15 essential plugins for WordPress

Having built numerous WordPress websites, I thought I’d share my list of essential plugins that I install on most sites I develop. When installing plugins, always check to see if it is really necessary, and monitor the impact on the performance of your site. I hope you find this resource useful.

Widgets reloaded

this plugin transforms your default WordPress widgets by adding tons of options that allow you much more flexibility in how you display categories, bokkmarks and pages.
Download plugin

WP table reloaded

This plugin makes it easy to add nice looking tables into your pages and posts, with an option to sort and filter them.
Download plugin

Gravity forms

This plugin allows you to create forms with an easy to use interface. The forms can be a simple contact form, or a complex multi step wizard with conditional logic.
Download plugin

Hotfix

This plugin makes your site more secure by delivering security updates without having to wait for a WordPress update.
Download plugin

Ultimate security checker

Runs an audit on your WordPress installation and gives you a score on how well your site is secure. Also gives you solutions on how to harden the security.
Download plugin

W3 total cache

This plugin will speed up your website by compressing the HTML and CSS files, as well as stitching together multiple javascript and css files to make less HTTP requests. It has a powerful caching system to serve your pages that don’t change frequently.
Download plugin

WP smush.it

Compresses the images you upload via the media manager to decrease page load time.
Download plugin

Google analytics for WordPress

The most robust and powerful analytics plugin by Yoast. Uses the asynchronous script which improves performance. It lets you track file downloads as well.
Download plugin

Display widgets

Very useful for taking control of displaying widgets on your site, using simple checkboxes.
Download plugin

Login lockdown

Lock hackers out if they try guessing passwords to log in to your site.
Download plugin

Secure WordPress

Easily reinforce security on your WordPress site.
Download plugin

Relevanssi

This plugin improves the default WordPress search results, and also keeps track of what people are searching for.
Download plugin

Broken link checker

Notifies you if a link in your posts or pages leads nowhere. Extremely useful.
Download plugin

Redirection

Very useful if you are migrating your site to WordPress and the URLs have changed. You can define the redirect rules to avoid 404 errors. Also logs all 404 errors that happen so you can correct them.
Download plugin

Image widget

Makes it easy to insert an image in the widget areas by using the default WordPress image uploaded
Download plugin

BackupBuddy

I use BackupBuddy for 2 things : migrating sites from my development environment to the live server, and of course to backup my clients’ sites. You can save backups off site.
Download plugin

What are your essential plugins? share in the comments!