Posts in category: Website Tips

In this article, I will provide you a list of the the essential WordPress plugins you must install as soon as you get your WordPress website.

Finding the essential WordPress plugins can be a tough job for a beginner blogger.

Especially when you still don’t know what you are looking for.

To put it into a perspective there is currently over 56,000+ plugins in the WordPress repository. And ideally you should only have less than 30 plugins to avoid frequently breaking functionality.

Basically if you run into an issue with your website. The less the plugins are, the easier it is to troubleshoot which one is causing the issue.

The good thing is this doesn’t happen often in WordPress anymore. As WordPress mildly enforces the plugin developers to use a unique naming scheme on their plugins.

So duplicate function error rarely happens now. The issue now mostly is on the JS side of things.

For this article, I am going to list the plugins that I am using. And add some that you may also need.

Here are the essential WordPress plugins in 2018.

1. Akismet Anti-Spam

Security Plugin – Used by Good Tech Guru

This plugin already comes pre-installed with WordPress. You will just need to signup at the Akismet website to get an API key to activate the plugin.

Akismet is an anti-spam plugin which checks your comment and contact form submissions.

If it deemed the comment or contact form submission as a spam then it will automatically block it.

You can always check the spam messages it blocked on the comment section.

2. Yoast SEO

SEO Plugin – Used by Good Tech Guru

Yoast SEO is a truly essential WordPress plugin! There are so many features in this plugin now that will make you fall in love with it.

Firstly, when creating an article, it has a feature called Readability Analysis.

Basically what it does is check your grammar and writing style then give you suggestions on how to improve them.

It will also highlight which sections it is pertaining to so you will not have to guess which sections to improve.

Secondly, for article as well, is the Focus Keyword feature.

Just type your focus keyword on it and it will show you suggestions on how to improve its visibility on the search engines.

If you do the suggestions. The Readability Analysis and Focus Keyword will turn to a green smiley. And I gotta tell you it has become pretty addicting for me to keep all my articles at a green smiley.

Other features of Yoast SEO that I am using are generating sitemap, SEO title generation and adding meta description.

3. CAOS for Analytics

SEO Plugin – Used by Good Tech Guru

CAOS for Analytics is a lightweight WordPress plugin which lets you host your analytics.js file locally.

And at the same time keep it updated by using the built-in cron-scheduler of WordPress.

If you do this it will green check the Leverage Browser Caching suggestion in any speed analysis websites like Google PageSpeed, Pingdom and GTMetrix.

This is because the user’s browser doesn’t have to take a roundtrip and download the file from the Google’s external server.

Using it is also pretty straightforward. After installation, all you have to do is enter your Tracking ID.

4. Broken Link Checker

Utility Plugin

Broken Link Checker is a WordPress plugin which will monitor your website for broken links and missing images links.

Once it finds a broken link then you can update it through the plugin directly which is more convenient.

It can also allow you to prevent search engine from following your broken links or make it display differently in the post. But these two are not ideal solutions at all. I highly suggest that you avoid doing these and just fix the broken link normally.

Just remember that finding your broken links depends on how big your website currently is.

I will definitely use this plugin in the future but for the meantime I let the Google Search Console find my broken links for me.

5. Redirection

Utility Plugin

Redirection is WordPress plugin that lets you easily redirect your broken link to a more suitable post or page through 301 redirect.

It allows you to do this directly in the WordPress dashboard which is more convenient that opening your htaccess file all the time.

The plugin also supports regular expression so you can create a redirect patterns to match any number of URLs.

You also do not have to worry about breaking your redirects if you change your permalinks. As it will create the new redirects for you automatically.

I will consider using this plugin in the future but for the meantime I am fine with editing the htaccess.

6. WP Smush

Utility Plugin

WP Smush is WordPress plugin which will automatically optimize and compress your images as soon as you upload them.

It is an essential WordPress plugin for keeping your images size as low as possible thus making your website load faster.

We all know that at this time a fast loading website is an absolute necessity as Google punishes slow loading websites.

Statistics also says that if your website takes longer than 3 seconds to load then 70% of your visitors will leave.

WP Smush will help you solve all these two issues.

I will definitely use this plugin in the future. For the meantime I am fine compressing my images manually.

7. Gutenberg

Editor Plugin – Used by Good Tech Guru

Gutenberg is a WordPress plugin that I really fell in love with as soon as I started using it.

It is currently getting a lot of negative feedbacks from the community but I still think that it is a step forward to a more modern way of writing.

For me personally maybe I just love how clean my editor UI has become when I started using it. And I also find the editor toolbox really useful and fitted well in Gutenberg.

Basically Gutenberg is a WordPress editor plugin which enhances the user experience and user interface when you are creating your article.

What it does is provide an alternative to the Classic Editor with a more modern feel and approach.

It also hides some of the unnecessary sections when you’re editing so the editor looks really clean. And I feel like I am able to focus more on the content this time around.

I love Gutenberg and I highly suggest you try it yourself too.

8. Contact Form 7

Contact Form Plugin

The Contact Form 7 is a WordPress plugin which lets you easily create contact forms in your website.

If you also have Akismet setup then you can easily integrate it with the Contact Form 7 so your form will be protected from spam.

You can do this by adding the akismet attribute in the supported fields of the Contact Form 7.

Integrating your Contact Form 7 forms to any page in your website is also as easy as copy and pasting its respective shortcode.

I will be using this plugin soon when I finally got time to setup my full contact page.

9. Easy WP SMTP

SMTP Plugin

It is an absolute must that you install Easy WP SMTP if you will use a contact form plugins like for instance the Contact Form 7.

Basically most WordPress contact form plugins will just use the default mail function of WordPress when sending emails.

Emails sent through this hardly gets received by recipients nowadays.

A solution to this is installing SMTP plugins like Easy WP SMTP which will let you send your emails through SMTP.

This will make your email appear legitimate through the mail service firewalls as it will look like an ordinary email being sent by a real person.

I will definitely use this with the Contact Form 7 when I setup my contact page.

10. UpdraftPlus – Backup/Restore

Backup Plugin – Used by Good Tech Guru

UpdraftPlus Backup/Restore is a WordPress plugin which lets you backup your WordPress files and database.

What’s great about UpdraftPlus is that it lets you schedule your backups. So you can just set it one time and be rest assured that your website has backups if you will ever need them.

UpdraftPlus also lets you send your backups directly into the cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, UpdraftVault, Rackspace Cloud, FTP, DreamObjects, Openstack Swift, and email.

For me personally I use it to backup my whole website to the Google Drive.

11. WPS Hide Login

Security Plugin – Used by Good Tech Guru

WPS Hide Login is a very light WordPress plugin which lets you change the URL of your WordPress login page.

This plugin does this safely meaning it doesn’t rename or change the core WordPress files.

It simply intercepts any page requests and this works on any WordPress website.

The wp-admin directory and wp-login.php page become inaccessible so you can only login through the new login page you set.

After you deactivate and uninstalled this plugin. You will simply be redirected back to the original WordPress login page.

I use this essential WordPress plugin to protect my login page.

12. WPS Limit Login

Security Plugin – Used by Good Tech Guru

WPS Limit Login is another lightweight WordPress plugin developed by the same people who created the plugin I mentioned above.

This plugin allows you to limit the number of failed login attempts a person can do through the normal login method or through the auth cookies.

After the person attempting to login reached the limit, this plugin will block their IP address.

This makes bruteforce attacks on your website difficult for the attacker and hopefully will discourage them to continue doing it.

This is an essential WordPress plugin for me so I use this all the time.

13. Autoptimize

Performance Plugin – Used by Good Tech Guru

Autoptimize is a WordPress plugin which lets you optimize your WordPress website easily.

I myself have used many optimization plugins before but what makes me like Autoptimize is it’s simplicity.

Basically everything that I need in this plugin, I can control in just one page.

I used Autoptimize for minifying and optimizing my HTML, CSS and JS files. It offers a lot of options for you to optimize your files.

It can aggregate, minify and cache scripts and styles. You can also inline the CSS in the page head or defer it. Or you can move and defer scripts to the footer.

Lastly is I also used it to set my CDN base URL address.

I will personally keep on using this essential WordPress plugin.

14. Cache Enabler

Performance Plugin – Used by Good Tech Guru

Cache Enabler is a lightweight WordPress plugin which lets you cache your pages easily.

A cache is basically a static HTML of your posts or pages that is served to your visitor instead of running the PHP scripts and querying the database all the time.

This removes a large amount of burden from the server as it will use less CPU and RAM resources.

This plugin integrates flawlessly with the Autoptimize plugin I mentioned above. So you can clear your cache through the Autoptimize admin bar.

I am definitely gonna keep using this plugin.

15. CDN Enabler

Performance Plugin – Used by Good Tech Guru

I have been getting a lot of questions and compliments about how fast my website’s loading speed is.

Even though I have a full-width image and a whole lot of images in my homepage.

This is because I am using a CDN and I use CDN Enabler to connect to it.

Basically a CDN is short for Content Delivery Network. What it does is it allows you to save your static files on it like images, JS and CSS files.

If you do this your static files will be saved in multiple servers around the world. When a visitor comes into your site. Your static files will be served from a CDN data center close to where your visitor is.

This will make your static files load faster in your visitors browser.

I use this personally to connect to my KeyCDN zone alias.

16. Regenerate Thumbnails

Utility Plugin – Used by Good Tech Guru

Regenerate Thumbnails is a very handy WordPress plugin which lets you regenerate thumbnails for one image or for all the images that you have.

This will come in handy in situations like if you create a new custom thumbnail size.

Or for instance if you switch to a theme that requires images with different dimensions.

To regenerate the thumbnails all you have to do is go to the Regenerate Thumbnail dashboard section. And click Regenerate Thumbnails For All Attachments.

For me personally, I use it to the regenerate thumbnails when I create a custom thumbnail size.

17. WP-Optimize

Utility Plugin

WP-Optimize is a WordPress plugin that lets you clean your database so it runs smoothly at all times.

It helps you clean your trashed, unapproved, spam comments, stale data, pingbacks, trackbacks and expired transient options.

WP-Optimize also lets you clean you revisions which are generated whenever you edit your posts and pages.

If you are sure that you do not need those revisions anymore, then you can go ahead and clean them up.

What this will do is make your database size as small as possible. And small database means faster performance when querying to it.

If you want, you can also schedule WP-Optimize to do automatic backups for you.

By the way, before using this plugin. Make sure you create a backup of your database first.

I will definitely be using this plugin soon as I think I got so many revisions on my database now.

18. Really Simple SSL

Utility Plugin – Used by Good Tech Guru

I always urge my clients to use SSL on their website nowadays and this plugin really helps me implement SSL easily.

Basically Really Simple SSL will redirect all your links and settings to https automatically.

Without this plugin you will need to change your URLs manually to avoid loading issues, add redirection to htaccess, change your site URL and home URL settings etc.

This plugin will do all of these for you automatically and within just a few seconds. Saving you a lot of time especially when you’re a beginner who just wants to use SSL.

Also Google is urging everyone now to use SSL. If you are not using one on your website then you will see a not secure warning beside your website’s URL in the browser.

19. WooCommerce

E-Commerce Plugin – Used by Good Tech Guru

WooCommerce is a free E-Commerce WordPress plugin that lets you sell almost anything in your website.

It integrates seamlessly with WordPress and has become a crowd favorite ever since it was released.

The best thing about WooCommerce is since it is so popular a lot of plugin developers create plugins that lets you extend its functionality.

With WooCommerce you can sell both physical and digital products in your website.

You can also configure those products to have any number of attributes. If it is a digital product you can offer an instant download option as soon as they bought it.

20. Paid Member Subscriptions

Membership Plugin – Used by Good Tech Guru

Paid Member Subscription is a WordPress plugin that lets you add a membership feature to your website.

It allows you to accept member payments, manage members, create subscription plans and restrict access to premium content.

Paid Member Subscription also integrates flawlessly with WooCommerce so you can restrict viewing and purchasing of products to just members only.

This plugin accepts Paypal payments and you can track your member payments and payment status in the plugin’s dashboard.

Special Mention

I do understand that some of my options are a bit different from the others.

So for security instead of installing WPS Hide Login and WPS Limit Login. You might want to choose Wordfence Security instead as it is a feature packed security plugin.

And for performance instead of installing Autoptimize, Cache Enabler and CDN Enabler. You might prefer the WP Fastest Cache, WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache instead which offer all-in-one solutions for WordPress performance.

The only reason I used separate plugins is because I like my plugins to be lightweight and I only used plugins that specifically has what I want.

Conclusion

I hope that I provide you some helpful ideas on what essential WordPress plugins you should get after you installed WordPress.

All of the plugins I mentioned work seamlessly with one another and I found no issues so far.

Also keep your plugins updated at all times. Before you update the plugins make sure to create a backup of the whole site first using UpdraftPlus.

I had been contemplating about switching to a cloud hosting for quiet some time.

This is because I had been reading a lot of positive reviews about them.

I would highly recommend that you go with one of the best cloud hosting I will mention below.

That is if you want your website to have quick response time at all times.

I finally did it yesterday and I got to say that I am very happy with the results.

Why did I upgrade to cloud hosting?

Before I upgraded I was on a shared hosting with NameCheap. They are not bad at all.

I am really good in optimizing a website so I am able to attain a 100/100 score in Google PageSpeed Insight. And a solid A scores in Pingdom Tools and GTMetrix.

Even with only using their shared hosting.

However, the issue is with the consistency of their server response.

Basically, there are times that I won’t get a 100/100 score because it will tell me that my response time is around 0.56s which is really high.

Another is there are times that my website would just get stuck at loading.

This finally got me thinking that if this is happening to me then it is most likely that it is also happening to my visitors.

Thus the hunt for the best cloud hosting begins.

Here are the best WordPress cloud hosting in 2018.

1. DigitalOcean

This is where I am hosting Good Tech Guru now.

The best thing I like about DigitalOcean is how easy it is to use! I signed up and in under 5 minutes I already created a droplet and with a WordPress installed.

Droplet is basically what they call the instance of their virtual machine where the application of your choice will get installed.

The best thing about DigitalOcean is their one-click apps feature.

Basically what it does is let you select an app to install, choose which droplet size to install it to and choose which data center you want it to be install. That’s it!

Just like that your WordPress is installed. Very straightforward and I think that’s why many people just love DigitalOcean.

You also have an option to enable backups however it would cost you an extra. The backup price depends on your droplet price.

Currently they have 12 data centers worldwide so you can position your website close to your target audience.

If you are a developer wondering what distributions they have. They offer Ubuntu, FreeBSD, Fedora, Debian and CentOS.

Their one-click apps feature works on Discourse, Django, Docker, Dokku, Ghost, GitLab, LAMP, LEMP, MongoDB, MySQL, NodeJS, PhpMyAdmin, Ruby-on-Rails and WordPress.

Lastly, before you signup don’t forget to look for a coupon code. When I signed up I got a coupon code for $100 which is valid for 2 months.

Pricing starts at $5/month which includes 1 vCPU, 1GB memory, 25GB SSD storage and 1TB transfer.

2. Vultr

Vultr is also another affordable cloud hosting similar to DigitalOcean.

They are actually more affordable to DigitalOcean as their starting price is half of that in DigitalOcean.

I highly considered signing to Vultr before I ultimately decided to DigitalOcean.

Similar to DigitalOcean they also support operating systems like CentOS, CoreOS, Debian, Fedora, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and Ubuntu.

What makes Vultr special though is that they offer support to Windows operating system right out of the box.

If you want to use a custom operating system then they also allow you to upload your own.

As for applications they support cPanel, Docker, Drupal, GitLab, Joomla, LAMP, LEMP, Magento, Mediawiki, Minecraft, Nextcloud, OpenVPN, ownCloud, Plesk Onyx, Prestashop, Webmin and WordPress.

Vultr currently have 15 data centers world wide so strategically placing your server close to your target audience should be a breeze.

Pricing starts at $2.50/month which includes 1 CPU, 512MB memory, 20GB SSD storage and 0.50TB bandwidth.

Lastly, do not forget to look for a coupon code. Currently they offer a $25 coupon.

And also there is another $100 coupon which you could get if you will deposit a $100.

3. Linode

Linode is a highly regarded cloud hosting specially for Linux loving developers.

Everything about Linode just screams performance and speed.

If you signup with them you will have access to special features like Backups, NodeBalancer, Longview and Linode Managed which will keep your system running smoothly.

I also love the fact that they are working on making their system more user friendly as time goes by.

Basically they now offer StackScripts which makes deploying distributions and applications way easier than it used to.

It is still not as easy as in DigitalOcean or Vultr but it is a step ahead nonetheless.

You still need to fill some form fields but that’s it. After that you just need to confirm and wait for the deployment to finish.

Linode supports distributions like Arch, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, OpenSUSE, Slackware and Ubuntu.

As for applications, you can install web applications like Magento, PrestaShop, OpenCart, Ghost, WordPress, Odoo, Webmin and Drupal.

Just look for a guide on how to do this using StackScripts if you are a new developer as it is easier.

They currently have 9 data centers scattered though Asia, North America and Europe.

Pricing starts at $5/month which includes 1 CPU, 1GB RAM, 25GB SSD storage and 1TB transfer.

4. Google Cloud Platform

The Google Cloud Platform cloud hosting is actually my first choice to host Good Tech Guru.

The only reason I didn’t go with them is because the same specifications in DigitalOcean is 5 times the price in Google Cloud Platform.

I just can’t justify it.

And I am the type of person that do not want to pay more than I need to.

I even look for coupon codes first every time I want to purchase something online.

Google Cloud Platform is actually way more than just a cloud hosting for WordPress.

It is mainly targeted for large scale enterprise and corporations who is in need of cloud solutions that can handle their big data.

Nevertheless, I am very happy that they decided to support numerous blogs and CMS applications.

The Google Cloud Platform supports operating systems from both Linux and Windows and a whole lot of others.

As for web applications you can install WordPress, Magento, Joomla, Alfresco, AbanteCart, Akeneo, Composr, DokuWiki, Drupal, Ghost, OpenCart and a many more.

Installing WordPress in the Google Cloud Platform is also pretty straightforward. All you have to do is go to the Marketplace and search WordPress.

There will be multiple versions of WordPress for you to choose from.

After you choose the version you like you will be redirected in the deployment page where you will configure your virtual machine.

Just click deploy when you are done and you just need to wait for the deployment to finish.

That’s it, very straightforward.

This is also another reason why many people are loving the Google Cloud Platform. Almost everything can be done from the graphical user interface.

Pricing for WordPress starts from $4.28/month which includes 1 shared vCPU, 0.6GB memory and 10GB storage.

This pricing if for the WordPress Certified by Bitnami virtual machine.

One last thing, Google Cloud Platform offers a $300 signup credit which you can use for 12 months.

5. AWS

AWS or Amazon Web Services is another cloud hosting solution targeted to customers needing to handle large data.

It also supports blog or CMS platform installations so you can host WordPress on it if you want to.

The thing is, in AWS, it requires a few more steps to install WordPress.

AWS is known for their top security so it is no surprise that in order to install WordPress it requires you to generate a private key.

The password for the WordPress dashboard is also hidden to the user by default after the installation.

This is the only negative thing that I hear a lot about AWS. Their graphical user interface would require some time to get used to.

However, what makes AWS great is the number of the availability zones.

Currently they have 55 availability zones and building more as we speak.

As for the data centers related to where you can install WordPress. There are 16 data centers for you to choose from.

Pricing for WordPress starts at $14.64/month which includes 1 vCPU, 0.6GB and EBS storage.

AWS currently offers a AWS Free Tier program which basically means a 12 month free trial for new customers.

6. Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is another cloud hosting solution mainly focused on enterprise customers.

Nevertheless, you can also use it to host your WordPress website if you want to.

Installing WordPress is also pretty straightforward in Microsoft Azure.

Their graphical user interface is actually pretty close to the Google Cloud Platform if not better.

I actually think it is a bit better because the left sidebar is always there and the installation process is done with so little page refresh.

Microsoft Azure also support web applications like WordPress, Umbraco, Joomla, Orchard, Virto Commerce, nopCommerce, phpBB and others.

Pricing for a WordPress virtual machine starts at $13.14/month which includes 1 CPU, 0.75GB RAM and 20GB storage.

Microsoft Azure currently offer a $200 signup credit valid for 30 days and 12 months access to free services.

7. UpCloud

UpCloud is a cloud hosting solution which offers speed faster than your normal VPS grade SSDs.

They attain this by utilizing their proprietary MaxIOPS storage technology.

Basically what it does is make their read and write speed 2 times faster than that of its competitions.

They even showed the benchmarks in their website where they completely destroyed Vultr, DigitalOcean, Linode, Azure and AWS.

Their proprietary MaxIOPS storage technology also allows them to deploy cloud servers in less than 45 seconds.

The only downside is that you will need to access SSH once when you are deploying your server.

That is it. After that you will be able to install WordPress through their graphical user interface.

UpCloud also supports both Linux and Windows distributions so you can freely install whichever you prefer. They also allow you to install an operating from your own ISO.

Pricing starts at $5/month which includes 1 CPU, 1GB memory, 25GB storage and 1TB transfer.

If you are interested in testing UpCloud. This is the right time as they are currently offering a free trial.

8. Alibaba Cloud

Alibaba Cloud is another cloud hosting solution which offers both solutions to enterprise level and startup customers.

For startups like us wanting to install WordPress, they offer an ECS virtual cloud servers.

This is similar to AWS ECS which is also where WordPress is installed in AWS.

The best thing about Alibaba Cloud is once you have setup your ECS then installing WordPress is almost as easy as it is in DigitalOcean.

Just choose the region you prefer, choose WordPress in the application list, choose a domain and proceed to purchase.

Currently you can deploy your server to 18 regions world wide.

Pricing starts at $4.50/month which includes 1 CPU, 1GB memory, 40GB SSD storage and 1TB transfer.

Alibaba Cloud also currently offers a free trial so you can test them out if you are interested.

Special Mention

I was actually contemplating whether to put Cloudways and Rackspace in this list.

The thing is I wanted to focus on cloud hosting that offer 100% cloud solutions. Cloudways and Rackspace meet this category as well but for some reason I really think they are in different league.

Basically Cloudways and Rackspace is like a center point or agency of cloud solutions.

So if you signup to Cloudways you will have access to DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, AWS and Google Cloud Platform from within it.

If you signup to RackSpace you will have access to AWS, Alibaba Cloud, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure and others.

The advantage of this is you will have access to more data centers for you to choose from.

You can basically put your server almost anywhere you want because of this.

Conclusion

If you are a startup like me I would highly recommend DigitalOcean.

They have been around for a while now and I am really happy with my sites performance.

If you want to go for something cheaper then Vultr is the best choice for you.

If you think that a cloud hosting is a bit out of your expertise. You might want to try a managed WordPress hosting.