If your website needs additional functionality here are 10 great plugins that you have to consider. They are all from reputable developers and the best thing is they are all free.

10 must have plugins for WordPress

Akismet

It is the best solution for fighting spam. This plugin is so good that it comes with your default WordPress installation. You just have to register your account on their website and acquire your API key.

The plugin developers are providing several pricing options. If you are running a personal blog Akismet is free to use.

Akismet is fighting spam by analyzing the comments on your blog and matching them with their huge database consisting of spam comments. This way almost all of the spam comments on your website will be caught.

Contact form 7

This one is a classic WordPress plugin. If you need a Contact form this is the default choice. It is easy to use and has great customization options. You can add custom fields and CAPTCHA. In order to add the CAPTCHA field you have to download an extra plugin called Really Simple CAPTCHA.

WordPress SEO by YOAST

Without doubt it is the best SEO plugin around. By using it you can determine the SEO title, description and keywords of your every post. The plugin has a nice scoring system which provides you with information how well you have optimized your post for SEO purposes. Also when you release a post or a page your Google sitemap is automatically updated.

Google analytics by Yoast

This one is another great plugin from Yoast. It provides you with Google Analytics inside your dashboard.

For this to work you have to synchronize your plugin with your Google Analytics profile.

Ithemes Security

Ithemes security provides you with great tools for hardening your WordPress website. Like most security plugins it uses your htaccess file to do its job. It has very nice features like Malware scaning, Anti broot force attack. It allows you to hide your WordPress admin and registration pages. I recommend a backup of your database before installing it, especially if you are going to use some of the options that are making changes in your database.

W3 total cache

This is one of the best caching plugins. Ideally, the caching should be made by your hosting provider, but in most cases we have to make an effort too. The W3 total cache provides disk cache option. This way it boosts your website loading speed. Another great option is the minimization of html, css and javascript files. This further increases the loading speed of your website. I recommend using all caching plugins with caution. Before installing make a database backup. This plugin may be incompatible with some themes and plugins. You can manually turn off some of its options.

UpdraftPlus

It is the best of the best. This plugin does what it’s supposed to do. It makes a backup of your website. You can choose the period of your backups and how many of them to retain. The offered backup methods are FTP, Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google drive.

WooCommerce

If you are planning to open a E-Commerce website this is the plugin to do the job. Just make sure your theme is WooCommerce compatible. It offers various payment and shipping options. It also offers geo localization and is translated in many languages. You can add virtual products, products with attributes and variations and etc. It has a very intuitive admin panel.

Mailpoet

Every website owner needs to have a Newsletter. There are many website like Mailchimp that are providing this service. But if you want to have your own newsletter plugin hosted on your own WordPress website, Mailpoet is the best choice. It offers great customization options and templates for you to choose from. It also comes with a widget for your users to be able to automatically subscribe.

YOP Poll

YOP poll is the best choice for making polls. It offers a slick admin panel and great possibilities for you to customize the way your polls look.

Fell free to share your favourite plugins in the comments field below.