The 10 Best WordPress Plugins to Have in 2018

best wordpress plugins

There are over 29,000 WordPress plugins available today. In fact, these plugins have been downloaded about 286 million times, with the best WordPress plugins take up a big majority of those downloads.

When you creating your new WordPress site, you cannot forget about Plugins. The best WordPress plugins can assist your website in numerous ways, adding functionality and help you tailor your site’s specific needs. Plugins range from SEO optimizing, social media, live chat’s, or increase sales.

The problem is, with so many options, how do you know which is the best WordPress plugins for your website? Some are better for e-commerce, and some are better for personal blogs.

Another common question; what exactly IS a WordPress plugin?

We have compiled a master list of the best WordPress plugins for 2018, read on to discover which ones you should use today!

What Is a Plugin?

Plugins are special codes or mini-programs that have been designed and written by a company, available for you to install on your website. Once it is “plugged in” to your website, it will assist it in a specific way that it was built for.

Thankfully, a majority of Plugins are free, however, for optimal functionality, it is encouraged to upgrade to the premium versions. There are also some plugins that are available if you pay a small donation to cover some costs. If you have a new website, there is no need for premium plugins, just yet!

Jetpack

Just like the name hints, it is an awesome pack of features which makes this plugin an essential download. Jetpack helps with traffic growth, image optimization, security, website appearance, performance and so much more.

It also reaches out to search engines, sharing your latest blogs for maximum exposure. If you were to get any plugins, make sure you include Jetpack!

Yoast

Hands down, the most vital portion of your website is how optimized the SEO is, as this is how your website gets traffic. Yoast is an incredible addition to maximize your website’s SEO optimization. Yoast will hold your hand and teach you throughout the entire SEO process.

It scores the readability of your content, counts your keywords, helps you optimize your images, create meta descriptions, and everything for your posts.

MailChimp

Want to create an email database, manage subscribers, and send out mass emails? MailChimp will do just that, and more. MailChimp allows you to add a visually appealing subscription form for your blog.

You can also create nice opt-in forms to collect email subscribers, for that moment you are ready to start your email marketing campaign.

Social Icons

Without social media, your website or blog is not going to get noticed, period. Boost your social media marketing with Social Icons, one of the best WordPress plugins for social media, with an ability to support over 100 popular social media platforms.

It has a visually appealing layout and a very easy to use template where you can add icons to your pages and posts via widgets and shortcodes.

WooCommerce

If your website is a store, or if you are planning on selling anything on your website, get WooCommerce. You can easily set up payment options, shipping, and a storefront.

You can sell numerous variations of one product or multiple products, it also helps you manage checkouts, shipping, pricing, and tax.

Google Analytics by Monster Insights

In order to know how your website is doing, and what you need to change, monitor, and improve on, you need a great analytics plugin. Monster Insights created a great Google Analytics plugin for doing just that.

It uses universal tracking, tracks user views on numerous platforms, and helps you monitor many other real-time stats regarding your website.

CoSchedule

We all know how time-consuming it is to create great, consistent content for our websites. An editorial calendar such as CoSchedule will save your time and social life, but it is so much more than just that.

It helps you schedule and organizes your published posts, social media posts, podcasts, youtube videos, your answers on Quora and the emails you send. You will also receive statistics and analytics on your posts.

We feel that CoSchedule is definitely one of the absolute best WordPress plugins out there.

Ultimate Branding

Nothing better than the ability to fully customize your own website! Ultimate Branding helps you change the WordPress logos into your own company’s logos, giving your website a more professional, customized appearance.

You can also change your login page to your own custom logo. This is a great plugin for those who want a very visually appealing website.

List Builder

In order to grow a following and have customers to sell your products to, you need a well-grown email list. List Builder does just that. It helps you collect emails, send mass emails, has an auto-responder and helps you customize them in the way that you want.

WordFence Security

There is nothing worse than building a website and then having it get hacked from one of the thousands of malicious web bots out there. WordFence Security is one of the best WordPress plugins for site security.

This plugin helps you monitor traffic including logins, logouts, humans, robots etc. It also has a great firewall protection, live traffic monitoring, malware scans and much more. Keep your website safe, and check out Wordfence, or a similar plugin.

Learn More About the Best WordPress Plugins

Whether you are building an online store, creating online programs such as courses, boosting your social media, or even just creating a personal blog, there are many incredible WordPress plugins that you can use.

You may want to also use a free SEO audit tool in order to check where your website stands in terms of reputation and optimization.