wordpress

Choosing high quality WordPress Plugins + my favourites!

Sami Niemi

Oct 6, 2016 • 4 min read

This article will help you to make better decisions and safes your time when you’re browsing through thousands of different plugins in WP Plugin Directory. I believe that industry-proven best practices should be used from the beginning, so I crafted a short list for you to get started.

Before you install any plugin…

Ask yourself: “Do I really need this, does it actually improve my site?”

Sure, there’s a time and place for installing a new plugin, but remember, when you end up getting in problem with WP, most of the time the reason is poorly coded plugin.

Searching for a plugin in Plugin Directory?

WPBeginner has wrote a guide for choosing the best plugin for your needs. You’ll find out how to compare plugins and how to test their performance.

In a nutshell

Try to find the ones with best reviews and ratings
Avoid old plugins that aren’t compatible with current WP-version
Make sure that developer has not lost his/her interest for the plugin or you’ll end up getting zero support
Understand that the more plugins, the faster you end up in problems. (Also your site will slow down)

How to install WP plugin?

[wpmudev-video video=”install-plugin” width=”320px” height=”400px”]

My favourite plugins

I did not include plugins from every possible category for a reason. From my experience these are the ones that’ll do just fine, especially if your just getting started.

Akisme

Automatically checks all comments and filters out the ones that look like spam. Getting started with Akismet.

The SEO Framework

The SEO Framework plugin provides an automated and advanced SEO solution for your WordPress website. This is better than Yoast SEO.

This plugin adds a new Visual Editor widget type that allows you to insert rich text and media objects in your sidebars with no hassle.

Google Analytics

The Google Analytics plugin easily adds and enables Google Analytics tracking code on your website.

Elementor Page Builder

There’s only two page builders I would recommend. I’m not saying that you should use page builders on your site, but if you do, choose Elementor or Beaver Builder. I’ve tested them all, and believe me, these are the ones that doesn’t suck

I really like plugins by Tom. Don’t forget to check his theme GeneratePress. It’s great! I bet it works as a go-to theme for most of you

User switching

This plugin allows you to quickly swap between user accounts in WordPress at the click of a button.

EWWW Image Optimizer

The EWWW Image Optimizer is a WordPress plugin that will automatically optimize your images as you upload them to your blog.

Display Widgets

Change your sidebar content for different pages, categories, custom taxonomies, and WPML languages

PirateForms

Makes your contact form page more engaging by creating a good-looking simple WordPress contact form on your website. The interaction with your visitor. For more advanced forms, check out Gravity Forms.

Site feels sticky? Check out which plugin is slowing down your site.

P3 Plugin Performance Profiler

This plugin creates a profile of your WordPress site’s plugins’ performance by measuring their impact on your site’s load time.

What to do if WordPress site is slow?

As a default, and without traffic WordPress is pretty fast at any server. If the traffic of your site has stayed the same and your site is still slowing down, try to disable all the plugins that are pounding your site’s resources. (Use P3 to measure their impact.)

Many plugins are making lots of requests at every page load. We have noticed that after we changed all new websites to automatically support HTTP/2 and Php7, the page loads had instantly increased even 2-3 times compared to old technologies.

We believe that getting started with the Cloud based WordPress hosting solutions should be easy and accessible for anyone. Learn more about Pilvia.

All the best,
Riku

P.S. Got any questions, or want to have recommendations of other plugins to use? Just drop a note below.