The Ultimate Collection of 66 Must-Have WordPress Plugins 2023

Want to take your blog website to the next level? Then you won’t want to miss this comprehensive guide to the 66 must-have WordPress plugins. From SEO to design, caching to content, we’ve got you covered with the best of the best in the world of WordPress.

Whether you’re a seasoned blogger or just starting out, these plugins are essential for maximizing your website’s potential. As every blogger knows, having the right tools at your fingertips can make all the difference in taking your website to the next level.

In today’s digital age, blogs make a lot of money and there’s no reason why yours can’t too. By using the best blogging apps and plugins available, you can create a website that not only looks great but is also highly functional and user-friendly.

So, without further ado, let’s dive into the 66 must-have WordPress plugins that will help you take your website to new heights!

🚀 How We Picked Must-Have WordPress Plugins for Blogs

Here are some of the key factors we considered when picking must-have WordPress plugins for blogs:

• Ease of Use: We looked for plugins that were intuitive to set up and didn't require advanced technical skills. Blogs need plugins that are simple to implement.
• Functionality: Plugins should provide important features that help blogs perform core tasks like posting, commenting, sharing etc. We focused on functionality that improved the blogging experience.
• Compatibility: Plugins need to work seamlessly with WordPress and other plugins. We ensured they had good compatibility to avoid conflicts or issues.
• Popularity: Reviewing download and installation statistics let us identify tried-and-true plugins that many bloggers already use and endorse.
• Active Development: Plugins should currently be supported by developers who fix bugs and add new features. We favored plugins with ongoing maintenance.
• Support/Documentation: Good support resources help bloggers if they have issues. We considered plugins with detailed documentation and quality support options.
• Ease of Customization: Options to tweak plugin settings depending on a blog's particular needs and brand. Flexibility is important.
• Mobile Responsiveness: Modern plugins must work across all devices that readers may use to access blogs.
• Lifespan: Cost, upgrade paths and long-term viability to avoid dead-end plugins down the line.
• Reviews/Feedback: Reading reviews helped us find high-quality plugins rated positively by other bloggers already using them.

🤝 Why You Should Trust Our Recommendations

We've been part of the theme scene for quite some time now. Our journey began on ThemeForest back in 2015, and we've been on an upward trajectory ever since. In that time, we've developed over 20 themes for WordPress and various other platforms.

Our commitment to quality is unwavering. Our themes consistently rank at the top, boasting a 5-star rating from more than 600 reviews. But it's not just about what we say – our users are our biggest advocates. Over 23,000 customers have chosen our themes, with our flagship theme, Authentic, being a choice for nearly 9,000 users. We've earned the trust of many!

We're proud to hold the "Power Author" title, a testament to our dedication to quality and customer satisfaction. This recognition reflects our commitment to creating themes that not only meet but exceed user expectations. So, you can rely on our expertise and experience when it comes to WordPress.

Top 20 SEO Plugins

1. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to improve their website’s visibility in search engine results. This plugin provides detailed analysis and recommendations for on-page optimization, including meta descriptions, keywords, and readability.

2. 🏅 Our Pick - All in One SEO Pack

All in One SEO Pack is another powerful SEO plugin that includes XML sitemap support, Google Analytics integration, and advanced canonical URLs. This plugin is perfect for bloggers who want an all-in-one solution for their SEO needs.

Why Is All in One SEO Pack Our Top Pick?

It includes just about every SEO feature you could need like XML sitemaps, metadata optimization, keyword tracking, social sharing optimizations, etc. It's a true "all-in-one" plugin. The plugin is designed to be intuitive and easy for non-technical users to setup and configure SEO settings. The setup wizard makes it simple.

3. Rank Math

Rank Math is an easy-to-use, powerful SEO plugin that includes features like on-page optimization, XML sitemaps, breadcrumbs, and more. This plugin is perfect for bloggers who want to optimize their content without spending hours on SEO.

4. Broken Link Checker

Broken links can hurt your SEO and your user experience. With Broken Link Checker, you can quickly identify and fix broken links on your website.

5. WP Meta SEO

WP Meta SEO is a must-have plugin for bloggers who want to optimize their metadata for SEO. This plugin includes features like bulk editing, image optimization, and automatic meta-tag generation.

6. SEOPress

SEOPress is an all-in-one SEO plugin that includes features like on-page optimization, social media integration, and breadcrumbs. This plugin is perfect for bloggers who want an easy-to-use solution for their SEO needs.

7. WP Optimize

WP Optimize is a powerful WordPress plugin that allows you to clean up your database, optimize your images, and speed up your website. This plugin is perfect for bloggers who want to improve their website’s performance and SEO.

8. Slim SEO

Slim SEO is a lightweight SEO plugin that includes features like content optimization, meta descriptions, and XML sitemaps. It’s designed to be fast and easy to use, making it a great choice for bloggers and website owners who want to improve their search engine rankings without sacrificing website speed or performance.

9. Internal Link Juicer

Internal Link Juicer is an SEO plugin that automatically adds internal links to your content, helping to improve your website’s search engine rankings. It’s designed to be easy to use and can help bloggers and website owners improve their SEO without spending a lot of time or effort.

10. BoldGrid Easy SEO

BoldGrid Easy SEO is an SEO plugin that includes features like content analysis, keyword research, and meta-tag editing. It’s designed to be user-friendly and can help bloggers and website owners improve their search engine rankings without having to be SEO experts.

11. Ahrefs SEO

Ahrefs SEO is a premium SEO plugin that offers a wide range of features to help you optimize your website for search engines. With this plugin, you can conduct content analysis, keyword research, and backlink analysis, allowing you to identify areas for improvement in your website’s SEO strategy.

12. The SEO Framework

The SEO Framework is a lightweight SEO plugin that includes features like content optimization, social media integration, and schema markup. It’s designed to be fast and easy to use, making it a great choice for bloggers.

13. Squirrly SEO

Squirrly SEO is a unique SEO plugin that includes features like content optimization, keyword research, and SEO analytics. It’s designed to be user-friendly and can help bloggers create high-quality content that ranks well in search engines.

14. SmartCrawl SEO

SmartCrawl SEO is a comprehensive SEO plugin that includes features like content analysis, XML sitemaps, and social media integration. It’s designed to be easy to use and can help bloggers optimize their content for search engines.

15. WP RSS Aggregator

WP RSS Aggregator is an SEO plugin that allows you to easily import and display RSS feeds on your website. It’s designed to be easy to use and can help bloggers curate content for their websites, which can improve their search engine rankings.

16. WP Smush

WP Smush is an SEO plugin that compresses and optimizes your website’s images, which can improve your website’s performance and SEO. It’s designed to be easy to use and can help bloggers speed up their websites and improve their search engine rankings.

17. Google Analytics Dashboard for WP

Google Analytics Dashboard for WP is an SEO plugin that allows you to easily integrate Google Analytics into your website, making it easy to track your website’s traffic and user behavior. It’s designed to be user-friendly and can help bloggers improve their website’s search engine rankings.

18. Jetpack

Jetpack is an SEO plugin that includes features like site stats, social media integration, and contact forms. It’s designed to be user-friendly and can help bloggers improve their website’s search engine rankings.

19. AMP for WP

AMP for WP is an SEO plugin that creates AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) versions of your website’s pages. This can improve your website’s mobile user experience, which can improve your search engine rankings.

20. All in One Schema Rich Snippets

All in One Schema Rich Snippets is a simple SEO plugin that includes features like rich snippet creation, social media integration, and content optimization. It’s designed to be lightweight and easy to use, making it a great choice for bloggers.

Top 15 Design WordPress Plugins

1. 🏅 Our Pick - Elementor Website Builder

Elementor is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to create professional-looking pages and posts. This plugin includes a drag-and-drop page builder, making it easy to design custom layouts and add widgets to your website.

Why Is Elementor Our Top Pick?

This is something you really need. Elementor comes with a large library of pre-built widgets for common elements like headings, images, buttons, etc. But it can also be extended with many 3rd party addons. This covers most design needs out of the box. Elements can be styled responsively for different device widths. This allows sites to easily adapt to mobile.

2. Essential Addons for Elementor

Essential Addons for Elementor is a design WordPress plugin that adds a range of new widgets and elements to the Elementor page builder. This plugin is designed to help website owners and designers create more engaging and dynamic websites without the need for coding.

3. Beaver Builder

Beaver Builder is another powerful page builder plugin that includes a drag-and-drop interface and a wide range of templates and modules. This plugin is perfect for bloggers who want an easy way to design custom pages and posts.

4. WPForms

WPForms is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to create custom forms, surveys, and other types of content. This plugin includes a drag-and-drop form builder, making it easy to design professional-looking forms for your website.

5. Imagify

Imagify is a powerful WordPress plugin that allows you to compress and optimize your images. This plugin can improve your website’s performance and design by reducing the size of your images without sacrificing quality.

6. NextGEN Gallery

NextGEN Gallery is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to create stunning image galleries. This plugin includes a wide range of customization options and is perfect for photographers, designers, and other creative professionals.

7. Shortcodes Ultimate

Shortcodes Ultimate is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want an easy way to add custom elements to their pages and posts. This plugin includes a wide range of shortcodes and is perfect for bloggers who want an easy way to create professional-looking content.

8. WP Retina 2x

WP Retina 2x is a powerful WordPress plugin that allows you to create high-resolution versions of your images. This plugin can improve your website’s design by ensuring that your images look crisp and clear on all devices.

9. Responsive Menu

Responsive Menu is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want a mobile-friendly navigation menu. This plugin includes a wide range of customization options and is perfect for bloggers who want an easy way to create a user-friendly website.

10. Custom Sidebars

Custom Sidebars is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to create custom sidebar widgets. This plugin allows you to create different sidebars for different pages, making it easy to add custom content to your website.

11. Envira Gallery

Envira Gallery is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to create stunning image galleries. This plugin includes a wide range of customization options and is perfect for photographers, designers, and other creative professionals.

12. Visual Composer

Visual Composer is a powerful WordPress plugin that includes a drag-and-drop page builder and a wide range of templates and modules. This plugin is perfect for bloggers who want an easy way to create custom pages and posts.

13. Page Builder by SiteOrigin

Page Builder by SiteOrigin is another powerful page builder plugin that includes a drag-and-drop interface and a wide range of templates and modules. This plugin is perfect for bloggers who want an easy way to design custom pages and posts.

14. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to create custom lead magnets and opt-in forms. This plugin includes a wide range of customization options and is perfect for bloggers who want to build their email list.

15. Spectra

Spectra is a design WordPress plugin that adds a range of new blocks to the Gutenberg block editor. With Spectra, you can add a range of new blocks to your website, including flip boxes, accordions, tabs, testimonials, and more to create more engaging and visually appealing pages and posts.

Top 15 Caching Plugins

1. WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache is a caching plugin that can speed up your website and improve your SEO. This plugin creates static HTML files of your content, reducing the load on your server and making your website faster.

2. 🏅 Our Pick - WP Fastest Cache

WP Fastest Cache is another powerful caching plugin that can speed up your website by generating static HTML files. This plugin includes features like minification, browser caching, and GZIP compression.

Why is WP Fastest Cache Our Pick?

Setting it up takes like 2 minutes - just turn it on and you're good to go. Once it's running, your site will load fast. It has tons of options for optimizing performance too. Things like minifying CSS and JavaScript, image optimization, browser caching, database cleanup - the works.Best part is, it works with all the major themes and plugins. No matter what else you're using, this thing will play nice. Works on Nginx too if that's your thing.

3. Autoptimize

Autoptimize is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to improve their website’s performance. This plugin optimizes your CSS, JavaScript, and HTML, making your website faster and improving your SEO.

4. W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache is a powerful caching plugin that includes features like page caching, object caching, and database caching. This plugin can improve your website’s performance and SEO, making it a must-have for bloggers.

5. WP-Optimize

WP-Optimize is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to clean up their database and optimize their website. This plugin includes features like image compression, database cleaning, and page caching.

6. Swift Performance

Swift Performance is a powerful caching plugin that includes features like page caching, image optimization, and minification. This plugin can improve your website’s performance and SEO, making it a must-have for bloggers.

7. Cache Enabler

Cache Enabler is a lightweight caching plugin that includes features like page caching and minification. This plugin is perfect for bloggers who want an easy way to speed up their websites without sacrificing performance.

8. Breeze

Breeze is a powerful caching plugin that includes features like page caching, minification, and database optimization. This plugin can improve your website’s performance and SEO, making it a must-have for bloggers.

9. LiteSpeed Cache

LiteSpeed Cache is a powerful caching plugin that includes features like page caching, minification, and database optimization. This plugin can improve your website’s performance and SEO, making it a must-have for bloggers.

10. Hummingbird

Hummingbird is a powerful caching plugin that includes features like page caching, database optimization, and minification. This plugin can improve your website’s performance and SEO, making it a must-have for bloggers.

11. WP Redis

WP Redis is a caching plugin that allows you to use Redis as a backend for your website’s caching system. This plugin can improve your website’s performance and speed, making it a must-have for bloggers.

12. Advanced Database Cleaner

Advanced Database Cleaner is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to clean up their databases and optimize their websites. This plugin includes features like image compression, database cleaning, and page caching.

13. Asset CleanUp

Asset CleanUp is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to optimize their website’s performance and speed. This plugin allows you to disable unnecessary scripts and styles, making your website faster and more user-friendly.

14. NitroPack

NitroPack is a powerful caching plugin for WordPress that includes advanced features to improve the speed and performance of your website. This plugin offers both server-side and browser-side caching, as well as content delivery network (CDN) integration, image optimization, and more.

15. Redis Object Cache

Redis Object Cache is a caching plugin for WordPress that offers a high-performance caching solution using Redis, an open-source in-memory data structure store. This plugin is designed to help website owners and developers improve the speed and performance of their websites, particularly for high-traffic websites.

16 Other Must-Have WordPress Plugins For Bloggers

1. 🏅 Our Pick - Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to create custom contact forms. This plugin includes a simple form builder and is perfect for bloggers who want an easy way to create professional-looking forms.

Why Is Contact Form 7 Our Top Pick?

As one of the most popular and well-established form plugins, it has broad compatibility and a large community/support network. Forms can be styled to match a blog's design and additional fields/features can be added easily. It integrates well for collecting leads. Out-of-the-box it allows collecting names, emails, etc. and sending messages to the blog owner - core features bloggers need.

2. Google Analytics Dashboard for WP

Google Analytics Dashboard for WP is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to track their website’s analytics. This plugin allows you to easily integrate Google Analytics into your website, making it easy to track your website’s traffic and user behavior.

3. TablePress

TablePress is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to create custom tables. This plugin includes a table builder, making it easy to design and customize tables for your website.

4. Multicollab

Multicollab enables Google Docs-style co-editing on the WordPress editor, enabling content teams to collaborate on all kinds of content right on their publishing platform. This saves time by reducing dependency on third-party document collaboration tools, allowing reviews of videos and dynamic content along with text, and preventing the need for any last-minute reformatting before publication. Additionally, you won't need to give unrestricted access to your organizational drives to external stakeholders during the review phase, which will secure your private data even further.

5. Limit Login Attempts Reloaded

Limit Login Attempts Reloaded is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to improve their website’s security. This plugin limits the number of login attempts, making it harder for hackers to access your website.

6. WP Mail SMTP

WP Mail SMTP is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to ensure their email is delivered reliably. This plugin allows you to configure your website’s SMTP settings, making it easy to send emails from your website.

7. Easy Google Fonts

Easy Google Fonts is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to customize the fonts on their websites. This plugin includes a wide range of Google Fonts, making it easy to design a professional-looking website.

8. Advanced Custom Fields

Advanced Custom Fields is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to add custom fields to their websites. This plugin allows you to easily add custom fields to your posts, pages, and other types of content, making it easy to create professional-looking pages and posts.

9. WordPress Popular Posts

WordPress Popular Posts is a widely used WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to display their most popular posts. This plugin includes a wide range of customization options, making it easy to design a custom popular posts section for your website.

10. WP Google Maps

WP Google Maps is a popular WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to add custom maps to their websites. This plugin includes a wide range of customization options, making it easy to showcase your location or display points of interest.

11. Wordfence Security

Wordfence Security is a highly optimized WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to improve their website’s security. This plugin includes features like malware scanning, firewall protection, and login security, making it easy to protect your website from hackers and other security threats.

12. Akismet Anti-Spam

Akismet Anti-Spam is a must-have WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to reduce spam on their websites. This plugin filters out spam comments and trackbacks, making it easy to keep your website’s comments section clean and professional.

13. Easy Table of Contents

Easy Table of Contents is an essential WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to improve the navigation on their websites. This plugin adds a table of contents to your posts and pages, making it easy for users to navigate through your content.

14. RSS Aggregator by Feedzy

RSS Aggregator by Feedzy is a WordPress plugin that allows you to import and display RSS feeds from a range of sources on your website. This plugin can help you curate content from other websites and display it in a visually appealing way, making it a great choice for bloggers and news websites.

15. WPeMatico RSS Feed Fetcher

WPeMatico RSS Feed Fetcher is a WordPress plugin that allows you to import and publish content from RSS feeds on your website. This plugin can help you automate the process of curating content for your website, making it a great choice for bloggers and news websites.

16. Content Egg

Content Egg is a WordPress plugin that allows you to add affiliate products to your website from a range of affiliate networks. This plugin can help you monetize your website by adding affiliate links and product listings, making it a great choice for bloggers and website owners.

Parting Words

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of our comprehensive guide to the 65 must-have WordPress plugins! We hope that this article has given you the knowledge and tools you need to take your website to the next level.

With so many great plugins to choose from, it can be overwhelming to know where to start. That’s why we’ve curated this list of the very best must-have plugins for WordPress, including options for SEO, design, caching, and content.

And the best part? Many of these plugins are available for free! So whether you’re on a budget or willing to invest in a premium plugin, there’s something here for everyone.

By using the best blogging apps and websites in combination with these must-have plugins, you’ll be well on your way to creating a website that not only looks great but is also highly functional and optimized for success.

So, what are you waiting for? Start exploring the world of must-have WP plugins, and take your WordPress blog to the next level today!