As of today, there are 42,280 plugins in the WordPress.org plugin directory alone. With that many plugins available, it can be confusing to know how many and which ones you need for your WordPress website. This post should help.
As far as how many plugins you should use, I recommend that you use as many as you need to have your website function properly…and not one more. If you can keep the number to 15 or less, that is great according to a hosting company. Just be certain to backup your site before adding new plugins just in case there is a problem.
I will share which WordPress plugins I think that you need – based on a combination of research, having WordPress sites online for over a decade and developing websites for bloggers and small business owners for the last two years. I started off with 55 favorites based on a variety of different websites. However, I was able to narrow it down to 15 of the best WordPress plugins for Bloggers for all types of WordPress business blog websites and blogs.
1. Cache: A good caching plugin helps to speed up your website’s loading time. I use W3 Total Cache but WP Super Cache is comparable.
2. Contact Form: I currently use Ninja Forms. I have used Contact Form 7 and Gravity Forms for WordPress in the past and they both also worked well.
3. Google Analytics: Instead of having to visit the Google Analytics website to check your stats, you can install the GA Google Analytics plugin. Google Analytics by Yoast is also a great alternative.
4. Google Sitemap: I simply use Yoast SEO. Google XML Sitemaps and Better WordPress Google XML Sitemaps are two other options.
5. Jetpack by WordPress.com: This is another multi-purpose plugin that I love for a variety reasons. It helps your site speed, offers some protection, collects traffic stats and much more.
6. Lead generation/popups. I strongly suggest that everyone who owns a website build their email list from the beginning. My current favorite is SumoMe‘s List Builder and Scrollbox options. PopupAlley is a close second. Thrive Leads, PopUp Domination’s web app, Optin Monster, OptinSkin, Hello Bar and Ninja Popups are other options.
7. Nofollow plugin: This helps prevent Google penalties for using “do follow” links to sites with which you have sponsored relationships. You might just want to add the rel=”nofollow” to links manually. If not, I currently like Title and Nofollow For Links. Ultimate Nofollow is another option.
8. Redirection: Sometimes you need to clean up your site and move links to different destinations. Redirection is my favorite plugin to do this.
9. Related Posts: To keep visitors on your site longer, it’s helpful to link to related content at the end of a post. I was so sad when nRelate said farewell, but I’m currently happy with Related Posts by Zemanta. Jetpack’s Related Posts, Contextual Related Posts, Related Posts for WordPress, Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP), Author Recommended Posts and Manual Related Posts are other options.
10. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): You want your site to be optimized for search. The easiest way to boost your SEO is by using Yoast SEO. This is one of my favorite plugins overall. (You can also use it to create a sitemap.)
11. Site Backups: It is so important to backup your site on a consistent basis. BackupBuddy is one of the best options. Sucuri Security, VaultPress and UpdraftPlus are other great WordPress backup services.
12. Site Security: Wordfence is a great plugin. (Sucuri and SiteLock also provide great security website services.)
13. Social Media Shares Buttons: They make it easy for your readers to share your content. Shareaholic share buttons are my favorite. (Just make sure that the “Affiliate Links” setting option is turned off.) Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress, SumoMe, AddThis, Flare, Jetpack Sharing, Simple Share Buttons, Social Warfare, WordPress Social Share (CodeCanyon), Really Simple Share and GetSocial are other options.
14. Spam Prevention: Simple Comments is excellent. Many people also like Akismet.
15. Visitor Greeting: What Would Seth Godin Do (WWSGD) is a great plugin that gives you the option to show different welcome messages to new and returning visitors.
In any event, these are my top picks. The additional plugins that you need will ultimately depend on the purpose of your site. (For instance, I will do a separate post on Genesis-specific plugins.) The good news though is that with all of the plugins that are available, you will be able to make your WordPress site function as well as it looks.