Introduction
Most of the businesses choose WordPress as the CMS (Content Management System) because of its ease of use and rich set of plugins. Plugins in WordPress are small software which plug into your WordPress website and add new functionality or extend any existing functionality on WordPress website.
With nearly 60,000 plugins in the official repository of WordPress, choosing the right plugin is like finding a needle in a haystack. In this article, I have tried to make your search for 10 must-have WordPress plugins to boost your site in 2024 simple and smooth.
How to Install/Add WordPress Plugin to Your Website
Before we start exploring the plugin, let’s first understand how easily you can install/add a new WordPress plugin into your website. You can choose any of the following two methods to add a new plugin to your WordPress website:
- 1. From your WordPress Admin Dashboard of your website, goto Plugins → Add New Plugin. You will be presented with a gallery of WordPress plugins which can be installed on your website.
In the search bar, type the name of the WordPress plugin you want to add. Click on Install. Once the plugin is installed, then click on the Activate button. The plugin will be activated.
- 2. If you have already downloaded the following from WordPress repository and you have a zipped file, you can upload the plugin by clicking Upload Plugin. Specify the path and select the .ZIP file of the plugin.
1. Elementor
Drag and drop builders have been a boon for developers who don’t want to write code to build their sites. If you have a WordPress website and want to create visually appealing and beautiful pages without writing a line of code, Elementor is the best plugin for you. It allows you to easily design custom layouts and offers a rich library of readymade templates which can easily be customized as per your liking.
Key Features:
- Drag-and-Drop page builder
- Responsive design elements
- Beautiful pre-designed templates
- Custom widgets
2. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is one of the most popular plugins for Search Engine Optimization. It helps you add focus keywords, meta titles and meta descriptions which is essential for optimizing your content for search engines and human readers.
Key Features:
- Analysis of your pages and post for SEO optimization
- Real-time SEO suggestions
- Generates XML Sitemap for submission to Google Search Console.
- OpenGraph support
3. WP Rocket
Loading speed of a website is a critical factor in search engine ranking and user experience. WP Rocket WordPress plugin is one of the best caching and performance optimization plugins. It is designed to optimize your site’s performance by reducing load time. I have included this plugin in 10 Must-Have WordPress Plugins to Boost Your Site in 2024 because of its user-friendliness and easy configuration.
Key Features:
- Page caching for faster load time
- GZIP Compression
- Support lazy loading of images
- Minification of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
4. WooCommerce
E-Commerce and Online Stores have been booming all over the world specially during and after the pandemic. Most of the business has gone online. WooCommerce is the go-to e-commerce solutions for businesses looking to sell their products or services online. Whether you are selling physical products, or digital products, this plugin can handle everything.
Key Features:
- Full eCommerce functionality
- Support product variations (simple and variable products)
- Easy integration of secured payment gateways
- Inventory management, shipping and tax calculations.
5. UpdraftPlus
For any business, its website is one of the most valuable assets. Taking regular backups of a website is good practice. The UpdraftPlus plugin makes it incredibly easy to safeguard your data by taking backups of your website from time to time. You can easily schedule regular backups. It can store backups on cloud services like Google Drive, Dropbox, and more. In continuation to our discussion on 10 must-have WordPress plugins, we’ll explore Akisment plugin next.
Key Features:
- Automatic/Scheduled backups
- Easy website restore process
- Cloud storage support
- Database & file backups
6. Akismet
Websites with weak security are soft targets bots that continuously crawl and attempt to send spam through comments and form submissions. Spam comments can badly hurt your site’s reputation and clutter your posts. A powerful anti-spam tool like Akisme is a must-have plugin for every WordPress website. It checks comments and form submissions on your website against a global database of spam.
Key Features:
- Automatic detection of spam comments
- Automatically deletion of worst spam
- Easy integration with other WordPress plugins
- Displays the count of approved comments for each user
7. Wordfence Security
As the cyber threats are increasing day by day, having robust Website security in place is non-negotiable. Wordfence Security plugin offers a comprehensive solution for a WordPress website with offers such as real-time monitoring, firewall protection, and malware scanning. It checks for malware, bad URLs, backdoors, SEO spam, malicious redirection, and code injections in the core files, themes, and plugins.
Key Features:
- Login security feature
- Real-time threat detection
- Web application Firewall
- Malware scanning
8. Smush
While beautiful images used on your website increase the visual appeal, sometimes they can significantly slow down your website. Smush plugin helps you optimize large images without compromising the quality. Reduction in the file size of the images, ultimately improves the load time and speed of the website.
Key Features:
- Automatic image compression
- Bulk image optimization
- Lazy loading for images
- No loss of quality
9. All-in-One WP Migration
Sometimes you need to migrate the database, media files, plugins and themes of one WordPress website to another WordPress website. At such times, All-in-One WP Migration plugin comes handy. It exports all the pages, post, plugin, themes and settings into a .ZIP file which you can easily import into another WordPress website.
Key Features:
- One-click transfer
- Automatic Backup Storage
- Data security and reliability
- Multilingual Support
10. Redirection
From the SEO and user experience point of view, broken links and 404 not found pages are very harmful. The Redirection WordPress plugin is the most popular redirect manager for your website. With it you can easily manage 301 redirections, and keep track of 404 errors ensuring that visitors don’t encounter dead ends on your site.
Key Features:
- Automatic 301 redirects
- Track 404 errors
- Simple redirection setup
- Support for regular expressions
Conclusion
Choosing the right plugins is essential for enhancing your website’s performance, functionality, and security. The WordPress plugins to boost your site mentioned above are trusted by millions of users and have proven to deliver exceptional results. From speeding up your site to optimizing for SEO and enhancing user experience, these plugins cover all the bases.
By implementing the above 10 must-have WordPress plugins, you can ensure that your website remains competitive and delivers the best possible experience to your visitors in 2024. Stay ahead of the curve, keep your site secure, and ensure it runs smoothly with these essential tools.
Remember, the right plugins can make all the difference, so start using these plugins today and watch your WordPress site soar!
P.S.: Website should be responsive on smaller design. Using CSS Flex, you can easily design responsive design.
