In this article, we will learn about top mandatory plugins for a WordPress website. Plugins are software for WordPress websites. One can also say that they are just like apps for WordPress. Just like computers and smartphones are useless without software and apps, similarly WordPress websites are useless without plugins, if you don’t have knowledge of coding. If you require any specific feature in your WordPress website, you have to install a plugin for that feature. Every plugin is built for a specific feature. You can add more features to your WordPress website by installing plugins. Plugins reduce hours of work into seconds. One must be very careful while installing the plugins. A computer with so much software hampers the speed, similar is the case with WordPress websites. In order to install a plug in, you have to click on plugin and select add new and search the plugins you wish to install. Click on the install button in the plugin and then click activate and the plugin is ready to use.
Plugins play a key role in WordPress website. If you desire to make your website more professional, you have to install plugins. Today almost every WordPress website uses the installation of plugins to make their website look more attractive. They adds features to your website. Plugins make the work very easy for the website builders. Plugins are not less than blessings for website builders. There are so many plugins available for WordPress websites. Some are free and some are paid. A WordPress website with so many plugins slows down the speed of the website. Therefore it becomes very necessary to install only mandatory plugins and uninstall the unnecessary plugins.
Here is a list of Mandatory Plug-Ins for WordPress website:
- Yoast SEO/Rank Math: SEO is a very important part these days, if you have to drive traffic to your website. A proper way to do SEO is very important. The term SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO will bring your post / website discoverable in search engines like Google, Yahoo’s, Bing etc. If you have done SEO of your website properly, there are more chances of people engaging and thus more traffic to your website. By installing Yoast SEO, you will learn how to do SEO for your post. Yoast SEO will suggest ways how you can do SEO in a proper way. Yoast SEO is a paid plugin, but does provide many of its features for free as well. If you are new in website building, do try this Plug in for free. The free features of this plugin are also more than sufficient for SEO. Website developers make use of this plugin to rank their website in search engines. Although, many website developers nowadays are using its alternative Rank Math SEO. You can try either of them for your WordPress website. Both are equally good for SEO of websites.
- Easy table of contents: Another important plugin in the list, which almost every website developer installs, is Easy table of contents. This plugin will make important changes in your WordPress post and will brief the readers about the content of the article in the form of an Index. Just like the index page of the book briefs its readers what is covered in the whole book, in a similar way this Plug briefs its readers which topics are covered in the whole post. The reader then reads that specific topic of his/her interest by clicking on that particular topic from the whole post. It makes your post look more attractive and professional.
- Add to any Share buttons: This plug in helps in sharing your post. By installing this plugin, you can place social media icons like WhatsApp, Facebook, messenger, Gmail, twitter, Pinterest, Instagram etc either at bottom or side bar and thus helps readers to share the post on social media platforms, if they like the post.
- Inline Related Posts: Another important plug in in the list is inliner. This plugin automatically inserts the links of previous posts from your website on the current posts, thus redirects the traffic from your current post to previous posts.
- Lazyload by WP rocket: It’s another important plugin in the list. It helps in increasing the speed of websites. This plug-in displays the text of the website first and images later, thereby increasing the speed of the website.
- One signal push notification: This plugin helps in sending notification to its readers, when a new post is published on a website.
- Smush compress and optimize images: This plugin compresses the size of images. Due to the large size of uploaded images, the website speed slows down. In order to enhance the speed of a website, it becomes very necessary to compress the image size without reducing its quality. Therefore, this plugin plays a key role in enhancing website speed by compressing large images. This plug-in is a paid one, but its free features are more than sufficient for beginners.
- Google site kit: This plug in links your website with all the platforms of Google like search engine Google console, Google analytics etc. You can easily know about your audience like what age group people read your posts and your audience is from which country, what type of post they like to read etc.
- Updraft: This plug in helps in taking backup for your WordPress website. It requires so much hard work and time to make a WordPress website, its customization and publishing a post. Therefore, it becomes very necessary to take a backup of all your hard work, so that if anything wrong happens with the WordPress website, you can easily recover the content for reposting. By using this plugin, you can take backup of your website in Google drive, email id etc wherever you wish.
- Recent Post with thumbnail: As the name suggests, this thumbnail reflects your recent post with thumbnail image in the sidebar. If anyone is reading your post, it may be possible that the reader may click on the post reflected in the sidebar, if the image or title used is catchy and attractive.
- Word fence Security: firewall & mallard scan: A WordPress website is very much prone to hackers. Therefore, it becomes very necessary to ensure its security. This plugin helps in preventing your website from hackers and mallards. Its interface is very simple and user friendly. In order to secure your website, you must install this Plug in.
- Contact form 7: This plug in helps in making the contact us page for WordPress websites. The contact us page is mandatory if you have to apply for monetization from ad sense. This plugin provides you a code, you have to paste the code and contact us for your website is ready. It’s a totally free plugin.
Although Plug-ins play a very vital role in WordPress website, but before installing them in WordPress, one must check their compatibility with the installed version of WordPress website.