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11 Free Must Have Plugins For WordPress | Best WordPress Plugins For Blogs

11 Free Must Have Plugins For WordPress | Best WordPress Plugins For Blogs
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Hello hustlers, hope you all are doing well. In this blog, we will gonna cover 11 free must have plugins for WordPress, and these plugins will going to be the best WordPress plugins for blogs too.

 

Consume this article in video format.  (Part 1)

 

Consume this article in video format.  (Part 2)

 

There are many other plugins out there too which can be very useful, but here we will only talk about those which are vital for your website. Some of these plugins are those without which you can’t think of having a WordPress website or very difficult to find their good alternatives.

I tested all the plugins listed below and are trustable with them having millions of downloads. Also, there basic feature that you will gonna need is free of cost and they do have pro/paid versions that you can upgrade later on.

 

Some concept that you should note before downloading any plugin is:

1) It’s source, which should be either:

Through WP-Admin Panel

WordPress website (https://WordPress.org/plugins/)

Official plugin website

2) It’s active installation, higher no is better. 

Installation > 1 Million is too good.

1 Million < Installation > 100K can be downloaded.

Installation < 100K, try to avoid or look for alternatives if possible.

(Note; these are not a hard and fast rule to judge, but to be on the safer side this is recommended)

3) It’s Customer review/ratings

 

Also read, Different Types Of SEO Techniques, White Hat SEO, Black Hat SEO | Which SEO Technique Is Best For You?

Better WordPress Content

 

So lets directly jump onto our list of 11 free must have plugins for WordPress

Akisment | Must Have Plugins For WordPress

1. Akismet Anti-Spam

First thing first, while making your WordPress website, your first priority should be to protect it. Talking about a blogging website, it is essential to filter out comments and this is where comes Akismet Anti-Spam.

This plugin had about 5+ million active installations. It’s one of the best and most common anti-spam plugins for your WordPress website. The great thing is that this plugin is automatically installed by WordPress onto you wp-admin while you install WordPress, this shows how vital this plugin is for your site.

Talking about the main highlights of this plugin:

  • Filters out comments.
  • The option of approving, disapproving, deleting, reporting spam, etc. 
  • It shows the URL preview of the commenter, thus help you to reveal the comment or.

To know more about this plugin or to install visit Akismet Anti-Spam

 

Wordfence | Must Have Plugins For WordPress

2. Wordfence Security – Firewall & Malware Scan

It’s is one of the best firewall & security scanners plugin out there for WordPress.  With over 3+ million active installations, it is an all-time favorite and one-stop security solution for any WordPress developer.

Talking about the main highlights of this plugin, this comes with tons of functionalities and features, such as:

  • Limiting login attempts
  • Implement two-factor authentication (2FA)
  • Implement a firewall for the website, and thus helps your website identify and block malicious traffic.
  • Implement malware scanner for the website
  • Protects site end to end

To know more about this plugin or to install visit Wordfence Security

 

Loginizer | Must Have Plugins For WordPress

3. Loginizer

One of the renowned plugin for implementing limit login attempts onto your website. With 1+ million active installations this plugin is automatically installed by WordPress in your wp-admin.

As said the main functionality of this plugin it to secure your website by introducing tons of security measures. This plugin is very similar to Wordfence but its core focus is on securing your websites from Brute force attacks.

Talking about the main highlights of this plugin:

  • Limiting login attempts, which limits wp-login attempts two 3 and if login attempts fail, it will track the IP and notify you about it.
  • Implement two-factor authentication (2FA)
  • Implement captcha
  • Creating and deleting IP ranges

To know more about this plugin or to install visit Loginizer

 

Insert Headers and Footers | Must Have Plugins For WordPress

4. Insert Headers and Footers

Let’s assume that you got a code to insert in your header, what you will do? This is where ‘Insert Headers and Footers’ plugin comes into play. If you don’t want to mess up with the PHP code of WordPress, this plugin comes too handy.

With over 1+ million active installations, this plugin helps you to quickly add your Google Analytics code, GTM code, Facebook pixel, or any type of code that is needed to be inserted either in the header, body, or footer for all the pages of your website.

Talking about the main highlights of this plugin:

  • Simple to insert any code 
  • Can add Google Analytics code
  • Can add custom CSS, HTML, JS 

To know more about this plugin or to install visit Insert Headers and Footers

 

Loginizer | Must Have Plugins For WordPress

5. Elementor Page Builder

One of the best page builder I had ever seen. Literally, if you are creating a WordPress website then this plugin is a must.

As you know with your theme and stock WordPress page editor, it is challenging to create an awesome looking page, due to very less no of elements available and user interface, some times it is annoying to work with the wp page editor. Hence that’s why we WordPress designers use page builder.

By the way, there are many free page builders out there to work with like, Beaver Builder, Divi Builder, Thrive Architect, WP Bakery but believe me non of the theme are as good as Elementor.

With 5+ million active installations the best thing about Elementor is that you can directly work on the live design, no need to switch back and forth between the backend and front end of a page. You got the direct assess to the frontend with the page building elements at the left sidebar.

Hence just by dragging and dropping the elements, you can create your website frontend, no need of touching the HTML or CSS at all. (Note: If you know the CSS, then you can play the custom CSS design too and thus you can get an edge)

The basic elements that you need are absolutely free of cost, but if you want to create a stunning design then in that can you will dees its pro version which costs around $49/year per website.

“Don’t wanna buy premium but still want to utilize the premium features”, I got a solution for you.

You just need to download some extra plugins which are addons of elementor and are also free of cost, such as:

  1. Anywhere Elementor
  2. Elementor – Header, Footer & Blocks
  3. Elementor Addon Elements
  4. Essential Addons for Elementor
  5. NavMenu Addon For Elementor
  6. Premium Addons for Elementor
  7. Ultimate Carousel For Elementor

Talking about the main highlights of this plugin:

  • Fast page speed time, due to its load time optimized structure & code.
  • Live front end drag & drop design system. 
  • Highly responsive design (Can design page differently for different devices).
  • Static as well as dynamic page design facilities. 
  • Pre-designed templates (pages and section)
  • WooCommerce compatible 
  • Custom CSS 
  • And Much More…

All these plugins are pretty good and trusted, hence utilize them freely. ☺

To know more about this plugin or to install visit Elementor

 

Yoast SEO | Must Have Plugins For WordPress

6. Yoast SEO

So you are done with creating your page, now guess what, ‘you should optimize your page & website for SEO’ and this is where Yoast SEO comes in.

With 5+ million active installations Yoast SEO is a one-stop solution for all your SEO needs, and Yoast SEO is the king of all SEO plugins out there for WordPress.

This plugin is like your SEO guide, it always shares its recommendations regarding your SEO & content quality. This really helps us create better content and properly optimizing it for Search Engine Optimization.

Talking about the main highlights of this plugin:

  • Edit meta title & tag directly on your wp page editor.
  • Insert focus keyword
  • XML Sitemaps functionality
  • Auto canonical and robot.txt tag setup
  • SEO quality recommendations
  • Content quality recommendations

To know more about this plugin or to install visit Yoast SEO

 

Wpforms | Must Have Plugins For WordPress

7. Contact Form by WPForms – Drag & Drop Form Builder for WordPress

Want to create a form for your content page or for an opt-in form for your newsletter,  then you will need this plugin.

With 3+ million active installations this plugin provides drag and drop features to create a form. Through this, you need not mess up with the database creating tables or designing the form through HTML, CSS & Javascript.

With it’s easy to build form it also provides pre-built form templates and not only this its forms are mobile-friendly, but SEO also optimized loads fast too. You will not at all see all these features in any other alternative plugin.

Through this plugin, you can also create a sign in and signup forms, and not only this, but you can also create payment forms too, both of these comes very handy while you are creating any subscription page.

Talking about the main highlights of this plugin:

  • Supports all different type form formats 
  • Beginner-friendly
  • Drag and drop form builder
  • Pre-build form template
  • Responsive and SEO friendly design
  • Built-in Javascript 
  • Custom customization feature 

To know more about this plugin or to install visit WPForms

 

Ad Inserter | Must Have Plugins For WordPress

8. Ad Inserter – Ad Manager & AdSense Ads

So you had created your blogging website and you also start getting traffic. Now you will think of monetizing it through Adsence or and other ad networks, right? This is where this plugin comes in handy.

To place an ad over your pages, you need to add ad codes, and again if you don’t want to get into wp source code, you will need Ad Inserter.

With 200K+ active installations, this plugin helps you to add the ad snippet to the page of your choice. Not only this you can also choose where to display your ad either before the blog, sidebar,  before comments, or between the blog.

Ad Inserter doesn’t stop till this, it takes you to the next level by providing you the feature of inserting your ad after the paragraph or even line of your choice. Isn’t it awesome?

Talking about the main highlights of this plugin:

  • Supports all ad network
  • Supports Google Doubleclick
  • Ad preview feature
  • Flexible ad placement facility
  • Custom ad placement feature
  • Restricting ad feature (helps you to filter out pages on which you don’t want to show ads)
  • And Much More…

To know more about this plugin or to install visit Ad Inserter

 

UpdraftPlus | Must Have Plugins For WordPress

9. UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin

When your website is up and live and starts getting good traction, it also starts getting to come in the radar of hackers, viruses, or you can face website crashes issues (hence we recommend Bluehost so that you never face website crashes), etc.

You may not know what can happen to your website, and thus it is recommended that you should keep a backup of your website.

Keeping backup of a custom website is easy, you have the files and database saved in your local, but that’s not the case with the WordPress at lease to noncoder. Thus you should install the UpdraftPlus plugin in your wp-admin.

With 3+ million active installations this plugin is pretty popular among the WordPress webmasters. It is a one-stop solution for your WordPress website in terms of keeping a regular backup of your site, migration of your site, etc.

The good thing about this plugin is that you can implement auto backups schedules and thus it allows you to activate either daily, weekly or monthly backup of your website. No need to worry about the space as you got the option of automatically deleting the older backups as per the frequency you want.

One more awesome this to note about UpdraftPlus is its backup cloud storage feature. Which gives you access to choose between cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, UpdraftVault, Rackspace Cloud, etc. So again you need not worry about the disk storage fo your server.

Talking about the main highlights of this plugin:

  • Cloud Storage backup facility
  • One-click restore feature
  • Website migration facility 
  • Timely automatic backup scheduling
  • Fast processing (unlike any other website migration or restoration process)

(Note: I recommend not to solely depend on one system for your website backup, do look for the backup system at the server level too)

If you want to learn how to properly use this plugin, then do check out Website Learners YT video over the same.

To know more about this plugin or to install visit UpdraftPlus

 

Simple Sitemap | Must Have Plugins For WordPress

10. Simple Sitemap – Create a Responsive HTML Sitemap

Having is sitemap on your website is good for both Google crawlers and the user. Hence I recommend using a plugin like Simple Sitemap to add a sitemap page on your website.

With 80,000+ active installations, it is a trustable plugin to add links of pages and posts on your sitemap page.

Talking about the main highlights of this plugin:

  • Simple to use
  • Visual sitemap build system
  • Custom sitemap optimization feature
  • Sort by field. (e.g. title, author, date, ID)

To know more about this plugin or to install visit Simple Sitemap

 

Companion Auto Update | Must Have Plugins For WordPress

11. Companion Auto Update

At the last but not the least, if you don’t want to log in again and again in your admin panel and upgrading your plugins and theme, this plugin (with 80,000+ active installations) is for you.

We know that WordPress 5.5 had released which comes with the feature of auto wp upgrades, but I had felt some issue with it and this feature doesn’t properly workout.

Hence I recommend you install Companion Auto Update as you get better control over what to upgrade automatically and what not.

Talking about the main highlights of this plugin:

  • Scheduling updates feature
  • Full control over what to upgrade and what not

To know more about this plugin or to install visit Companion Auto Update

 

 

Wrapping it up..

So this is our list of 11 free must have plugins for WordPress website.

All the plugins mentioned here are used and tested by me and are trustable.

Here we had listed the plugins in the manner of when it comes into play from starting a website building till finishing it so that this blog comes in handy to you. All the plugins are essential if you are creating a blog and you will surely need all of them or their alternatives to create a WordPress website without touching any code.

Hope you find this article helpful. Do share your feed in the comment section below and if you share it on social then it will be our pleasure.

Thank you and have a great learning day…

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