The Ultimate Guide To WordPress Plugins

{AD} Plugins are an essential part of a website, there are literally thousands of thousands plugins available! If you don’t know what plugins are, to explain it in a simple way, these are tools used to improve your website. There are so many types of plugins used, each for different reasons. Once you install it, it will offer your website the feature/functionality in question. Note that most plugins are free whilst some are paid.

Unfortunately, plugins are only available if you have a self-hosted website or if you use either the Business or Ecommerce plan on WordPress.com. Otherwise, you won’t be able to download nor use them. In today’s post, I wanted to share with you the main plugins most bloggers use in order to improve their website in terms of customisation, optimisation, typography and even monetisation. I’ve gathered a list of top plugins for each category so as always, if you are interested – keep on reading!

Related: 10 Simple Things To Do To Improve Your Website

 

SITE OPTIMISATION

These plugins are used to help optimise the performance of your website which is the speed of your website. If you use a site optimisation plugin, the plugin will remove unnecessary cache data from your images, improve your website load quicker, etc.

 

WP-Optimize

This is an all-in-one plugin that cleans your database, compresses your images and caches your site. It compresses your HTML, JavaScript, and CSS code to reduce the site load time. It allows you to compress multiple existing images at the same time as well as  automatically compresses images as they’re added to the website, and so much more!

 

WP Rocket

The user-interface of this plugin is very user-friendly. The configuration is quite simple and fast as well. It cleans up your database to remove bloat and reduce its size. In addition, it schedules regular to cleanups. It creates an ultra-fast loading time to your website to improve your search engine optimisation.

 

WP Fastest Cache

It’s very easy to set up this plugin. You pretty much only have to install it and you are ready – that’s how simple it is! This plugin is used to clear cache on your website and minify CSS & HTML code. It reduce the size of files sent from your server to increase the speed to which they are transferred to the browser.

 

WP Super Cache

I would say this is one of the most popular plugins compared to the other plugins I’ve mentioned. The installation and set up process is very easy. This plugin generates static HTML files from your website. It can generate cached files for the posts, categories and tags of your website by pre-loading.

 

WP Smush

This plugin will optimise your images, resize, compress and improve your Google Page Speed. It has a lossless compression feature which strips unused data without affecting the image quality. It can optimise up to 50 images in one click as well as quickly locate images that are slowing down your website. This is the plugin you need for image compression!

 

Which one to choose?

It’s important to note that you cannot download all the plugins (technically you can) because it’s not necessary and this applies to all the categories as well depending on the plugin in question. With that said, WP Smush is the best when it comes to compressing your images. WP Fastest Cache is extremely easy to use. WP-Optimize offers a lot of features as well. Do your research and check which one will work the best based on your needs.

 

TYPOGRAPHY

One of the most important elements of your blog design is your typography. When customising your website, you have to make sure that every single element of your branding is cohesive that includes your fonts as well. With the plugins I’ve mentioned down below, you can add custom fonts on your website.

 

Easy Google Fonts

You can easily add custom Google Fonts on your website using this plugin. You can preview the Google Fonts on your website in real time as well. This plugin is compatible with any theme which is great!

 

Fontsy

If you are looking for a plugin like WP Google Fonts, this is the one you need! It allows you to import your own web fonts or choose fonts from their free web font library. It doesn’t require any coding, you just upload or select your own fonts and voila! This is the perfect custom fonts WordPress plugin!

 

Google Fonts Typography

This plugin allows you to easily use any of the Google Fonts on your website. The Google Fonts library currently contains more than 900 unique fonts so you have a lot of options to choose from. It has a live preview feature as well and it works with any WordPress theme.

 

Custom Fonts

This plugin helps you easily embed custom fonts files (woff2, woff, ttf, svg, eot, otf) in your website. You only need to install the plugin and upload the font files. This plugin currently only works with Astra Theme, Beaver Builder Theme & Plugin and Elementor Page Builder.

 

Use Any Font

With this plugin, you can use any custom fonts you wish on your website. The set up is very quick and easy. Also, it supports all major web browsers such as IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, IOS, Andriod, Opera and more.

 

Which one to choose?

Easy Google Fonts is the classic plugin which most bloggers use but Fontsy is definitely the plugin you need if you want to use beautiful custom fonts on your website. You have the option to import your own fonts as well choose fonts from their library.

 

MONETISATION

If you were wondering what monetisation plugins are, these are plugins used to monetise your website. One of the ways you can monetise your website is through ads and there are plugins that offer advertising options for your website.

 

Ad Inserter

This plugin has many advanced advertising features to insert ad codes at optimal positions. For instance, it includes Google AdSense, Google Ad Manager (DFP – DoubleClick for publishers), contextual Amazon Native Shopping Ads, Media.net and rotating banners.

 

Meks Easy Ads Widget

With this plugin, you can create unlimited number of ads inside your widgets. There are several options provided to customise your ads depending on your preference. It supports both image ads and script based ads as well.

 

Ads for WP

This plugin is very easy to use and it has unlimited ads options. You can view in-depth insights of your traffic and revenue with reports and data.

 

Advanced Ads

This is another plugin where you can create and display unlimited ads on your website. You can even schedule the ads and set a start time and expiration date.

 

Wp-Insert

With this plugin, you can easily use and manage your ads. You can insert ads in the middle of a page or post and you can choose to hide ads on specific pages.

 

Which one to choose?

Ad Inserter and Meks Easy Ads Widget are two great plugins in terms of monetisation. You can easily manage and insert ads depending on your preference. The other ones are amazing as well so do your research before choosing one!

 

BLOG DESIGN

There are many plugins available to enhance and improve your blog design. You can create a professional and beautiful look without even the help of a designer by using certain plugins. These plugins will help you customise your website and your blog posts up to your preference.

 

TablePress

You can easily create and manage beautiful tables with this plugin. You can embed the tables into posts, pages, or text widgets with a simple Shortcode. The table data can be edited in a spreadsheet-like interface without any coding.

 

Elementor Page Builder

This is literally the plugin you need if you want design an advanced website! You can easily change the design of your website without using any code, everything is done with instant drag-and-drop edit.

 

FooGallery

If you are looking for a plugin to add stunning gallery layouts on your website, this is the plugin you need! It’s very easy to use and is responsive which means your gallery will look the same on every device whether it’s on your phone, tablet, laptop or desktop.

 

Responsive Lightbox & Gallery

You can easily create and add special effects in your gallery using this plugin. With the built-in drag and drop builder, you will be able to create beautiful galleries, customise them and style them up to your preference.

 

Smart Slider 3

This is literally the most powerful and intuitive WordPress plugin to create sliders. You can easily create an unique slider within a minute whether it be on your home page, blog posts, etc.

 

Which one to choose?

I think in this case, every plugin offers a different type of functionality so you can’t really compare them together. In my opinion, all of these plugins are a must-have in order to have beautiful and elegant website.

 

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!

xo N

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