Essential Wordpress Plugins

Just like every other person on the internet I’ve compiled a list of the best WordPress plugins in my opinion.

Akismet – Yes, the default plugin is one of the best. It’s also really easy and free to get an Akismet account and API key.

Better WP Varnish – Only for those with Varnish installed. This plugin detects when pages are updated and clears your Varnish cache for you.

EWWW Image Optimizer – Despite the funny name this plugin will optimize all images that are uploaded to the site. Useful for clients who like to upload huge images. May require some server configuration.

iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security) – A lot of stuff in this plugin is overkill and may break some things in Varnish, however if you’re getting tons of traffic and you’re concerned about security this is the plugin for you.

P3 Plugin Profiler – Find out which plugins are slowing down your site. Extremely useful for sites with tons of plugins.

All-In-One Favicon – Quick and Easy favicons for both WordPress frontend and backend.

Quick Cache – Nice and easy caching plugin, requires very little configuration.

Relevanssi – Makes the default WordPress search a whole lot better.  Requires a little configuration.

SEO Friendly Images – Automatically makes images uploaded to posts and pages a lot friendlier to SEO.

Stop Spammers – Overkill in most situations, however will absolutely destroy any kind of spam. Little to no configuration.

Updraft Backups – Creates backups of your site. Automatically creates backup, very excellent for most sites.

Use Google Libraries – Replaces WordPress jQuery and other javascript files with Google CDN, may make your site run faster in most circumstances.

WordPress SEO by Yoast – Very nice and quick SEO plugin. Little to no configuration.

WP-Optimize – Simple and quick WordPress Database optimization.

WP Slimstat/Slimstat Dashboard – If you’re not really into Google Analytics this will track traffic to your site for you. May take up a lot of space in your database, shouldn’t be a huge issue.

W3 Total Cache – Extremely heavy duty caching plugin, only use if you know what you’re doing. Extensive configuration.

YARP (Yet Another Related Posts Plugin) – Self explanatory. Very little configuration and does most of the back work.