5 Must-Have Plugins for WordPress + Why You Actually Need Them

There are tens of thousands of plugins available to WordPress users. So many, in fact, that its difficult to know which ones really make a difference and which are overhyped. Plenty offer useful niche solutions, but few are truly must-have plugins for all sites.No matter what kind of site youre running, or what niche it belongs to, there are certain plugins that youll want to install. And those are the tools were going to discuss today.In this article, were going to introduce you to five must-have plugins for WordPress and explain what makes each one stand out. Better yet, were also going to provide real data to justify why we think each plugin is essential.Lets get right to it! Revive Old Posts Auto Post to Social Media Author(s): revive.socialCurrent Version: 8.4.4Last Updated: October 3, 2019tweet-old-post.zip 78%Ratings 1,969,075Downloads WP 3.5+Requires Social media is the source of over 30% of referral traffic to most websites.  (Charts by Visualizer Lite.)That mean s youre losing out on a massive amount of potential traffic if you dont remain active on social media. Just to give you an idea, approximately 2 billion and 300 million users log into Facebook and Twitter respectively  each  month. If every post on those networks can increase your chances of reaching even a sliver of those users, it means that the plugin we want to point out to you here is definitely worth your time.The first of the must-have plugins on our list is  Revive Old Post. Its designed to help drive more traffic to your website via social media. To accomplish this, the plugin takes your sites new and old publications and automatically shares them to Twitter and Facebook.Key Features:Share your new  and old posts to Twitter and Facebook automatically.Set a schedule for your social media publications.Include hashtags and links back to your website.Price:There are both free and premium versions available.2. Yoast SEO Yoast SEO Author(s): Team YoastCurrent Version: 12.3Last Updated: October 15, 2019wordpress-seo.12.3.zip 98%Ratings 200,063,756Downloads WP 4.9+Requires Yoast SEO is by far the most popular SEO tool in the WordPress landscape, and its easy to see why its one of our must-have plugins. Not only can it help you improve your SEO, it can even analyze your contents readability. About 79% of users only scan through your posts and pages, so the more accessible your copy is, the greater your chance of retaining their attention.As far as SEO is concerned, there are plenty of ways to drive traffic to your site. However, none offer as much potential as search engines. Each day, Google alone handles over nine billion searches. Its not an exaggeration to say that organic traffic can make or break a website, and you cant buy your way to the top in most cases. Just to drive home that point, only 5% of search engine traffic leads users to paid results. Thats why working on your keyword strategy is critical for  every  website.Key Feature s:Optimize your WordPress posts and pages using keywords and meta descriptions.See how well your content is currently optimized, and make improvements easily.Improve your contents readability with simple tips.Price:The base version of Yoast SEO is 100% free, and theres a premium version with additional features.3. UpdraftPlus UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin Author(s): UpdraftPlus.Com, DavidAndersonCurrent Version: 1.16.17Last Updated: September 12, 2019updraftplus.1.16.17.zip 96%Ratings 29,914,741Downloads WP 3.2+Requires An average of 30,000 websites  get  hacked every day. When you consider the fact that WordPress powers nearly 30% of sites on the web, you can see why its a frequent target. Moreover, parts of your WordPress website can sometimes stop working due to simple errors.For example, if most people use 10 or fewer plugins on their sites and half of those receive monthly updates, its clear that the risk of running into compatibility errors is common. A singl e recent backup can save you a ton of headaches, whether youve been attacked, encounter a compatibility issue, or simply want to migrate your site.This is where our next must-have plugin comes into play. There are plenty of WordPress backup plugins available online, but few of them are as powerful and easy to use as UpdraftPlus. It integrates with multiple cloud storage options to safeguard your backups. And you can even automate your backups with a recurring schedule.Key Features:Create automatic or manual backups of your website.Store your backups locally or on the cloud.Restore your website to a previous state.Price:There are both free and premium versions of UpdraftPlus available.4. Compress JPEG and PNG Images Compress JPEG PNG images Author(s): TinyPNGCurrent Version: 3.2.0Last Updated: February 28, 2019tiny-compress-images.3.2.0.zip 90%Ratings 1,724,898Downloads WP 3.4+Requires The average websites file size is 63% images. That means optimizing your images can make a huge difference to your sites page load times.Why is that important? Because if your website takes more than three seconds to load, over  half  your visitors will abandon it.In case that isnt worrying enough, 79% of online shoppers might not return to your website if they find its performance lackluster. While images arent the only thing that impacts website performance, optimizing your WordPress images is a key component of improving your page load times.Compress JPEG and PNG Images takes every graphic you upload to WordPress and optimizes it so that it takes up less space. It does this using lossy compression, which means you get drastic reductions in size with minimal loss of quality.Key Features:Automatically compress your images using lossy optimization.Optimize your JPEG and PNG images.Bulk optimize any old images that you haveResize any images you upload to your website.Price:This plugin is free for up to 500 images per month.5. WP RocketWP Rocket is a powerful caching p lugin that helps you to speed up your loading times. It does this by creating cached copies of each dynamically-generated page on your site, so your servers have to do less work.Weve already talked about why quick page load times are critical, and caching solutions can be an even more effective solution than image optimization. For example, the W3 Total Cache plugin can decrease your loading times by  over 43% on average.WP Rocket does even better in our caching plugin tests, it decreased page load times by a whopping 63%.  It may not be free, but the results are more than worth it, especially if there are conversions on the line.Key Features:Cache your websites dynamically generated pages.Improve user-end browser caching.Enable lazy loading for faster loading times.Integrate your caching solution with a Content Delivery Network (CDN).Price:WP Rocket is a premium tool that starts at $49 for a single sites year-long license.Enjoy these must-have pluginsNo matter what type of web site youre running, there are certain plugins that are always worth installing. Here are five must-have #WordPress #plugins + why Click To Tweet As far as must-have plugins go, these five are our top picks based on the data:Revive Old Post:  This plugin can help you drive traffic to your site using social media.Yoast SEO:  You can increase your organic traffic using simple SEO techniques.UpdraftPlus:  Backups are critical for any website, and this plugin makes them simple.Compress JPEG and PNG:  Image compression can help you make your site load faster.WP Rocket:  This is a powerful caching solution that will speed up your website.Do you have experience with any of these must-have plugins for WordPress? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!Free guide5 Essential Tips to Speed Up Your WordPress SiteReduce your loading time by even 50-80% just by following simple tips.