89 Essential WordPress Plugins for Business Websites

Updated February 2, 2022

Make Your WordPress Website Work Harder!

The majority of business websites use WordPress. And that gives business owners almost endless options to extend the functionality of their website. No matter what you want your business website to do for your business, most likely, there is a plugin for it. To get you started, we compiled a list of 89 essential WordPress plugins you should consider using.

Keep in mind that we are strictly talking about your basic WordPress business website. If you have an e-commerce store, run a membership site, or are an active blogger, there are lots of additional WordPress plugins specifically for you.

And we will go over some of those in upcoming blog posts. But for today, we are strictly focusing on some essential WordPress plugins we install on almost every WordPress site we build.

We have tested and used every WordPress plugin mentioned in this post. We installed many of them on our website, as well as client sites. In some cases, we provided you with multiple alternatives, depending on your specific preferences and requirements.

89 Essential WordPress Plugins

WordPress Plugin Platform

WPMU DEV

This plugin bundle is the ultimate solution for site owners, developers, freelancers, and agencies. It takes care of everything when it comes to WordPress security, performance, SEO, marketing, and more. Some of the included WordPress plugins are listed later in this post.

WPMU DEV Platform

SEO Plugins

Rank Math SEO

PixoLabo Recommendation

When it comes to the optimization of your content, images and increasing the SERP of your website, Rank Math is the first choice.

Rank Math is a user-friendly and popular WordPress SEO plugin that allows you to optimize your website for search engines and social media networks. It comes with a beginner-friendly setup wizard to import data from other SEO plugins during the setup process.

Rank Math is an optimization plugin for search engines to optimize content. With this plugin, you can add meta titles, descriptions, and Open Graph metadata to your blog posts. It also allows you to generate XML sitemaps and connect your website to Google Seach Console. Easily customizes all the essential SEO settings, controls how pages are indexed, and how you want your website to appear in search. It comes with built-in suggestions.

The basic version of Rank Math SEO is free, but they offer a pro version which gives you a lot more options and functionality.

Rank Math SEO Plugin

Yoast SEO

This plugin provides great SEO options for more advanced SEO users. It incorporates everything from a snippet preview to page analysis functionality that helps you optimize the content of your pages. Yoast SEO can also help you optimize image titles, Meta descriptions, XML sitemaps, and many optimization options in between.

Yoast SEO Plugin

All in One SEO (AIOSEO)

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is one of the most popular WordPress plugin of all time. It is used by over 3 million websites.

This plugin offers many flexible SEO options in a single pack. It supports Google Analytics integration, as well as customization of page titles, Meta descriptions, and supports advanced canonical URLs. A great option is that it automatically optimizes page and post titles.

There’s also a free version of AIOSEO available. However, the pro version includes more powerful features like WooCommerce SEO, local SEO, smart schema, video sitemap, a news sitemap, smart redirection manager, ability to detect & fix 404 errors, advanced breadcrumbs, and much more.

All in One SEO

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap, which helps search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo to better index your blog or site. With this sitemap, it is easier for crawlers to understand and retrieve the complete structure of your website.

Google XML Sitemaps Plugin

Monster Insights Google Analytics

This plugin makes it simple to add Google Analytics to your WordPress site, adding lots of features, e.g. error page, and search results. It also offers automatic outgoing links and download tracking.

Monster Insights Google Analytics Plugin

Site Kit

Site Kit is an official plugin from Google that helps you integrate your site with a number of Google services, including Google Analytics, Search Console, AdSense, Tag Manager, Optimize, and PageSpeed Insights.

In terms of Google Analytics, it makes it easy to add the tracking script to your site and also view sitewide and page-specific analytics data without leaving your WordPress dashboard.

Site Kit Plugin

Squirrly SEO

This WordPress plugin helps you write content that is both human and search engine-friendly. It provides SEO advice while you are writing your page content or blog posts and finds the content and topics that interest your readers. It tracks down all the aspects of your content marketing strategy and shows you the social media impact. It even provides free images and headline suggestions!

Squirrly SEO Plugin

AMP for WordPress

AMP for WP automatically adds Accelerated Mobile Pages (Google AMP Project) functionality to your WordPress site. This plugin makes your website faster for Mobile visitors, which in turn will help your search rankings and visibility on Google.

AMP for WordPress Plugin

Schema and Structured Data for WordPress and AMP

Schema & Structured Data for WP & AMP adds Google Rich Snippets markup according to Schema.org guidelines to structure your site for SEO. (AMP Compatible)

Schema Plugin

Internal Link Juicer

PixoLabo Recommendation

You probably know what internal link building is – the practice of including relevant links to your website into the content on your website. It’s a useful way to help your visitors navigate the website, but it also plays a role in search engine optimization. You can’t have content marketing without proper linking, and with Internal Link Juicer, an SEO auto-linker for WordPress, you can automate internal linking.

What the plugin does is simple – you create a post, configure some keywords, and let the plugin do the work. It will automatically add the links with maximum diversification for a natural linking behavior. You can, of course, customize the links, and configure the linking behavior, and you’ll have access to a dashboard to stay in the loop.

If you choose the Pro version, which will set you back $69,99 for one website, you’ll get access to even more features. You’ll be able to use taxonomies to whitelist posts. You’ll also be able to use terms for blacklisting posts that can’t be linked to.

Internal Link Juicer Plugin

Security Plugins

Wordfence Security

PixoLabo Recommendation

This enterprise-class security plugin includes a firewall, virus scanning, and real-time traffic with geolocation, and offers both free and premium versions. It is one of our recommended plugins for securing your WordPress website.

Wordfence Security Plugin

Sucuri Security

This malware scanner plugin enables you to scan your WordPress site for malware, phishing, and malicious attacks against the Sucuri database right from your WordPress admin dashboard. A more advanced premium version is available as well. It is one of our recommended plugins for securing your WordPress website.

Sucuri Security Plugin

Clean Talk Spam Protection

PixoLabo Recommendation

CleanTalk is a free anti-spam plugin that works with the premium Cloud AntiSpam service cleantalk.org.

Native spam protection for WordPress, JetPack comments, and any other comment plugins. The plugin moves spam comments to the SPAM folder or you can set the option to ban spam comments silently. You can also enable the option in the plugin settings to auto-delete comments from the SPAM folder.

Free 14-day trial, $8.00 per year after that.

Clean Talk Plugin

Akismet

This plugin checks your blog comments against the Akismet web service to determine if they are spam or not. It also lets you review the spam it catches in the “Comments” section of your WordPress admin dashboard.

Akismet Plugin

WP Cerber

WP Cerber is a freemium WordPress security plugin that offers a comprehensive approach to WordPress security. It can help you prevent security issues on your site in the first place via its firewall and built-in security hardening rules, such as limiting login attempts.

Then, it can also help you check for any issues on your site via its malware scanning and file integrity checking. Finally, it also includes tons of anti-spam tools, including geo-blocking options that let you block problematic countries or regions.

There is a free version. A pro version with additional options and functionality starts at $99.00.

WP Cerber Plugin

Performance Plugins

Imagify

PixoLabo Recommendation

Imagify is an advanced image compression tool that allows you to speed up your website with lighter images, all without losing image quality. After enabling it in your WordPress site, all images including thumbnails and retina images will be automatically optimized when they are added to your site.

There is a free version with limited options. Imagify also offers paid plans starting at $4.99 per month which give you access to additional tools and functionality.

Imagify Plugin

WP Rocket

PixoLabo Recommendation

WP Rocket is one of our favorite WP performance plugins, and we frequently use it as part of our best practices for speeding up WordPress websites. This plugin makes WordPress load fast in just a few clicks. It is recognized as the most powerful caching plugin by WordPress experts.

WP Rocket Plugin

W3 Total Cache

This plugin improves the user experience of your business website by increasing server performance, decreasing download times, and providing transparent Content Delivery Network (CDN) integration. One of the most effective caching plugins we have found yet! But due to the number of options, you can configure this WordPress plugin is recommended for more advanced users.

W3 Total Cache Plugin

WP Super Cache

This WordPress plugin generates static HTML files from your dynamic page or post. After creating an HTML file, your web server will serve it instead of processing the more extensive PHP script. Due to its simplicity of setup and use, novices favor this plugin.

WP Super Cache Plugin

Autoptimize

A simple plugin that optimizes your website, concatenating the CSS and JavaScript code, and compressing it. This plugin has many configuration settings and may not be the best option for novice users!

Autoptimize Plugin

WP-Optimize

WP-Optimize is an excellent tool for cleaning up the WordPress database and optimizing WordPress. It automatically removes unnecessary data from WordPress without manual queries. The plugin always keeps your database optimized for the best performance.

WP-Optimize Plugin

WP Smush

You can compress and optimize the images without reducing the quality of the images using the WP Smush plugin. It optimizes all of your image files in JPEG, GIF, and PNG formats using advanced compression techniques and saves lots of storage space. It auto-smushes all your attachments on upload while you can also smush your attachments manually in the media library.

WP Smush Plugin

ShortPixel

ShortPixel is an easy-to-use, lightweight, install-and-forget-about-it image optimization plugin that can compress all your past images and PDF documents with a single click. New images are automatically resized/rescaled and optimized on the fly, in the background. It’s also compatible with any gallery, slider, or e-commerce plugin.

ShortPixel Plugin

Kraken Image Optimizer

This plugin allows you to optimize your WordPress images through the Kraken API, the world’s most advanced image optimization solution. Kraken is a premium plugin; you pay according to the number of images you need to optimize.

Kraken Image Optimizer Plugin

Optimole

Managing and resizing image files drains your storage, processing resources, and development time. Optimole stores, handles, and scales your images with 80% less size while looking just as great!

Optimole is your all-in-one image optimization solution for WordPress & beyond. It processes your images in real-time and it’s fully cloud-based (doesn’t strain your server).

Optimole

Backup and Migration Plugins

UpDraftPlus Backup/Restore

BackupPlus allows you to create backups locally or upload them to Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace, (S)FTP, WebDAV, Google Cloud Storage, OneDrive, and the integrated UpdraftPlus Vault, and email, on automatic schedules. The premium version is also an excellent plugin for migrating WordPress sites to a new host.

UpDraftPlus Backup/Restore Plugin

All-in-One WP Migration

ServMask has developed one of the most complete WordPress migration tools, All-in-One WP Migration. This tool will allow you to create an exceptionally fast export to save your WordPress site in a single download. While you can quickly export your site, you can also import your large site file to a new server flawlessly. All-In-One WP Migration also can provide you with a backup of your site, every time you export your site a backup copy is available as well.

All-in-One WP Migration

Duplicator

Suppose you need to move your WordPress website to a new server. It can be difficult and risky, but the process can be protected and streamlined with a good migration WordPress plugin. Duplicator is the best WordPress plugin for this kind of sensitive yet essential job. The data transfer with Duplicator becomes a no-time job, no matter how heavy your website data is.

Duplicator Plugin

WebToffee

This plugin will ultimately boost up any website’s online presence. Data backups of your site data indeed reduce the risk of hacking. That is why WebToffee is compatible with providing the backup of your WordPress site with just one click.

Moreover, you can schedule the backup daily, weekly, or monthly, depending upon your convenience. However, its superfast customer services will be available every time to assist you.

WebToffee will give a kick start to your blogs and e-commerce business because it is easy to use. Compared to other WordPress plugins, WebToffee provides excellent import and export services. You can import products on Google spreadsheets or from WooCommerce.

WebToffee

VaultPress

VaultPress is a security-oriented WordPress plugin built to create real-time automated backups for your website. The Jetpack-powered theme easily syncs up every content, post, comment, and media file on your website seamlessly and provides protection from many web issues and attacks.

VaultPress allows you to create optimized backups regularly and restore your website in a matter of seconds with just a single click. With multiple subscriptions, you can also monitor, backup, and manage multiple sites through a single dashboard.

VaultPress Plugin

BackupBuddy

This plugin lets you back up your entire WordPress installation. You can automatically schedule backups of your themes, widgets, plugins, content, and even your SQL database regularly.

BackupBuddy Plugin

BlogVault

BlogVault is a reliable backup solution that is trusted and used by more than 400,000 sites. BlogVault is a complete solution for your website management and includes features such as incremental backups, site restoration, migration functionality, and WooCommerce backups. BlogVault will help you automate site management so you can be at ease knowing that your site is always protected.

BlogVault

Functionality Plugins

Jetpack

PixoLabo Recommendation

There used to be some great features only available to WordPress.com users, not for self-hosted sites. This WordPress plugin supercharges your self-hosted WordPress site by connecting it to the cloud power of WordPress.com. This plugin features over 40 modules you can activate and configure individually.

Jetpack Plugin

404 Page

PixoLabo Recommendation

This handy plugin allows you to easily create your own 404 error page without any effort and it works with almost every theme.

Bringing visitors to your website takes time and effort. Every visitor is important. The default 404 error page of most themes does not provide any information on what to find on your site. A first-time visitor, who does not know you, is left at a dead end and leaves your website. Set up a helpful custom 404 error page to keep him on your site.

404 Page Plugin

Cookie Notice & Compliance for GDPR/CCPA

The Cookie Compliance plugin provides you with the most updated formatting guidelines and technical compliance requirements for over 100 countries and legal jurisdictions.

It gives a simple, customizable website banner that can be used to help your website comply with specific cookie consent requirements under the EU GDPR cookie law and CCPA regulations.

Cookie Compliance Plugin

WP-Sweep

WP-Sweep optimizes your website database, including a few other things like cleaning, revisions, erasing auto-drafts, deleting spam and unwanted comments, broken links, fixing post metadata, plus several other similar operations. The database is the backbone of your website; therefore, making it robust is an essential thing.

WP-Sweep Plugin

Media Cleaner

PixoLabo Recommendation

Media Cleaner cleans your Media Library from the media entries (and files) which aren’t used in your website, as well as broken entries. Internal trash allows you to make sure everything works properly before deleting the media entries (and files) permanently. It uses a smart analysis powered by many implementations for specific plugins and themes.

Media Cleaner Plugin

Really Simple CAPTCHA

Really Simple CAPTCHA is a CAPTCHA module intended as an add-on for other plugins. It was created for the Contact Form 7 plugin.

Really Simple CAPTCHA Plugin

Redirection

The Redirection WordPress plugin is handy when you are migrating pages from an old website or changing the directory of a WordPress installation. In such cases, Redirection helps you to manage all the 301 redirections and keep track of 404 errors.

The plugin automatically adds a 301 redirection when a post’s URL changes. You can also manually add 301, 302, and 307 redirections for any post or page. Another nice feature is that Redirection provides full logs for all redirected URLs.

Redirection Plugin

Quick Page/Post Redirect Plugin

Redirect Pages, Posts, or Custom Post Types to another location quickly (for internal or external URLs). The plugin includes individual post/page options, redirects for Custom Post types, non-existent 301 Quick Redirects (essential for sites converted to WordPress), New Window functionality, and rel=nofollow functionality.

Quick Page/Post Redirect Plugin

Easy Theme and Plugin Updates

This plugin allows for installed themes to be upgraded by using the Appearance > Add New Themes > Upload feature of WordPress. Without this plugin, to update any theme, you must first delete the current version of your theme before installing the newer version.

Easy Theme and Plugin Updates Plugin

TinyMCE Advanced

TinyMCE is a simple free-to-use plugin that allows you to add, remove, and rearrange the buttons shown in the Visual Editor toolbar. It gives you the ability to configure font sizes, font family, text/background colors, tables, and much more.

TinyMCE Advanced Plugin

WP Mail SMTP

PixoLabo Recommendation

By default, WordPress uses the PHP mail function to send emails. The problem is that either WordPress hosting companies don’t have this feature set up correctly, or they block it to prevent abuse. The result is that you and your users may not receive relevant email notifications from your WordPress site. WP Mail SMTP solves this problem by sending WordPress emails using a proper SMTP mail server.

WP Mail SMTP Plugin

SearchWP

SearchWP is the most advanced WordPress search plugin in the market. It helps you improve your site search, so your website visitors can easily find what they’re looking for on your site.

Unlike default WordPress search functionality, SearchWP goes beyond just the post content and indexes everything on your site including custom fields, ACF fields, text files, PDF document content, custom tables, custom taxonomies, custom post types, WooCommerce product attributes, and more.

It also gives you the flexibility to create your own relevance scale and adjust the algorithm without writing any code.

There is a search metrics feature that helps you see what your visitors are searching for, what they are finding or not finding, so you can improve your content discoverability.

SearchWP also lets you add powerful features like live AJAX search in WordPress, and it seamlessly integrates with all major WordPress plugins including but not limited to WooCommerce, Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), Meta Box, Toolset, BigCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, bbPress, and more.

SearchWP

Code Snippets

PixoLabo Recommendation

If you want to add code snippets to your WordPress website, without having to mess with your site’s functions.php file or worry about breaking your site, Code Snippets is the best solution.

Once you save a snippet, it automatically becomes active on your site, but it can be activated and deactivated, just like plugins. If you want to move your website to another server, you can use the built-in import tool and transfer all your snippets along with your website.

Code Snippets Plugin

Contact Forms Plugins

Forminator

PixoLabo Recommendation

Forminator is your completely free and expandable form builder plugin for WordPress. It’s the easiest way to create any form – from contact forms and feedback widgets to interactive polls with real-time results, BuzzFeed-style “no wrong answer” quizzes, service estimators, and registration forms with payment options including PayPal and Stripe.

Forminator Plugin

Gravity Forms

This plugin allows you to build WordPress forms in minutes. Select your fields, configure your options, and easily embed custom forms on your WordPress site using the built-in tools.

Gravity Forms Plugin

Contact Form 7

This plugin can manage multiple contact forms. Plus, you can customize both the contact form as well as the email content with flexible and simple markup. No coding is required! This form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering, and more.

Contact Form 7 Plugin

WPForms

This drag & drop online form builder allows you to easily create contact forms, email subscription forms, online order forms, payment forms, surveys, polls, and all other types of online forms with just a few clicks. WPForms integrates with all popular marketing and payment platforms so that you can build powerful forms in less than 5 minutes. It even comes with options to help you create a custom WordPress user registration form and login page. This plugin comes both in a free (Lite) and premium version.

WPForms Plugin

E-Commerce Plugins

WooCommerce

PixoLabo Recommendation

WooCommerce is the all-in-one open-source e-commerce platform for WordPress webmasters. With a plethora of features, extensions, and customizations built into the platform, WooCommerce makes selling on your WordPress site easier than ever before.

WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress used by over 5 million websites.

It comes with all the powerful features that you need to create an online store.

Over the last few years, WooCommerce has established itself as the most dominant e-commerce plugin for WordPress. It’s built by the team behind Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, Jetpack, and other popular services.

WooCommerce Plugin

StoreCustomizer (formerly WooCustomizer)

WooCommerce offers a lot of action and filter hooks to further Customize WooCommerce… the only problem is, you need to add your own custom PHP code snippets to edit all the different WooCommerce elements.

Introducing StoreCustomizer, a free WooCommerce customizer plugin, and your answer to editing the WooCommerce store and product pages, cart and checkout pages, and also your user account page.

StoreCustomizer DOES NOT override the WooCommerce templates, the plugin simply adds extra design options and advanced shop functionality to your existing WooCommerce pages which are designed by the theme you are using.

StoreCustomizer Plugin

Easy Digital Downloads

As the name suggests, Easy Digital Downloads, or EDD for short, is an e-commerce plugin that’s specifically focused on helping you sell digital products such as software, ebooks, audio files, digital images, etc.

Because it’s focused on digital products, it’s able to create a more optimized eCommerce experience with features including download management, software licensing, and more.

The core plugin is free. Add-on bundles start at $99.50.

Easy Digital Downloads Plugin

Email Optin Plugins

Mailchimp for WordPress

PixoLabo Recommendation

MailChimp is one of the most popular email marketing services to manage subscribers, send emails, and track results in bulk. It is a great marketing tool for webmasters and business owners. Integrating MailChimp for a WordPress site is straightforward with the plugin MailChimp for WordPress. It is a free plugin that allows you to add beautiful subscription forms to your WP blog. If you want to use the plugin for commercial purposes, you can try the premium version.

This WordPress plugin lets you create beautiful opt-in forms to add more subscribers to your email list. Besides, you can easily integrate the plugin with any other submission form on your sites like contact form, comment, or checkout form. It supports all submission form plugins such as Contact Form 7, WooCommerce, and more.

Mailchimp for WordPress Plugin

OptinMonster

This WordPress plugin and application helps you get more email subscribers, fast. OptinMonster comes with pre-made high-converting opt-in forms that you can easily customize with their drag & drop builder. Their extensive display targeting features allow you to personalize the campaigns for each user so that you can show the right message at the right time.

It is an excellent solution for bloggers, business websites, and e-commerce websites. If you want to make more money from your website traffic, then you need OptinMonster.

OptinMonster Plugin

Constant Contact Forms by MailMunch

Constant Contact Forms by MailMunch allows you to painlessly add Constant Contact sign-up forms to your WordPress site. The sign-up form captures the lead and sends it to specific Constant Contact lists automatically. You can set it to no op-in, opt-in, or double opt-in. The plugin allows you to add forms to posts, pages, or sidebar, and also open it as a popup or top bar.

Simply sign up and connect your Constant Contact account into the plugin admin settings. It will pull in all your Constant Contact lists. From there, you can choose the mailing lists for which you want to make forms.

Constant Contact Forms Plugin

Social Sharing Plugins

Social Warfare

PixoLabo Recommendation

Most WordPress social sharing plugins slow down your site, are not attractive, and don’t work the way you would hope. Social Warfare share buttons are both lightning-fast and beautiful.

Not only will it never slow down your website like other sharing plugins, but the plugin also provides you with the most attractive share buttons available that look great no matter what screen size or resolution.

A plugin to maximize social shares and drive more traffic using the fastest and most intelligent share buttons on the market, calls to action via in-post click-to-tweets, popular posts widgets based on share popularity, link-shortening, Google Analytics, and much, much more!

Social Warfare Plugin

Monarch

PixoLabo Recommendation

Monarch is another one of our favorite WordPress plugins. The Monarch plugin allows you to take social sharing to the next level. This plugin is endlessly customizable to fit almost any design. Monarch allows you to select from more than 20 social sharing networks to display on your website to create a custom collection of sharing options for your visitors.

Monarch Social Sharing Plugin

AddThis

This WordPress plugin lets users promote their content on over 330 social networking and bookmarking sites. Users can easily configure settings that allow them overviews of stats like shares and clicks on a daily or weekly basis.

AddThis Plugin

AddToAny

This WordPress plugin helps people share, bookmark, and email your posts using over 100 social networking and bookmarking sites, including Facebook, Google, Twitter, Mix, Digg, and more. This social sharing plugin is a viable alternative to AddThis.

AddToAny Plugin

ShareAholic

This plugin is an all-in-one content sharing and amplification platform. It includes related content recommendations, promoted content, following, and even site monetization apps like affiliate linking and social analytics.

ShareAholic Plugin

MashShare

MashShare is a professional and highly customizable WordPress plugin for social media sharing and optimizing your valuable content. It also includes subscribing buttons for your news feed and mailing lists.

MashShare Plugin

Tagembed

Social Media Feeds by Tagembed is an all-rounder plugin for WordPress. It helps users collect, curate, customize, and embed social media feeds from 18+ social media platforms on the WordPress website. It embeds social media feeds on WordPress in just a few simple steps and helps you to add beauty and functionality to your website.

Moreover, the plugin provides an auto-update feature that displays the content as soon as it is posted on the platform. Custom CSS, custom CTA button, analytics are some of the other main features of the plugin from many. And as it provides a Free-Forever plan, it makes the plugin budget-friendly, which eventually makes it an ideal WordPress plugin.

Tagembed Plugin

Sassy Social Share

Sassy Social Share is the simplest and smoothest social sharing plugin that gives you user-friendly solutions for sharing your website content over social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, Whatsapp, Tumblr, Pinterest, and many more.

With Sassy Social Share, sharing content on all your social media handles becomes a one-click job.

Sassy Social Share Plugin

Live Chat Plugins

Tidio Live Chat

PixoLabo Recommendation

Tidio Live Chat is one of the most accessible live chat plugins to get up and running – activate the plugin, and you’re ready to go. The chat boxes come in three designs, which can be fully color customized to fit your branding. The free version of Tidio allows you to have one agent and one chat open, with no other restrictions. You can add additional agents using the premium version, which also enables unlimited concurrent chats and automatic messages.

Tidio Live Chat Plugin

LiveChat

LiveChat is a WordPress chat plugin you can use to quickly and easily add live chat support to your WordPress website. It allows for instant communication with on-site visitors and customers and enables prompt resolution to their questions or concerns. LiveChat comes with a comprehensive set of features, including proactive chat invitations – so chat operators can automatically send personalized messages to appear based on specified conditions, such as the number of visited pages or time spent on the website.

LiveChat Plugin

Membership Plugins

MemberPress

MemberPress allows you to build online courses, communities, and membership sites using WordPress. It is the best WordPress membership plugin in the market.

You can create subscriptions and restrict content access to users based on their subscription plans. It works with all popular payment solutions like Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, and more.

Since MemberPress is a premium plugin, it comes with many other powerful features including drip content, course management (LMS), group memberships, powerful access rules, automation features, and more.

MemberPress

Ultimate Member

Sometimes you need a Membership solution on your website. Ultimate Member is the answer to help add member functionality to your sites such as user profiles, member directories, user login, and editing. This easy-to-use membership plugin will help take the confusion out of adding members to your site. With additional functionality available — such as a WooCommerce integration — Ultimate Member will be the only membership plugin that you need.

Ultimate Member

Restrict Content Pro

Restrict Content Pro is a well-coded and extensible membership plugin that originally came from the same team behind Easy Digital Downloads, but was later acquired by Liquid Web.

It doesn’t offer quite as many features as MemberPress, but it includes everything you need to create unlimited free or paid membership levels and use those levels to restrict access to content on your site.

You’ll also get other useful features such as content dripping, discount codes, customizable member emails, and more.

Restrict Content Pro

Translation Plugins

WPML

PixoLabo Recommendation

By default, WordPress does not allow you to create a multilingual website easily. This shortcoming is a challenge for businesses that cater to a multilingual customer base in different geographic locations. WPML is a WordPress multilingual plugin that allows you to create multi-lingual websites with WordPress easily. This plugin is very easy to use, SEO friendly, and helps you easily create content in different languages.

WPML Plugin

TranslatePress

If you want to publish your website in more than one language, you can use the translate press plugin. You can translate your site with the final page directly from the front-end within no time. Translate Press comes in handy, saving your time with the 99% guarantee of accuracy and efficiency.

TranslatePress

Weglot

Weglot is a WordPress translation plugin that excels at simplicity. Thanks to the magic of machine translation, Weglot can help you have a working multilingual website within five minutes of installing the plugin.

Once you have those baseline automatic translations, you can go back and manually edit them as needed using a visual editor or a side-by-side string editor.

One thing to note is that your translations are stored on Weglot’s servers. So if you stop using it, you’ll need to ask Weglot to export your translations for you.

Price: Free for up to 2,000 words. Pro versions start at €9.90/month.

Weglot Plugin

Blogging Plugins

YARPP

PixoLabo Recommendation

With over a hundred thousand active downloads, YARPP claims to be the most downloaded related posts plugin for WordPress.This status is achieved by using a customizable algorithm that takes into account all kinds of variables like post titles, tags, and the content itself, when offering content related to whatever page or post your website visitors are viewing. You’ll have control of how the results are displayed and where.

YARPP Plugin

Post to Google My Business

PixoLabo Recommendation

With this plugin, every time you publish a new post on your WordPress website, it will also appear on your Google My Business page. The GMB post will be built using a template and the featured image from your WordPress post, and it will be published on your GMB page without you having to log into it.

While the basic version of the plugin is free, you can also opt for the Premium version if you want advanced features such as post scheduling, post recycling, picking location per post, and even managing posts for third parties. The starter Premium plan starts at $7.99 per month.

Post to Google My Business Plugin

WordPress Popular Posts

PixoLabo Recommendation

WordPress Popular Posts is a highly customizable widget that displays your most popular posts.

PSA: DO NOT USE THE CLASSIC WORDPRESS POPULAR POSTS WIDGET WITH THE NEW WIDGETS SCREEN!

WordPress Popular Posts Plugin

Recent Posts Widget

PixoLabo Recommendation

This plugin will enable a custom, flexible and super advanced recent posts, you can display it via shortcode or widget. Allows you to display a list of the most recent posts with thumbnail, excerpt and post date, also you can display it from all or specific or multiple taxonomy, post type and much more!

Recent Posts Widget Plugin

Editorial Calendar

Keep your blog organized with the help of this plugin. Editorial Calendar uses drag-and-drop functionality to simplify the way you schedule and manage your blog content.

You can also manage posts from multiple authors, quickly edit titles and publishing times, and manage drafts within the plugin.

Editorial Calendar Plugin

Website Voice

How can you integrate your websites with the speech-recognition plugin? The solution is quite simple and easy in the form of Website Voice WordPress plugin.

Converting the bulks of website content into most human-like audios has become the job of a matter of a few minutes. Not only that, you can convert the bulks of your blogs into podcasts to extend the website’s outreach to a more influential audience.

Furthermore, you can translate the text into multiple different language audios. With WebsiteVoice, your web content can be accessible to everyone, including people who face different types of disabilities. There is a free version, and paid plans ranging from $9.00 to $49.00 per month.

Website Voice Plugin

Calendar Plugins

The Events Calendar

The Events Calendar is the #1 calendar plugin for WordPress. This is a very popular plugin with more than 800,000 installs. According to The Events Calendar website, companies such as The YMCA, Warner Bros., and Harvard University use this plugin, so we know it stands up to being professional and user friendly.

The Events Calendar

Modern Events Calendar

True to the name, the highlight of Modern Events Calendar is that it lets you create calendars with very clean, modern designs. You can choose from 40+ event/calendar layouts, and Modern Events Calendar also lets you two-way sync with other calendar tools such as Google Calendar.

Modern Events Calendar Plugin

EventOn

EventOn is a premium WordPress event calendar plugin. One highlight of this plugin versus the others is that it gives you unique calendar designs, including eye-catching card options.

Beyond that, you can add any type of event to your calendar, including dedicated integrations for Zoom and Jitsi. It also has a huge add-on library if you need more features.

Price: $25 for core plugin. Add-ons from $10/each.

EventOn

Booking Plugins

Bookly

PixoLabo Recommendation

Bookly is a free scheduling plugin for WordPress that allows accepting online bookings on your website and automating your reservation system. Manage your booking calendar, services, client base, save time and money – all in one place. Join more than 50,000 businesses all around the world that have already automated their online booking system!

Bookly is designed to grow your online sales and make easy appointments. This is a one-stop shop for any businesses from hair salons or photography to wealth management and transportation. You can start easily with the free version of Bookly and once your business scales you can operate ultimate scheduling software with the paid version available with the Bookly Pro add-on, and various add-ons.

Bookly Plugin

LatePoint

LatePoint is a premium solution that can help you manage both in-person and online bookings. If needed, you can add multiple services, service providers, and/or locations. Your customers will then be able to choose their preferred details when they book their appointments.

You can also accept online payments right when people book their appointments.

Each service provider gets their own dashboard to manage their appointments and you also have the option to integrate with your favorite calendar apps (such as Google Calendar).

LatePoint Plugin

Amelia

Amelia is a high-powered WordPress booking plugin that offers beautiful interfaces on both the frontend and backend. You can use it to allow bookings for unlimited services, providers, and locations. You can create one unified booking form for everything and/or dedicated booking forms for specific locations or providers.

Other useful features include online payments, flexible schedules, integrations for Zoom and Google Meet, bundled services, and lots more.

There is a free version. Pro version from $59.

Amelia

Simply Schedule Appointments

Simply Schedule Appointments is an easy-to-use booking plugin that helps you get up and running with your first booking form in just a few minutes. The free version works great for solo providers, while the premium version adds support for multiple providers and locations. You’ll also get other useful features such as classes/group events, Google Calendar sync, page builder plugin integrations, and lots more.

Simply Schedule Appointments

Marketing Plugins

Hubspot WordPress Plugin

HubSpot’s drag-and-drop form builder allows you to easily build contact forms to use on your WordPress website. The plugin also includes a pop-up creator, live chat widget, contact database, and previously written code for you to simply copy and paste into WordPress.

All-in-one plugins provide multiple functionalities in a single plugin, making them a more lightweight solution than having multiple plugins limited to single functionality. Because HubSpot provides everything in one plugin, you can be sure it will not bloat your site, which is important as you consider load speeds.

Hubspot WordPress Plugin

Hustle

Hustle is WPMU DEV’s marketing WordPress plugin that features popups, slide-ins, embeds, and social share bars.

Embeds are your in-content ads or opt-ins and can be displayed using the built-in options such as before or after your post content, or both. You can also use shortcodes or widgets to display the embeds in more specific locations. That is in addition to the vast array of targeting options that apply to all other content types as well.

Hustle Plugin

PushEngage

PushEngage is the best web push notification plugin for WordPress. It allows you to send targeted messages and announcements to your website visitors using the browser push notification technology.

PushEngage comes with all the powerful features like drip campaigns, a/b testing, dynamic user segmentation, opt-in reminders, powerful analytics, goal tracking, and more.

For e-commerce websites, it can automatically trigger cart abandonment notifications, price drop alerts, inventory alert notifications, and more. For bloggers & publishers, it can automatically send out new blog post notifications to all of your subscribers.

PushEngage

AdSanity

AdSanity is one of the best ad management plugins for WordPress, and it offers an easier way to manage ads on your WordPress site.

You can create as many ad units as you want and then rotate them, group them, or schedule them to maximize your earning potential. You can use it with advertising programs like Google AdSense or sell your own ads directly.

AdSanity

Installing and Configuring WordPress Plugins

A Few Basic Thoughts

Essential WordPress plugins can make your business website the best it can be. And it is easy to overdo it. Before you start adding every plugin, you can think of or that you come across, ask yourself if you need it. Having some unique feature on your website is fantastic, but not if it interferes with some other functionality. Limit WordPress plugins to those that enhance your site.

Based on the needs of your business, you may not need all the tools and plugins mentioned in our list. However, it’s very common to know and use 15 to 20 plugins based on your business needs and solutions.

Since WordPress plugins are so easy to download and install, we recommend you delete any deactivated plugins instead of keeping them in your plugins. Having inactive plugins not only slows your site down; it can also expose your site to additional security risks. It is easy and more secure to download the plugin again if you change your mind later.

Before You Get Started

Before you install and activate any essential WordPress plugins on your business website, make sure you have a complete backup of your entire site just in case. Nine out of ten times, everything will go without a glitch. But every so often, a plugin conflicts with something on your website and breaks it. With a backup, you will be up and running again much faster than trying to debug a plugin.

And be sure to check out any essential WordPress plugins you are considering before installing them. We recommend you make sure they are current with your version of WordPress (5.9 as of 02/02/2022) and have a reasonable number of users. We would not trust a WordPress plugin that was only downloaded a few hundred times, would you?

Installing WordPress Plugins

Once you have narrowed down your list of essential WordPress plugins, you are ready to install and activate them. Installing is easy; simply use the “Add New” functionality in the Plugins panel of your WordPress admin dashboard. Search for your plugin, confirm it is the correct one, and “Install” it. After the plugin is successfully installed, you will need to “Activate” it before you can proceed.

We highly recommend that you install and activate one WordPress plugin at a time! Afterward, make sure your business website looks and functions as before. If everything looks good, you can move forward and install the next WordPress plugin. If not, you need to deactivate the plugin, check again, and delete the plugin if required.

Configuring WordPress Plugins

Most WordPress plugins are straightforward to configure. In many cases, you don’t even have any configuration options available. You are good to go. Other configuration requirements may include providing your email or selecting a user name and password. These days you may be asked for your cloud services provider, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, or similar.

But some of our essential WordPress plugins can have extensive configuration options that are well beyond most novices. This type of plugin usually includes performance and caching plugins like W3 Cache and similar WordPress plugins. And we don’t recommend that you attempt this on your own unless you feel comfortable. And we hope you read the earlier bit about backing up your site before you start!

Getting Professional Help

Yes, we know, not what you wanted to hear. But we are going to mention it regardless. If you think having your web designer or agency help you with this is too expensive or unnecessary, think again. What could end up being a frustrating exercise for you may only take a few hours for an expert. Most often, they have already configured and installed the same WordPress plugins many times. So before you do this on your own, consider getting some professional help.

We Deal with WordPress Plugins

PixoLabo is a top WordPress web design company. We offer a full range of WordPress consulting and design services for businesses and product brands, including custom web design and development, e-commerce solutions, search engine optimization, and WordPress optimization.

If you are not sure which of these WordPress plugins will best support your website or online store, let’s talk! Our team can help you install and configure all required WordPress plugins on your business website.

Are You Using WordPress Plugins?

Do you have anything to add to our essential WordPress plugins list? Did you install one or more plugins from our list? How did that go for you? Perhaps you have a favorite or favorites of your own?

Please leave your comments below so our audience can benefit as well, and grab our feed, so you don’t miss our next post! And help your associates with their small business websites by sharing our WordPress plugins post with them!

Thank you! We appreciate your help to end bad business websites, one pixel at a time!

By PixoLabo
Not Your Average WordPress Web Design Agency
@pixolabo