WordPress may be the world’s most popular content management system, but that doesn’t mean you can use it without adding any extra functionality to it. WordPress plugins are add-ons you can use to make your WordPress website more powerful, robust, and customizable; many of them are free. All of them will increase your WordPress ability in one way or another and help take your website’s capabilities to the next level. So, whether you’re just starting on WordPress or have been using it for years, check out these 10+ WordPress plugins you need to be using in 2024!
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Yoast SEO
The Yoast SEO plugin has been around for a long time, and for good reasons: it makes on-page SEO extremely easy and takes most of the headache out of manual link building. The free version is all you need to audit your site. Seeing what needs fixing and providing insight into why things are ranking or not ranking well on search engines. Yoast also runs a support forum where you can learn from other people’s experiences and get answers to common questions quickly; they also host webinars on different aspects of their products regularly.
If you have an e-commerce store, there’s even a Yoast E-commerce extension that will help optimize your product pages and make sure you don’t miss any elements that could be holding back conversions. Overall, if you want to avoid using multiple plugins for SEO purposes, we recommend starting here.
RankMath
The ultimate goal of any post you publish on your website is to drive people back to your site. If a visitor has found what they are looking for and they’re ready to return, wouldn’t it be nice if they had a little nudge to let them know that you’ve got more awesome content? With RankMath, you can create customized messages with links pointing back to your sites so users have easy access to additional information.
This free plugin also helps protect against duplicate content and assesses keywords based on competitive ranking reports. With several helpful features designed specifically for SEO purposes, it’s one tool you should add immediately.
ALSO READ: The Ultimate Guide to SEO in Uganda (Bloggers /Webmasters )
Slider Revolution
Revolution Slider is a premium WordPress plugin that enables you to create beautiful image galleries and slideshows, or even entire websites. It comes with over 40 different transition effects, multiple layout options, powerful API integrations, shortcodes, and much more.
LiveChat
A LiveChat plugin is an amazing tool that allows you to chat with your customers right from your website. It enables you to respond to questions and concerns without having to spend time on social media or trying to find a contact email address. This saves valuable time, which can then be used elsewhere. The best part is that it works with almost any CMS so no need for additional coding if you’re not comfortable with that.
If you have any trouble implementing it into your current site there are plenty of tutorials available online and responsive customer support as well! So, what are you waiting for? Set up LiveChat today and see just how great it can be!
MonsterInsight
A handy plugin that tracks your visitors’ activity and tells you who they are, where they’re from, how they found you, what device they’re using, and much more. With MonsterInsight, you can also determine their location heat map, identifying which areas of your site users spend the most time on so that you can focus your efforts on those key pages.
These insights will help ensure that your content is being consumed by people who want to read it. Plus, if you’re trying to drive a certain action, such as downloading a free report or getting readers to sign up for an email list, MonsterInsight lets you track conversions. While other plugins provide similar features, MonsterInsights beats them all when it comes to usability and its clean interface makes it easy for even novice users to find everything they need without confusion.
ALSO READ: WordPress security – How to protect your site from common vulnerabilities
TablePress
Creating a table with rows and columns on your website can be challenging. With TablePress, you can visually create tables by using drag-and-drop tools. The plugin then creates HTML code for your table and inserts it into your post or page so that it displays correctly. Create attractive tables without having to write any code! An excellent tool for creating tables for websites, presentations, or anywhere else where tabular data is needed.
Broken Link Checker
If you’re a blogger, there’s no such thing as too many links. Broken links are not the favorite things and I’m sure yours too. The easiest way to make sure that doesn’t happen is by using Broken Link Checker, a free WordPress plugin that can be activated with just one click! When you activate it, it will scan your entire site for broken links and highlight them for easy correction.
And here’s some more good news: No need to manually check each page you can configure it so that it does an automatic scan on a set schedule such as every 4 hours. Worth checking out. It’s one of the must-have plugins for any new website.
Wordfence
One of the best security plugins on any platform. This will keep you updated on what’s happening with your website, and block spam comments and all sorts of bad stuff from getting into your site. Besides that, it keeps you safe from brute force attacks too! If I were you, I would install it and activate it on all of my sites today.
Autoptimize
Autoptimize pre-processes your website’s content and makes it SEO-ready. It reduces page load time, and supports several cache plugins, allowing you to improve search engine rankings. This plugin also integrates Google PageSpeed insights, which lets you optimize your pages accordingly.
A highly recommended tool by Search Engine Optimization professionals, Autoptimize is an absolute must-have for every website owner who uses WordPress. And if you are using a self-hosted WordPress site, then we would recommend that you install Autoptimize as soon as possible.
Akismet Spam Protection
Whether you have a small or medium-sized website, there’s no shortage of bots looking to steal your traffic. One of the best ways to make sure your content doesn’t go directly into a spam folder is with Akismet. The simple plugin lets you check your website’s comment section for potential spam, automatically removes them, and can even help you notify spammers that they aren’t welcome on your site.
It comes free with most WordPress plans and is easy enough for users of all experience levels. If you want to stay protected from spambots, it’s one of those plugins you just can’t live without.
TranslatePress
Make it easy for your non-English readers to read your content by using TranslatePress. This tool translates your posts and pages into multiple languages. You can add a translation widget or place it right on your post page. TranslatePress supports multiple languages and is compatible with popular plugins making it easy for users of other multilingual plugins to use too.
With a variety of customization options including letting users choose their preferred language within a single site, you can make sure that every visitor can enjoy what you have written in their native tongue! It’s one of our favorite tools for any blogger who wants to reach an international audience.
Conclusion
There are thousands of free and premium plugins that you can use to improve your site’s functionality. We’ve shown you 10+ of them here, but keep in mind that others will have different needs. Your priorities may be different, as well as your customers’ expectations. It all depends on what kind of website you’re building.
For example, if yours is a large e-commerce website with hundreds or even thousands of products on offer, there are many plugins out there that will help manage those product listings better than what WordPress core offers by default. If you’re building a portfolio website for yourself or a client, chances are good that social sharing tools like AddThis or Shareaholic would come in handy for promoting content across multiple platforms at once.
The key is knowing which tools fit your niche best so you can focus on creating great content instead of spending hours installing new software.