What is a Plugin & Why use It?
A WordPress plugin is some software that as the name suggests “plugs in” to your WordPress website. There are a lot of reasons you would want to add plugins. This could be for SEO, Security, Backups, Visual Functionalities, Cookies, and the list goes on and on.
There are more than 60k free WordPress plugins, and another 10k paid plugins. So pretty much any functionality or feature that you would want to add to your WordPress website, can be added with a plugin.
We at VSK Media recommend (& currently use) at the very least the following plugins for your WordPress website so it works properly and is optimized for better performance & results.
Contents
-
- Security – All in One WP Security
- Page Builder – Elementor (if you don’t code)
- Backups – Updraft
- SEO – All in One SEO
- Image Optimization – Imagify
- Caching & Speed – WP Rocket/Fastest Caching
- Email Functionality – WP Mail SMTP
1. Security – All in One WP Security
Let’s look at some scary WordPress security facts (mentioned on WP Clipboard):
-
- Due to its popularity and widespread use, WordPress is a common target for hackers. There are close to 90,000 attacks per minute
-
- 8% of WordPress sites are hacked due to weak passwords
-
- 61% of attacked websites are outdated
-
- 52% of WordPress vulnerabilities are caused by out-of-date plugins.
-
- Over 4,000 WordPress websites are infected by fake SEO plugins.
How do we prevent this?
First of all, make sure you keep everything up-to-date. The core files, themes, plugins, etc.
Secondly, make sure your passwords are setup so they’re difficult to crack. If you have difficulty remembering passwords, you can use a secure password manager like Dashlane.
The last basic step is to install the AIO WordPress Security plugin and set it up so your website is secure from most vulnerabilities & attacks. See the tutorial below to setup the plugin easily & effectively.
20min Setup Tutorial for AIO WP Security
2. Page Builder – Elementor (No Coding Experience Required)
Elementor is a No-Code page builder. This means you can create complete websites without knowing how to code. It’s made easy by Elementor because it’s a drag-and-drop tool that can be installed on your WordPress website as a plugin.
A very important plus-point of Elementor is that you can easily make the website responsive as well. All of this while being able to make it beautiful & functional.
It’s extremely user-friendly so you do not need to have a lot of technical knowledge to make a great site.
3. Backups – Updraft
A backup is basically a copy of your files (in this case it would be a website). This makes sure that your website is safely stored, even if it gets destroyed by a virtual armageddon.
Updraft is an easy, user-friendly and fast plugin that makes sure your backups are set. You can set the plugin up so it automatically on a given time-frame saves it to a specific location. So you will stay worry-free knowing you have backups just in case anything happens.
See the following tutorial on how to set up your plugin for backups:
4. SEO – All in One SEO
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is crucial if you want to grow your business. This is because if anyone hears of your business, and decides to look you up on Google, Bing, or any other search engine with SEO setup well, they will find you faster. Without SEO being set up correctly, you might not even appear in the search result list.
So if you do not want to be more visible and earn more money, skip SEO.
If you decide to do the most basic & essential steps, here is a great tutorial on how to set up All in One SEO:
PS. There are other plugins like YoastSEO and others.
5. Image Optimization – Imagify
Optimizing your images makes your website load faster. Your website’s performance on Speed also affects SEO. Often, images are bigger than necessary, and the quality difference between an optimized image and an original image is not even noticeable to the human eye.
Additionally, images can also be converted from .png and .jpg to .webp format. This would save roughly 25% on file size per image. Here is a 2min quick video from the creators of Imagify:
Conclusion
This is a quick bite-sized list of a couple of plugins you need to make sure your WordPress website runs smoothly and safely. There definitely are a lot more steps to making a great website, these plugins though are the must-have essentials when running your own website.
Have you used any of these plugins, or have we missed any? Let us know in the comments!
