16 Best WordPress plugins (Free and paid) for 2020

WordPress plugins are great tools you can use to add extra functionality to your WordPress website. Using the right Plugins is all you need to create that exceptional design with WordPress. in this post I have listed some of the best WordPress plugins.

Getting the best WordPress Plugins may be a little bit difficult, because good plugins may develop an issue after an update is released.

Some of the recommendations I made here are the ones I have personally been using and have worked great for me.

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These plugins are considered to be the best for the following reasons:

• Usefulness on the website
• Functionality
• Easy to use/ setup
• The type of website you are designing
• Good features on the free version
• Highly rated

Looking for the best WordPress plugins you can use for your website design?

Here are the List and descriptions of the top Best WordPress plugins both the free & paid version

Page builder plugins

1. Elementor page builder:

Has over 4,311 five (5) start reviews and 3 + million active installations with a good comment as of the time this article is been written.

The plugin functionality is amazing. It can be used for setting up any type of website in a different style/layout.

It comes with different inbuilt plugins such as social icons, tables, contact forms, etc.

When using element pro, you may not need to install some other plugins because it comes with so many inbuilt plugins.

Is a page builder that delivers high-end page designs and advanced capabilities. I use it on all my websites.

Some of the features are as follows.

• Much faster: Instant drag & drop page builder, instant live edit, instant page load. The speed of Elementor is not matched by any other page builder. This makes the interface fun and easy to work with, as well as reduces the time it takes to design. It has both a free and paid version.
• Live design. Truly live: Never again work on the backend and guess what the frontend will look like. With the Elementor page builder, you edit the page and simultaneously see exactly how it looks like. Elementor features live design & inline editing, so the whole process of writing and designing is done directly on the page, with no need to press update or go to preview mode. It also works perfectly with or without Gutenberg.
• Surprises you won’t see anywhere else: With Elementor’s unique features, you can create websites that have that certain ‘designer touch’. Page builder features are; Box Shadows, Background Overlays, Hover Effects, Headline Effects, Animations, Shape Dividers, Gradient Backgrounds, and much more.
• Pre-Designed Templates & Blocks: Choose from 100+ beautiful full-page WordPress templates and customize them to make them your own. You can also build your page by choosing from 300+ Blocks.

• Blocks are pre-designed section templates that can be easily combined into any page. Blocks include a variety of categories: services, testimonials, call to action, and more. Save and reuse Elementor templates on different pages, or export them to a different website with a click.
• Mobile First. Mobile Editing: Elementor Page Builder comes with an exclusive toolset, that lets you create truly a responsive website in a whole new and visual way. From different font sizes, padding, and margin per device, to reverse column ordering, this is the most powerful mobile page builder for creating perfect responsive websites.
• Undo / Redo & Revision History: The page builder includes undo and redo for any action you make. Click on Ctrl / Cmd + Z, or browse through the complete list of actions. Want to go back even further? Switch to Revisions to view a complete list of all earlier saved versions of the page.
• A Blank Page Template for Landing Pages: Design your entire page in the page builder. No header, no footer, just Elementor. This is perfect for landing pages and coming soon pages. Canvas works on any theme and lets you get rid of the header area so you get a blank template to work on.
• Built-in Maintenance Mode & Under Construction: Need to get your site offline for maintenance? Use Elementor page builder’s built-in Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon feature to show your visitors an under construction / coming soon page.

Elementor Pro: vastly improves your design workflow and lets you design faster and better than ever. With Elementor Pro, everything is done visually and without code.

Try Elementor Pro. The Best page Builder for WordPress. I personally recommend this plugin.

Making changes to your theme shouldn’t be so hard. Endless coding, dealing with developers, switching themes. The Theme Builder in Elementor Pro turns the entire process of creating WordPress websites 100% visual including your site’s header, footer, single post, and archive page design.

There are many other features to help you build better websites:

• Visual and intuitive form builder
• Marketing automation and CRM integrations
• Custom fonts
• Role manager
• Blog post layout widget
• Image & video sliders
• WooCommerce
• Global widgets
• Custom CSS
• Animated headlines
• And much more.

Check out the web design we did for one of our clients using elementor

Chat plugins

2. Tidio Chat

Tidio Live Chat is a live chat service that allows you to communicate with your customers easily, also with the help of chatbots. It is designed specifically for the WordPress community. Once you install the plugin, you will be ready to take full advantage of the benefits the chat service provides. A free plan is available!

I literally used this plugin in almost all of the websites I manage, is easy to use. It has over (60, 000 + active installations) and (211 five (5) star reviews) at the time this post is been written, with good comments. Tidio is by far, the best experience with any live chat software that I have ever had. Tidio has helped me so much with acquiring leads, managing customer support, and organizing my contacts. It made my website look WAY more professional and I can tell my customers are happy using it as well. It’s super simple to use, and they make building bots a breeze. I would recommend Tidio %100 to any customer.

Tidio Chatbot can engage them 24/7 (you don’t even have to be online!), offering them help in case of an issue, or asking them for an email address for later contact

Some features

• Extremely easy installation – once you install the plugin, you’re ready to go
• Tidio Chatbots will solve your customers’ issues 24/7 and generate more leads
• Keep track of who visits your website
• Contact any customer that is currently visiting your site
• Adjust the color scheme to your needs
• Use a dedicated app for mobile and desktop devices (iOS, Android, Windows, OS X, Chrome)
• The integrated widget supports 183 languages, with 21 pre-translated language packs available
• A modern widget design that suits any website
• An offline form for your visitors, so that you get email notifications about messages when you’re not online
• Contact your visitors via email when they leave the chat
• Integration with Zendesk, GetResponse, SalesForce, MailChimp, and many more
• All channels in one place – use chat, email, and Messenger in a single panel
• Great technical support 24/5
• A free plan available

How does it work?

Right after you install, open the “Tidio Chat” tab, and you’re ready to go! A chat widget will be visible on your website, so your visitors can contact you in real-time. Once you access the Tidio dashboard, you can reply to any incoming chats, configure Chatbots, and manage other settings.

Please note: Tidio Chat is free, after activating the plugin, your 7 day trial period will begin. When the trial period is finished, you can downgrade your account to Free or continue to use the PRO account

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Caching and optimization/Speed plugins

If you consider the performance and speed of your website important, you really should use one of these two caching plugins to do page caching.

3.   Wp rocket:

Is a paid plugin and it equally has a free one (w3 Total catch).

Some of the features are as follows:

• Page Caching: Caching creates an ultra-fast load time, essential for improving Search Engine Optimization and increasing conversions. When you turn on WP Rocket, page caching is immediately activated
• Cache Preloading:  improves the indexing of your website by search engines instantly.
• Static Files Compression: WP Rocket reduces the weight of your HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files through minification. Lighter files mean faster load time!
• Images on Request: Images are loaded only as your visitor scrolls down the page, improving the load time of the page. YouTube, Facebook, Yahoo, and other major websites are using this technique.
• Quick set-up
• browser caching
• sitemap preloading
• Database optimization
• mobile detection and many more

This is a plugin you will definitely need on your website, especially if you have or plan to have any content on your website. Or if your website has enough traffic.

Read why you should switch your WPbakery site to Elementor

4. Autoptimize:

has 1 + million installations and 824 five (5) star reviews with good comments as of the time this article is been written.

Autoptmizer is for performance, it makes optimizing your site really easy. It can aggregate, minify and cache scripts and styles, inject CSS in the page head by default but can also inline critical CSS and defer the aggregated full CSS, moves, and defers scripts to the footer, and minifies HTML.

You can optimize (and even convert to WebP) and lazy-load images, optimize Google Fonts, async non-aggregated JavaScript, remove WordPress core emoji cruft, and more.

As such it can improve your site’s performance even when already on HTTP/2! There is an extensive API available to enable you to tailor Autoptimize to each and every site’s specific needs. It can also be used in any WordPress website also is a free plugin.

Formally I was using w3 Total catch, when my website starts having more content on it, I notice that my website is loading very slow. I then decide to install Autoptmize and remove the other one. When I check my website page speed, I notice it increase from 65 to 83 on the desktop but on the mobile, it only increases a little.

I will also like to say it works better when you install only the plugin on your website. Don’t install any other caching plugins.

Check out the cost of designing a business website in Nigeria

5. Smush image compression and optimize

Has 1 + million active installations and 4,128 five (5) star reviews with good comments as of the time this article is been written.  It can be used on any WordPress website also it has both free & paid versions.

It Resize, optimize, and compress all of your images with the incredibly powerful and 100% free WordPress image smasher,
Smush also preserves image quality, compresses any image in any directory, compatible with any WordPress plugins, and has lazy load built-in.

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Free WordPress SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plugins

6. Rank math SEO:

Is one of the new free best SEO plugins that have many features. It has (100, 000 + active installation) and (544 five (5) star reviews) with good comments as of the time this article is been written.

I was previously using the Yoast plugin, I now decide to change it to rank math SEO. Although I notice two things about the plugins, first it displays SEO Score on every page, secondly, the setup takes a little bit of time.
Rank Math SEO Plugin is good for:

• Bloggers
• eCommerce Store Owners
• Niche Sites
• Businesses
• Local Businesses
• Startups
• The Real Estate
• Artists & Photographers
• The Solution Offerer
• Directories Or any WordPress Website

Read how to start a blog and make money blogging as a student

Free WordPress plugins for eCommerce

 WooCommerce

A flexible, open-source eCommerce solution built for WordPress.

Whether you’re launching a business, taking an existing brick and mortar store online, or designing sites for clients you can get started quickly and build exactly the store you want.

Gives you more control of your e-commerce website than Shopify, above all is free.
It has over (5 + million active installations) and (2,918 five (5) star reviews) with good comments as of the time this article is been written.

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Free WordPress Backup plugins

UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin:

It has over 2 + million active installations and 3,031 five (5) star reviews with good comments as of the time this article is been written.

Some Features of UpdraftPlus:

• Restores, as well as backing up
• Backs up to more cloud options than any others
• Allows you to set up automatic backup schedules, for the ultimate inconvenience
• Is faster, using up fewer server resources
• Has been tested on over 1 million sites

The free version of UpdraftPlus works just fine, but if you need more features and options you can purchase the Premium version.

WordPress Spam Plugins

Akismet Anti-spam:

It has over 5 + million active installations and 747 five (5) star reviews with good comments as of the time this article is been written.

Akismet checks your comments and contact form submissions against spam to prevent your site from publishing malicious content.

You can review the comment spam it catches on your blog’s “Comments” admin screen.

Is free only on a personal blog website while on a business and the eCommerce website is not free.

Major features in Akismet include:

• Automatically checks all comments and filters out the ones that look like spam.
• Each comment has a status history, so you can easily see which comments were caught or cleared by Akismet and which were spammed or unspammed by a moderator.
• URLs are shown in the comment body to reveal hidden or misleading links.
• Moderators can see the number of approved comments for each user.
• A discard feature that outright blocks the worst spam, saving you disk space and speeding up your site.

Please note: You’ll be prompted to get an Akismet.com API key to use it, once activated. Keys are free for personal blogs; paid subscriptions are available for businesses and commercial sites.

Read how to create a website by yourself

WordPress Contact form Plugins

Wpform:

It has over (3 + million active installations) and (5,216 five (5) star reviews) with good comments as of the time this article is been written.

WPForms allows you to create beautiful contact forms, feedback forms, subscription forms, payment forms, and other types of forms for your site in minutes, not hours!

WPForms is a 100% mobile responsive contact form solution, so your contact forms will always look great on all devices (mobile, tablet, laptop, and desktop).

Its contact forms are also highly optimized for web and server performance, are equally easy to use (drag and drop).

WordPress Security Plugins

WPS hide login:

It has over (500, 000 + active installations) and (1,240 five (5) star reviews) with good comments as of the time this article is been written.

WPS Hide Login is a very light plugin that lets you easily and safely change the URL of the login form page to anything you want. It doesn’t literally rename or change files in the core, nor does it add rewrite rules.

It simply intercepts page requests and works on any WordPress website. The wp-admin directory and wp-login.php page become inaccessible, so you should bookmark or remember the URL.

Whenever you deactivate this plugin brings your site back exactly to the state it was before. Is equally a free plugin.

iThemes Security:

It has over 900, 000 + active installations and 3,358 five (5) star reviews at this point of writing this post, with good comments.

It doesn’t affect the speed and performance of your website like some other security plugins. Is a free plugin but it has a paid version too.

iThemes Security works to protect your site by blocking bad users and increasing the security of passwords and other vital information.

• Prevents brute force attacks by banning hosts and users with too many invalid login attempts
• Scans your site to instantly report where vulnerabilities exist and fix them in seconds
• Bans troublesome user agents, bots, and other hosts
• Strengthens server security
• Enforces strong passwords for all accounts of a configurable minimum role
• Forces SSL for admin pages (on supporting servers)
• Forces SSL for any page or post (on supporting servers)
• Turns off file editing from within WordPress admin area
• Detects and blocks numerous attacks to your file system and database

Free WordPress Forum plugins

15. bbpress:

Are you looking for a timeless, elegant, and streamlined discussion board?

bbPress is easy to integrate, easy to use, and is built to scale with your growing community. Most especially is free.

bbPress is intentionally simple yet infinitely powerful forum software, built by contributors to WordPress. It has over (300, 000 + active installations) and (184 five (5) star reviews) as of the time this post is been written, with good comments.

WordPress Affiliate program plugins

16. Affiliate manager:

 Running your WordPress site with an e-Commerce plugin or solution? WP Affiliate Manager can help you manage an affiliate marketing program to drive more traffic and more sales to your store. Is a free plugin but it has a paid version too.

Affiliate Marketing is the fastest growing advertising method and it is very cost-effective.

This plugin facilitates the affiliate’s recruitment, registration, login, management process.

It will also track the referrals your affiliates send to your site and give commissions appropriately.

Affiliates Manager integrates with some popular e-commerce solutions. You decide how you want to reward your affiliates.

You can choose to pay your affiliates a flat rate per order or choose to pay them a percentage of every order they initiate. Ability to easily pay your affiliates their commission using PayPal.

It has over 10, 000 + active installations and 36 five (5) star reviews as of the time this post is been written, with good comments.

If you think there are other good plugins that are not mentioned here you can please drop them in the comment box below.

If you are already using them, please write your feedback in the comment box below.

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Victoria Nonye

Web design, Content writer &  SEO , Real Estate Consultant/Realtor
Email: vic4realy@yahoo.com