There are 5 essential plugins that every WordPress site needs. It’s like adopting a team of superheroes to help you build your niche website. Sure, you can do it the hard way… but why not keep it easy and use these power tools?
Adding plugins to WordPress is simple. Just click on “Plugins” and “Add New.” From there, you can browse the plugin archive for these free WordPress plugins. It’s easy. It only takes a few minutes. And it can change your life.
Seriously.
Although there are literally tens of thousands of WordPress plugins available for use, these are the best free WordPress plugins that everyone needs right now:
Yoast SEO or Rankmath
An SEO plugin is absolutely critical if you’re going to do SEO well. These tools make it so easy to optimize your content for search. I’ve tried them both and I love them for different reasons. The basic version of each plugin is free, so I recommend that you try them both before you commit to purchasing a pro version.
Akismet Anti-Spam
Trolls are everywhere and Akismet is your first line of defense. This is the best free WordPress plugin for spam control. It will intercept spammy comments and make them disappear forever before you even see them.
After you activate Akismet, you will need to obtain an Akismet API key. It’s not as hard as it sounds. Simply click the large “set up your Akismet account” button that appears when you activate Akismet. Follow the prompts to complete the activation.
Ad Inserter
Ad Inserter is the best free WordPress plugin for ad management. I use Ad Inserter on all of my pages to help insert AdSense ads after certain paragraphs. It only takes a few clicks to configure and the free version provides up to 16 ad slots!
Additionally, Ad Inserter can help you place code in the header or footer of your website. This is helpful for ad code, as well as analytics code, pixel code, and other pieces of code that you will need to place in certain areas of your website.
Autoptimize
Your site needs to be FAST. Autotomize is the best free WordPress plugin for speeding up your website. This can have a tremendous impact on the speed and success of your website!
WP Super Cache
WP Super Cache is the best free WordPress plugin for caching your web pages. This plugin helps your website load faster because the saved, static files will be served to the majority of your visitors.
When you’re creating a website, speed is crucial. People will click away from a website that doesn’t load within just one or two seconds. WP Super Cache and Autoptimize can be combined together to help your site load very quickly.