In the last couple months several people have asked me what WordPress plugins are the best, which do we use on our sites, and what each plugin does. There over 31,000 plugins in the WordPress repository, and thousands of paid plugins and add-ons available on the web. It can be hard to figure out what to use. So to get started, here’s a list of our top 10 plugins that we use on our latest sites.
WordPress SEO by Yoast – Gives users tools and tips to help optimize their website’s content to match their focus keywords.
Advanced Custom Fields – Allows developers to greatly and easily customize themes and templates by adding user-friendly fields to pages and posts.
Project Force Field – Created by Orion Group, this plugin helps secure your website from brute force attacks and prevents website lag caused by them.
Soliloquy – Allows users to create multiple sliders/carousels easily and provides a range of options to customize the slideshow or gallery to fit your needs.
Envira Gallery – Created by the same developers as Soliloquy, the interface is similar to Soliloquy, easy to use, and creates beautiful responsive galleries.
Column Shortcodes – Allows users to easily organize content into responsive columns which makes it by far the best column shortcode plugin we’ve found.
Gravity Forms – Easy to use, in-site form builder with a wide range of add-ons to create anything from simple contact forms to user registration forms and basic ecommerce.
WPMandrill – Reroutes emails sent from a website’s server through MailChimp’s system to ensure the message gets to users, and provides stats of sent and blocked messages.
WooSidebars – Allows users to create new widget areas which can be displayed on just one or multiple pages or based on other conditions.
Black Studio Tiny MCE Widget – Adds a Visual Editor widget which allows the user to more easily add/edit content in widget areas without knowing HTML and CSS.
This list is constantly changing. Every month or so we find a new plugin that’s awesome and replaces an old one on our list. If you know of any other great plugins that you use, or if you have any questions about the plugins I mentioned, leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!
Great post! What I’ve found about WordPress is there are a ton of plugins, but few good ones. You’ve picked the the best!
Thanks, Ann!
There really are a ton of plugins. We have a frequent saying: “There’s a plugin for that!” But the trouble is weeding out the good from the bad!
I’m sure you use most of these WP plugins on every website you guys make! For the SEO side of things, we include WordPress SEO by default. With a few configuration tweaks (such as creating page/post title templates) it is very useful.