Best plugins for WordPress – TOP 12 (2023)

In this article, we’ll take a look at (for me) the best WordPress plugins from different areas:

• SEO
• speed
• security
• translation
• backups and more…

I use all of the above plugins myself and have a good experience with them.

If the word WordPress plugin doesn’t mean anything to you, I recommend you to start with the article what is plugin.

In general, if you can avoid using a plugin, you should do so. The fewer plugins, the better.

But sometimes a plugin is the easiest, and therefore the best, way to achieve the desired result.

So let’s take a look at the 12 best plugins that I happily use extensively and believe won’t disappoint you.

1. Best SEO WordPress plugin: Rank Math SEO

I’ve written about Rank Math multiple times. It is the fiercest competitor to the Yoast plugin and I personally no longer use any other plugin on SEO.

What do I use Rank Math for the most?

• Monitoring and complete redirect management (404, 301, 302)
• Connect to Google console, install GA4 code
• Create meta descriptions and social media captions

Rank Math offers both a free version and a premium version, which will set you back about $1500 per year for a single site, or $5000 per year for unlimited sites.

I believe that 90% of sites can get by just fine with the free version.

I personally use the premium version primarily for:

• generating schemas
• Google video SEO sitemap integration
• Local SEO integration

Many people will also appreciate the premium version thanks to WooCommerce support.

But if you’re a small, content-based site, the free version will do just fine.

2. Best WordPress plugin speed: WP Rocket

WP Rocket unfortunately does not offer a free version. However, it is good enough that the investment in a license is definitely worth it.

WP Rocket does a lot:

• Page caching,
• GZIP compression,
• Prefetch cache,
• Dedicated mobile cache,
• Database cleanup,
• Lazy load and much more…

But the best way to experience the power of WP Rocket is to experience it for yourself. So feel free to email me and I’ll be happy to activate a 7-day license on your site so you can compare the difference.

You can also watch this before and after video where WP Rocket was tested with Elementor.

For one website WP Rocket will cost you about 1250 CZK, and a license for unlimited websites costs a little over 6000 CZK.

However, site creators often have this license, so you can contact them and arrange to buy a license for your site for a much lower amount.

If you want to speed up your site for free, I recommend NitroPack, which will make your site extremely fast with basically no setup, in just a click. Then a good free speedup is also CDN Cloudflare.

3. Best WordPress Builder: Bricks

Bricks Builder is (in my eyes) the next evolutionary stage of Elementor. I expand more in my review of Bricks.

Strictly speaking, Bricks probably shouldn’t be here, as it is, like Divi, a template rather than a plugin. However, since it fully replaces Elementor, I decided to include it here.

Bricks can do a lot:

• visual editor of the whole page (you don’t need to know how to code)
• great work with dynamic data
• wide format support
• all basic widgets including form
• good cooperation with Gutenberg (can take and give data) and much more…

And for 6000 Kč for unlimited sites (lifetime) it is not expensive. Then you can try it for free at https://try.bricksbuilder.io/.

I see direct competition for Bricks in Cwicly and Gutenberg itself. However, for users used to classic builders, I find Bricks to be simpler, more intuitive with a faster learning curve, and similarly powerful compared to the two aforementioned options.There are still projects where I reach for Elementor instead, but there are a growing number of projects where Bricks is the first choice.

And I think it’s only a matter of time before these new builders tightly coupled with Gutenberg replace Elementor.

Thanks to the opportunity to try Bricks for free, I highly recommend taking advantage of it.

4. Best general plugin: ACF

Advanced Custom Fields is a plugin that allows you to define custom fields that are populated in the WordPress administration and then you can display them in various places on your site (front end).

This is especially useful if you are using templates (pages, posts) and each post has more unique parameters than just the content itself (parameters that allow WordPress to directly preview images, brief listings, etc.).

That way you can still use the template and have a variety of unique information that varies for each post.

Let’s show this with a practical example. For example, I have a case study template on my website. Next to the text of the case study, right at the top, there is a button that is defined in the template that leads to just the link from the ACF “site address” field.That way, for each case study, I can put the site of that site in the field and I can be sure that when people click on the “Go to site” button within the post, they go to the correct site – which is different each time.

This is a primitive example, but hopefully sufficient for illustration purposes.

Why use the ACF plugin at all?

This way is simple, sustainable and convenient.

The number of things you can use a template for will increase rapidly.

For example, if you use Elementor, thanks to ACF you will never need to “Edit with Elementor” a post.

What kind of fields does ACF offer?

Fields can be in a variety of formats, including all of the most common:

• image,
• text,
• WISYWIG editor,
• link.

ACF has a powerful free version and you can almost always get by with it.

Premium version is then shaved, especially by the “gallery” and “repeater” field types.

5. Best WordPress plugin for translations.

WPML is a great plugin that supports builders and allows you to translate any strings on your site – any text from any plugins.

The plugin is reliable, intuitive and easy to use.

The only drawback is the price, which is nearly 2500 CZK for three sites (unfortunately there is no license for one), or the agency license, which costs 5000 CZK for unlimited sites.

Therefore, I would (again) highly recommend approaching a web developer to see if they happen to have an unlimited license and would install the plugin on your site. If you agree, I believe this version will be orders of magnitude cheaper.

And as you’ll see over time, if you have a larger project, WPML is worth the full price.

If price is an issue for you, I recommend checking out Polylang, which is also free and offers similar (albeit stripped down) functionality.

6. WordPress backup: the best UpDraft Plus plugin

Updraft is a great free WordPress backup plugin.

I personally use it in combination with Backup Sheep cloud storage and have restored sites (even quite large ones) from Updraft backups several times – always successfully.

Backups can be done by Updraft directly to FTP (to the server where you have the site) or to Google Disk.

Updraft can also automatically delete backups and replace them with new ones.

As you can see, the setup is very intuitive:

A WordPress site backup, like any other backup, is most valuable when it’s too late to start creating it.

Having been called out several times over “spilled milk” – for example, a hacked site with no backup, I can only recommend the creation of (timely) backups from experience.

Before you install the plugin, however, make sure that your hosting doesn’t automatically do the backups for you. For example, Siteground can do this, but so can many others.

In that case, Updraft would be useless to you.

7. WordPress Migration Best Plugin: All in one WP Migration

Of course, you can also migrate pages manually (via FTP and subsequent database connection), but I don’t see any big advantage in that, so I use the migration option via the plugin myself a lot.

The All in One WP Migration plugin is simple, intuitive and reliable.

1. You install it on the page you want to migrate,
2. Click on “export”,
3. You install it on the target domain,
4. Click “import” and import the previously created file.

Simple.

The plugin will also rewrite the url addresses and database tables for you, so you avoid many potential issues that could arise from manual migration.

For the migration to go through, it’s just important to make sure that:

• Both sites (old and new) have a version with either www. or without -> either way, they both have it the same way
• Both sites have the same version of PHP (whether 7.4 or 8 doesn’t matter)
• Both sites have / or both do not have an HTTPS certificate

If the sites differ in any of the above parameters, it is possible that the migration will fail.

Does the plugin have any restrictions?

Basically, the only limitation is the maximum possible size of the imported site. If I’m not mistaken, the plugin has a limit that you specify on the server for upload.

Try increasing the upload limit on the hosting site first, and you can probably get by with the free version of the plugin anyway.

If you can’t increase your hosting upload limit (it’s too expensive), you can use the Unlimited Extension for $69.

I personally own this extension and have a good experience with it. So if you would like to use it but don’t know if it makes sense for you to purchase it, feel free to email me :).

Anyway, if you don’t want the extension, you couldn’t increase the limit on your hosting and the free version wouldn’t be enough, you can go for a good old manual migration. Just don’t forget the backup!

8. Best WordPress security plugin: WordFence

WordFence has a powerful free version that does a lot.

It can monitor login attempts to your site from different parts of the world, scan your site directory, and offers a firewall.

Personally, I have WordFence installed on just about every site, and the free version has always been enough for me so far.

In the Wordfence article, you will then find an embedded video from Vladi Smitka describing how to set up this plugin.

P.S. Speaking of security, I also like the Siteground Security plugin (you don’t need Siteground hosting), which does a number of useful things like:

• block and protect site folders from malware and malicious script insertion
• disable XML-RPV
• create a custom login url on click

So I mostly use it alongside Wordfence.

Best plugins: wordpress spam

I’ve written briefly about WordPress spam once before. Picking the best plugin from this category is quite difficult, because it extremely depends on what kind of spam we are talking about.

Therefore, I have chosen three plugins, each of which has its use somewhere a bit different. I believe you will be able to choose a plugin tailored to your needs.

10. Email Encoder

If you have email and phone on your site so people can contact you, this plugin will ensure that only people (98% of the time) actually contact you, and not robotic assistants and Saudi lawyers notifying you of your giant inheritance.

You can read more in the article how to secure your email and phone, but the plugin is really primitive and effective.

1. You don’t install it.
2. Activate.
3. And you’re done.

You’re welcome :).

reCAPTCHA v3

reCAPTCHA is not a plugin directly, it’s a Google solution to help defend your forms from spam.

Most form solutions will then have a ready-made integration that you can connect to reCAPTCHA.

ReCAPTCHA V2 (version 2) required the user to recognize images. reCAPTCHA V3 is now more or less invisible and robots try to detect it in the background.

This is why I can highly recommend reCAPTCHA v3. It doesn’t ruin the user experience and is efficient as hell. Unfortunately it collects data via cookies, however this is easily handled in the cookies plugin.

If you use Elementor, you can check out the article Elementor reCAPTCHA – How to get it on the web.

11. WP Armour – Honeypot Anti Spam

WP Armour is the best plugin (in my experience) if you have comments enabled on your site/blog.

The plugin is extremely simple to set up (in fact, there is no setup) and can effectively screen out 99% of spam comments so they don’t even get to you.

Unlike the Akismet Anti Spam plugin, you can also use it classically on commercial projects.

I personally use it on all sites with comments and can only highly recommend it.

12. Best WordPress Cookie Plugin: Complianz

In the Cookie bar article, Everything You Need to Know, we took a closer look at the issue of cookies.

But if you just want to install the plugin, click through the settings – without looking deeper into the issue, reach for the Complianz plugin and you won’t go wrong.

Of course, I highly recommend the plugin even if you are interested in the issue, but its setup is so intuitive and simple that if you don’t have to deal with Google tag manager scripts, you can’t go wrong – even if you don’t know anything about the issue.

I use the plugin again on almost all sites and I haven’t encountered a single serious problem.

So I can highly recommend it again.

Word in conclusion

WordPress world is dynamic. The plugins that were the best last year may not be the best this year. Following the trends will definitely help, but it’s even more important to adopt the right philosophy:

• Don’t use a plugin for a thing you don’t have to
• Try to have as few plugins as possible
• Make sure the site is backed up regularly and plugins are updated

These are important things. Whether you then use this or that plugin for SEO is actually beside the point.

But anyway, I hope my list of plugins inspired you and let me know in the comments what plugins you like to use the most?