Plugins are extensions used in WordPress sites to get some additional functionalities. Your WordPress installation may not have some desired features you need. Plugins can fill this gap. Here I’ve listed 5 must have WordPress plugins for your website.
1. Wordfence
Also known as Wordfence Security, this plugin works as an anti-malware, firewall, monitor and a fairly comprehensive protector. Wordfence can block known attacks in real time. If another site (which is using the plugin) is attacked, it will automatically block that harmful attempt on other sites where Wordfence is active. The plugin offers real-time visitor tracker, malware scanner, login security, IP blacklisting, sign-in alerts and more. Please visit this wordpress.org directory page to learn more or download Wordfence.
2. Jetpack
Jetpack is a multipurpose plugin developed by WordPress.com. It comes with free but useful features like content delivery system (Photon CDN), site uptime monitor, mobile theme, brute force protection, link shortener, stats etc. Photon is a free CDN service that delivers your post images from WordPress.com servers. The uptime monitor sends you a notification when a site downtime is detected. You will also receive a feedback when the site is live. Get it here.
3. Yoast SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) may sound tough to some people because it involves a good deal of research, observation and exploration. Yoast can generate site maps for search engines, add meta tags to your pages, perform keyword research and much more. It can edit the robots.txt and .htaccess files as well. Additionally, Yoast can handle social integration, webmaster tracker insertion, permalink structure customization etc. Find the Yoast SEO plugin here.
4. WP Super Cache
A caching mechanism can reduce load on your hosting server by serving static html files from the dynamic WordPress site. WP Super Cache is one of the most popular caching plugins for WordPress self hosted sites. It uses mod rewrite, php and legacy caching options. You can define when to clear cached files to serve the users with latest and updated contents. Download or learn more about WP Super Cache from here.
5. Share Butons by AddToAny
Social buttons can play a good role to spread your business by letting visitors share the site contents. Placing sharing media on informative pages could make them viral. Share Buttons by AddToAny is a great plugin to do this. It offers lots of social sharing icons to put on your site. This mobile optimized tool supports Google Analytics integration to track shared link. Visit this WP plugin directory link to download it.
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