WordPress Plugins I Install on Every Business Website I Create

Every WordPress developer has their go-to list of favorite plugins they install on each site they develop. Each has a (and should!) have a singular purpose to solve a specific problem or handle functionality specific to the client’s business need. No plugin should be installed “just because other sites are using it and I want to be consistent.”

I have my default list of WordPress Plugins installed on each client site to handle things like SEO, optimization (load time; speeding up a site), security, etc. These things are not necessarily functionality included with WordPress “out of the box”, so are needed to give the business website an edge over others.

So without further ado, here’s my list of WordPress Plugins I use and install on almost every client site:

  • Gravity Forms – the best forms builder on the market for WordPress
  • WP Rocket – the best caching Plugin to speed up your website
  • Yoast SEO – the best Plugin to analyze your site for search ranking, and add SEO meta to your posts
  • Akismet – WordPress’ own anti-spam functionality to combat SPAM comments
  • JetPack – WordPress’ all in one plugin to handle social sharing of your content, image optimization, and more
  • Advanced Custom Fields Pro – the best Plugin to handle adding extra fields to Posts and Pages as needed
  • Beaver Builder – the BEST page builder on the market. Don’t get burned by other page builders that leave you with shortcake soup if you stop using it. Beaver Builder is easy to use and leaves core WordPress functionality alone.
  • Google Analytics MonsterInsights – add your Google Analytics tracking code and view stats right from your Dashboard
  • Heartbeat Control – use this Plugin to manage WordPress backend functionality so your server resources don’t get abused
  • iThemes Security – lock down your website backend and protect it from all the script-kiddie hackers out there
  • WooCommerce – need to sell ANYTHING on your website? This is the best plugin for it. Now owned and maintained by WordPress
  • WP Smush – optimize your images automatically as their uploaded. Manually check your site to see if any other images can be reduced in size to help your site load faster.

The list is by no means exhaustive. There are other Plugins I use for edge cases or other unique functionality for a specific need, like I mentioned before. But the above list has the ones I always use.

What is on your list?

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