Everyone in the WordPress sphere has their own list of plugins that they just couldn’t live without, that every time they install WordPress on their sites, the next thing they do is install the exact same plugins, and I am no different to them, and what I will share with you in this post are the WordPress plugins that has already been embedded in my system that whenever I don’t see just any on the list installed on my bunch of websites, I get uncomfortable because it makes me feel that there’s something missing, so I always make sure that these 5 plugins are always visible in my eyes, and this are arranged in no particular order.
Wordfence
by Wordfence
This is a no brainer since all webmasters should be responsible for the security of their websites, and Wordfence, by far, is the plugin that I always install first whenever I start a new WordPress website. Although I am just using the free version of this plugin, it still provides the security needed for my websites especially its ip blocking feature to ban those mischievous folks who try to access my websites without permission. Just last year alone, I received thousands of email warnings from Wordfence, and as a matter of fact, I made an analysis on the hacking attempts on my websites that you can read in this post.
Contact Form 7
Since Wordfence does not have a default contact form, this plugin just saves the day and makes my life easier since I don’t have to code contact forms in order for me to be reached by the netizens who want to reach me; so definitely, this plugin earns its spot on my top five plugins
Akismet
by Automattic
My God I hate spam! And this plugin just do what it does best and that is filtering spam comments on your website. Although sometimes there are still spams that get past Akismet, I cannot deny that more than 95% of the times, these spammy comments are caught, aside from the fact that I am only using the free service but with that kind of exceptional performance for a free product, that is a huge thing for me.
Google Analytics Dashboard for WP
by Alin Marcu
Who wouldn’t want to see their website analytics right from their Wordrpress admin dashboards? I am one of that so I always make sure that this plugin is installed in all of my websites. This plugin saves you the hassle of logging in to your Google Analytics page just to see your data, so definitely for me, this is one of the plugins that is worth installing on your WordPress websites
Google XML Sitemaps
Aside from sitemaps are important for search engine visibility, If you are using Google Webmaster Tool (GWT) then you should be making sure that your website has a sitemap in place because you need to provide your sitemap to GWT for proper indexing, and this plugin just do it magnificently and beautifully, and to add more to that, it also update the sitemap automatically, and inform several search engines on your website updates whenever you have new posts. With more than one million downloads and mostly happy users based on reviews, you are assured that this is a quality product and not just some crappy xml sitemaps generators that you can find in the WordPress plugins directory.
And that folks are my top 5 WordPress plugins, although before, Yoast SEO plugin is in my top 5 for SEO reasons, but since I am already using the Genesis Theme, which provides several awesome SEO features, I now have scrapped it in my list to provide a space for other deserving plugins
How about you? What’s your top 5 WordPress plugins? Share it in the comment section below.
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