
The next plugin that you need for your blog is a page builder. You can choose Elementor, designated as the world’s leading WordPress page builder.
This is a paid plugin with a drag and drop feature and is used by everyone, be it freelancers or hardcore professionals. Few essentials about Elementor would be:
- You can swipe through 300+ designer templates & 90+ widgets.
- It can support you like a theme, pop up, and WooCommerce builder.
Jetpack
Nothing can describe Jetpack plugin better than these words- “Security, performance, and site management: the best way to WordPress is with Jetpack.”
Note: Jetpack can be an all-in-one plugin for your WordPress
It secures your site, increases the site speed, thereby ably handling increased traffic on your blog. Some of the best features of this top WordPress plugin for bloggers include,
- Helps schedule social media promotions for the latest products and blogs.
- Facilitates malware detection & one-click fixes.
- Helps customize posts, widgets, and homepage without coding.
One Signal Push Notification
If you are wondering how to interact with your audience, let me tell you about a plugin called one signal push notification that can help you do so.
This plugin can push notify your audience whenever you have inducted a new post into your blog.
It increases your chances of repeat engagements, by sending notifications even to those audiences, who already left your site. Few features which make it the best WordPress notification plugin are jotted below for you.
- It lets you segmentize your audiences based on their region, language, and even by the number of times they dropped into your site.
- You can customize prompts for your visitors.
- Helps you send different messages to different test groups to verify which one works best.
Download One Signal Push Notification
Updraft Plus – Backup/Restore
Hackers, server crashes, dubious updates, and user errors can wreak havoc on your blog.
As a solution, I recommend using Updraft Plus – Backup/Restore. This plugin is rated 4.8 out of 5.0 on the rating scale and is the best WordPress plugin for backup/restore. Its importance is pointed out in the below features:
- You can comfortably encrypt the database backups using it.
- It can import and restore backups from different plugins for you.
- Easily access the control panel for backup/restore from the network dashboard.
Grow by Mediavine
Grow by Mediavine is the best social sharing plugin for WordPress covering five of the largest social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
Let us pin down some plugin features that can tell you if it is sufficient for your needs.
- It lets you place the social content button before, after, or at both places in your content.
- It shows up your social share counts including Twitter.
- This plugin offers retina friendly font buttons for use.
Redirection
With the help of the Redirection plugin, you can comfortably manage the 301 redirections and 404 errors. Your site can rank better with the use of this plugin for your WordPress blogs.
Key Features:
- It is a free plugin available in many languages.
- Redirection is for importing content from one platform to another.
- Keep a tab of all the redirects by using the logging feature.
Some more useful WordPress plugins to grow your blog or business website,
Additional Must-Have WordPress Plugins
Akismet
WPS hide login
WordFence
No Self Pings
Easy Affiliate Links
OptinMonster
Broken Link Checker
Limit Modified Date
WP Advanced Ads
WordPress Advanced Database Cleaner
Final Thoughts
The above-mentioned plugins are some of the Best WordPress plugins that have profited my blogging experience immensely.
The sole reason why I thought of discussing them with you is that they can also enrich your blogging journey. Of course, some variations might be there from one niche to another, but the ones included in this article can suit almost all types of customer needs.
