At the time of this writing, there are over 55,000 different plugins available in the WordPress plugin repository. In fact, there’s a plugin for everything, from the most common features a website needs to the most niched ones.
While having a huge plugin repository seems like it’s a great thing to have, it can become confusing to choose the right plugin, especially if you’re a new WordPress user.
This is exactly why we’ve selected some of the best WordPress plugins that you can use to add basic elements to your website.
Best WordPress Plugins for Basic Website Features & Components
We’ve gathered a list of the top plugins for WordPress that are vital features and components for a website:
1. SEO
2. Contact Form
3. Website Performance
4. Image Compression
5. Security
6. Backup
7. Portfolio
8. Gallery
9. Recipes
10. Page Builder
11. Email List
12. Online Shop
13. Translation
14. Social Icons
15. Instagram Feed
16. Sharing Buttons
SEO
Optimizing the SEO of your WordPress site is crucial for increasing organic site traffic. With better SEO, your content is more likely to appear higher in users’ SERPs.
1. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is one of the most popular SEO optimization plugins trusted by most WordPress sites. It’s an all-in-one solution for enhancing the SEO of your WordPress site.
Key Features:
- Automatically makes SEO improvements on your WordPress site such as using canonical URLs and adding meta tags to your site.
- Helps you customize titles and meta descriptions with templates.
- Helps search engines better understand your content thanks to the Schema.org integration.
Contact Form
Adding a contact form to your WordPress site makes it easy for visitors to get in touch with you or your business.
2. WPZOOM Forms
WPZOOM Forms offers powerful tools for creating attractive forms on your WordPress site.
You can create contact forms, and feedback forms on your WordPress site within minutes.
Key Features:
- Create attractive-looking forms on your website using pre-built templates.
- 100% responsive contact forms across all devices.
- Drag-and-drop form builder.
Check out our easy-to-follow tutorial on how to set up custom contact forms on your WordPress site using WPZOOM Forms.
3. Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms offers a “one-off” solution for creating user-friendly content forms on your WordPress site.
You can create custom contact forms and use conditional logic to display fields based on user inputs.
Key Features:
- Create attractive contact forms and customize them using the visual form builder.
- Let users directly upload documents, photos, or other attachments.
- Manage all your transactions and payments.
Pricing – Starting from $59 for the Basic License subscription.
Website Performance
Website performance plays a critical role in the overall browsing experience on your site. If your website isn’t optimized, site visitors will face delays and slower loading times and be more likely to bounce off.
4. WP Rocket
WP Rocket offers a simple, “one-click” site optimization solution. This is perfect if you’re looking to enhance the performance of your WordPress site without getting into the technicalities.
Key Features:
- Improve loading times across your web pages and increase conversions.
- Improve scores in the PageSpeed Insights test.
- Enhance the SEO of your site.
Pricing – Starting from $39.20 for the Single pricing plan.
Image Compression
High-quality and larger-sized images can also affect loading times on your website. This is why it’s best to use image compression for images with larger file sizes so it loads quickly for site visitors.
5. Smush
Smush is a free-to-use image optimization and compression plugin for WordPress. It offers a powerful compression tool that reduces your image file sizes without degrading the quality of your image by much.
Key Features:
- Compress images with lossless compression.
- Enable lazy load for images.
- Bulk optimize and compress images on your website.
Security
If you want to ensure a smooth and secure experience on your WordPress site, it’s crucial to ensure top-notch security of data.
6. WordFence
WordFence is a powerful firewall and malware protection plugin for WordPress sites.
It features a powerful security scanning that automatically detects and blocks malicious traffic from your website.
Key Features:
- Automated malware scanner.
- Lets you add two-factor authentication to your website.
- Extensive blocking features such as blocking traffic by IP or blocking traffic from countries.
Backup
Storing a backup of your WordPress site prevents you from losing your WordPress site’s data in case a hacker attacks your site or if your site breaks.
7. UpDraft Plus
UpDraft makes it easy to take backups and restore all of your site’s settings and data.
You can backup data directly to cloud platforms such as Dropbox, Google Drive, or Amazon S3, and restore your site’s crucial data by clicking a single button.
Key Features:
- Create a backup and upload your site’s data to popular cloud storage of your own choice.
- Makes saving your site data quick and simple.
Portfolio
If your WordPress site serves as a portfolio for your business, use a dedicated portfolio plugin to create and customize the portfolio page on your site.
8. WPZOOM Portfolio
WPZOOM Portfolio is designed to help you quickly create attractive portfolio posts on your WordPress site.
Using the Gutenberg editor, you can add portfolio posts and display your portfolio content better using WPZOOM’s attractive Portfolio block.
Key Features:
- You can easily display portfolio posts anywhere on your site using the Gutenberg editor.
- Display portfolio content in two different layouts;: Grid with overlay or use columns to display content.
- Site visitors can use the category filter to find exactly the content they were looking for.
Gallery
If your WordPress site has more image-based content or videos, it’s best to display them in an attractive gallery rather than showcasing such content in the default WordPress layout.
9. Jetpack
Jetpack not only offers tools that are designed to help your WordPress site grow, but it also features a suite of design tools that let you customize the look and feel of your site exactly according to your needs.
Key Features:
- Lets you showcase content in attractive image galleries.
- Use carousel sliders and slideshows to display content.
Recipes
For restaurant websites and food blogs, it’s important to make your WordPress site look food-themed.
You need to display food recipes in an attractive easy-to-read recipe card so that it gives out a more professional look and feel. You can also showcase nutritional facts about the recipes you share.
10. Recipe Card Blocks
The Recipe Card Blocks plugin is designed to help you showcase food recipes, ingredients, and nutritional facts better on your WordPress food site.
It’s the perfect solution for food websites that want to showcase their recipes in attractive recipe cards and showcase additional recipe details.
Key Features:
- Seamlessly integrates with Elementor and comes with multiple designs out of the box.
- The recipe block can be added to any page on your site where Gutenberg is enabled and works perfectly with any WordPress theme.
- Lets you bulk add ingredients and cooking directions.
Page builder
While WordPress by default offers a lot of customization features, sometimes it doesn’t cut it – especially if you’re looking to create something unique.
11. Elementor
Elementor is one of the most popular website builders for WordPress sites, trusted by more than 10 million websites globally.
It’s a feature-rich page builder designed to help you create attractive-looking web pages within minutes.
Key Features:
- Thousands of pre-designed templates to quickly create attractive-looking web pages.
- Create fully responsive designs that look and feel the same across all devices.
- All customizations are performance-optimized.
In addition to this, you can also use the WPZOOM Addons for Elementor plugin for WordPress to add custom templates and widgets to the default Elementor page builder.
Email list
As a business owner, you need to automate list building and email marketing.
12. MailPoet
MailPoet is designed to help you easily manage all your email lists from a central place.
You can create engaging emails and send them automatically to your audience by scheduling them at a later date.
Key Features:
- Quickly add a newsletter subscription form to your WordPress site.
- Automate the email sending processes.
- Manage and grow your email lists from the WordPress admin panel.
Online shop
If you’re looking to sell any type of product on your WordPress site, you will need a robust eCommerce platform to set up an online store.
13. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms for setting up customizable online shops in WordPress.
It features everything you need to start your online shop and customize the way products are displayed to your customers.
Key Features:
- Thousands of plugins that seamlessly integrate with WooCommerce.
- Lets you sell all types of products: physical products, digital products, variable products, or offer subscriptions to your customers.
- Lets you manage and track orders directly from the WordPress admin panel.
Translation
If your WordPress site caters to audiences from different geographical regions, you should use a translation plugin to offer easy translation services on your site.
14. TranslatePress
TranslatePress is a simple to use translation plugin for WordPress sites.
It helps you create multilingual sites by transforming entire pages at once and works seamlessly with WooCommerce.
Key Features:
- Very user-friendly as anyone can translate your website from the front-end using a visual translation interface.
- Compatible with most WordPress themes and plugins.
You can go over our guide on how to make your site fully multilingual for a better understanding of how to quickly set up the TranslatePress plugin on your WordPress site.
Social Icons
If you’re looking for a way to divert traffic from your WordPress site to your social media accounts, adding social icons to your web pages is your best option. It’s also a great way to encourage more people to reach out to you and helps build better connections with your brand.
15. Social Media Icons Widget by WPZOOM
The Social Icons Widget & Block plugin by WPZOOM is an all-in-one solution for quickly adding beautiful social icons to your website.
Using pre-designed icons, you can link your social media accounts directly to your WordPress web pages or use generic icons to add social links anywhere.
Key Features:
- Quickly add social icons using the Social Icon Block anywhere on your site where Gutenberg is enabled.
- Add widgets to sets of social icons and add custom links to them.
Instagram Feed
A great way to showcase your brand’s Instagram posts directly on your WordPress site is by using an Instagram widget.
16. WPZOOM Instagram Widget
WPZOOM Social Feed Widget lets you easily display your Instagram feed anywhere on your WordPress site.
Key Features:
- Supports lightbox and lets you add a custom avatar and bio.
- Features lazy loading so that website performance isn’t affected.
Sharing buttons
A great way to increase traffic and boost engagement on your WordPress site is by offering individual sharing buttons for each post or piece of content. This way, when a user likes your content, they can share it with their friends and family easily.
17. AddToAny Share Buttons
AddToAny Share Buttons is a simple plugin that’s designed to let you easily add share buttons to all pages or pieces of content on your WordPress site.
It lets your site visitors share your content to the most popular social media sites and apps including Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and Reddit.
Key Features:
- Access to many types of sharing buttons including floating share buttons, share counters buttons, follow buttons, image sharing buttons, or custom share buttons.
- Fully supports WooCommerce and offers extensive customization options.
Conclusion
It can be confusing when choosing the best WordPress plugins for your new site, especially if you’re new to the WordPress space.
Ideally, you want to choose plugins based on the site you are looking to create, the type of content you want to publish, and the budget you’re willing to spend.
Need more specific recommendations? Check our list of recommended plugins.
But if you’re still looking for a specific feature or plugin, you can drop us a comment. We’ll put our 12+ years of WordPress experience at your disposal and will try to provide the best recommendation.
Do you know of any other great WordPress plugins, free and premium? Let us know in the comments box below.
June 8, 2022 4:19 am
Great selection!!
My unique change would be in SEO, actually I used to install RankMath.