7 Best WordPress Plugins: A-List Toolkit For Thriving Websites in 2023 (+ Bonus Solutions)

Last updated on Mar 24th, 2023 | 11 min

43.2%. 

This is the percentage of websites that use WordPress

Globally.

And there’s a good reason for that.

WordPress is a powerful content management system that’s easy to use and offers much flexibility. 

Unlike other CMS platforms which specialize in building a particular type of website (e.g., eCommerce), with WordPress, you can create anything from a personal blog to the next Amazon. 

One of the main reasons this is possible is the wide variety of plugins available. There are thousands of options covering almost every feature you might need. 

But being able to choose from more than 60,000 plugins can be overwhelming.

That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the 7 best WordPress plugins that will keep your website ahead in 2023. 

 

Yoast SEO - Best SEO Plugin for WordPress

Yoast SEO


Yoast SEO is the most popular search engine optimization plugin in the WordPress directory, with 5+ million active installations. 

And the plugin’s comprehensiveness is the main reason so many people choose it.

Yoast SEO is packed with features that improve a wide range of SEO aspects:

  • Title and meta tags;
  • XML sitemaps;
  • Site breadcrumbs;
  • Internal linking.

Furthermore, it ensures your content is top-notch by running its state-of-the-art content, readability, and SEO analysis. 

It has free and premium versions. The first is great for anyone who is just starting and wants to lay their site’s solid SEO foundations. The paid one provides you with many automatizations and more complex SEO features.

Downloads: 5,000,000+
Rating: 4.8/5
Best feature(s): Advanced SEO analysis
Suited for: Optimizing your site for search engines
Price: Freemium


Learn more about Yoast SEO →


MonsterInsights - Best WordPress Analytics Plugin

MonsterInsights Best WordPress Analytics Plugin
 

MonsterInsights is the leading Google Analytics plugin for WordPress, with over 3,000,000 installations.

You no longer need to go back and forth between your Google Analytics account and your WordPress dashboard. You’ll be able to track all your analytics reports straight from the latter. 

MonsterInsights is a “no-code” plugin that allows you to set up Universal Analytics or GA4. 

Side note: Considering that Google will sunset Universal Analytics on July 1, 2023, it’s smarter to set up the GA4 straightaway. 


Then, you can see real-time stats right inside WordPress, track clicks on your links, get detailed information for each post and page, and much more. 

Downloads: 3,000,000+
Rating: 4.6/5
Best feature(s): No code setup
Suited for: Tracking your site’s performance
Price: Starting at $99.50/year


Learn more about MonsterInsights →


Yith - Best WooCommerce Plugins

Yith Best WooCommerce Plugins

Scrolling through Amazon, you might think about how you want “this” interactive element or “that” functionality on your WooCommerce site. 

Luckily, there’s a plugin for everything. The only problem is when you add a whole bunch of different plugins, you might end up with compatibility issues. 

Not if you’re using Yith’s solutions! 

Yith is an independent company that specializes in developing WooCommerce plugins. 

Throughout the years, they’ve built a powerful framework that guarantees full compatibility among all their plugins and allows you to get advanced features by combining them. 

Now, you might be wondering:

“How many plugins do they offer?”

194 - to be exact.

And that includes plugins for:

  • Live Push Notifications;
  • Multi-Currency Switch;
  • Easy Login and Sign-up;
  • Custom Thank You Page;
  • Pre-Order;
  • SMS Notifications;
  • And 188 more.

Put simply, if you want to add specific functionality to your WooCommerce store, chances are – Yith already offers a plugin for it.

Downloads: 2,300,000+
Rating: 4.8/5
Best feature(s): Full compatibility among all their plugins 
Suited for: Building a world-class online store 
Price: Depends on the plugin


Learn more about Yith →

 

OptinMonster - Best WordPress Lead Generation Plugin

OptinMonster Best WordPress Lead Generation Plugin
 

Want to convert your website visitors into leads? OptinMonster is the way to go.

OptinMonster is the most powerful conversion optimization plugin. It allows you to grow your email list, get more leads and increase sales by adding offers to your site:

  • Lightbox popups;
  • Floating bars;
  • Scroll boxes;
  • Gamified wheels;
  • And more.

What makes OptinMonster so unique is the wide variety of customization options. 

You can create your offers using 100+ pre-built templates or their drag-drop editor and start from scratch.

For an offer to work, it has to target the right audience. OptinMonster provides advanced targeting and segmentation options to show your perfect offer to the right people at the right time.

To maximize your conversion rates, OptinMonster has an A/B testing feature to eliminate the guesswork and find the best-working offer.

Downloads: 1,000,000+
Rating: 4.4/5
Best feature(s): The drag-drop builder and the rich list of templates
Suited for: Adding conversion-optimized offers
Price: Starting at $16/mo


Learn more about OptinMonster →

 

Weglot - Best WordPress Translation Plugin

Weglot Best WordPress Translation Plugin


Weglot is one of the best WordPress plugins that can automatically translate your website into 110+ languages without writing a single line of code.

It’s the easiest way to expand your business globally without creating new websites for every market. Weglot makes your primary domain name multilingual under subdomains or subdirectories.

On top of that, its translation software follows multilingual SEO best practices and automatically serves your pages in your audience's language, depending on their browser settings. 

Tell me that’s not cool! 

When overseeing the whole translation process, you can review, edit, and add terms through the Weglot dashboard. 

Downloads: 60,000+ 
Rating: 4.8/5
Best feature(s): Multilingual SEO; Visitors auto-redirection
Suited for: Translating your site automatically
Price: Starting at $15


Learn more about Weglot →


AffiliateWP - Best Affiliate WordPress Plugin

AffiliateWP Best WordPress Affiliate Management Plugin


Do you want to launch your own affiliate program? Enter AffiliateWP!

AffiliateWP is the best WordPress affiliate management plugin. Over 30,000+ website owners rely on it to grow their revenue.

With its 1-click integration and powerful affiliate management features, AffiliateWP allows you to build your program’s structure and customize its registration, onboarding, approval process, payouts, and more.

When you’re done with the basics, you can expand your program using the growth tools and internationalize it by translating it into 30 languages. 

And as the famous saying goes: “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” AffiliateWP includes advanced tracking of all your coupons, links, and promotions, as well as detailed reports. 

Downloads: 30,000+
Rating: 4.6/5
Best feature(s): The smart commission rules
Suited for: Building an affiliate program
Price: $149.50/year


Learn more about AffiliateWP →


NitroPack - Best WordPress Site Speed Plugin

NitroPack Best WordPress Site Speed Plugin
 

Speeding up your website is a complex process that requires all kinds of different optimizations.

The traditional way is to install a different plugin for each optimization. 

Unfortunately, this might lead to compatibility issues and bloating of your site’s code, ending up with worse performance than before. 

Luckily, there’s a better way!

NitroPack is the leading all-in-one site speed optimization solution that combines more than 35+ web performance features:

  • Advanced caching;
  • Image optimization;
  • Built-in CDN;
  • Code optimization;
  • Critical CSS;
  • Defer JavaScript loading;
  • And more.

On top of that, it’s a cloud-based tool which means our servers handle all the heavy site speed operations. As a result, your infrastructure isn’t bloated with performance optimization tasks and has all the processing power to keep your online business up and running. 

Furthermore, NitroPack requires no coding or tech skills to use. You can set it up in less than 3 minutes and see a massive improvement in your PSI score, Core Web Vitals, and conversion rates.

Downloads: 162,000+
Rating: 4.3/5
Best feature(s): All-in-One; No need for extra plugins; Cloud-based 
Suited for: Speeding up your site
Price: Freemium

See how fast your site could be. Test it now with NitroPack →


Bonus: SuperbThemes - Best WordPress Themes

SuperbThemes Best WordPress Themes


Picking a WordPress theme goes way beyond how your website will look. You also need to know what stands behind it (code check) and whether it’s built with SEO and web performance in mind. 

SuperbThemes check all the boxes by offering user-friendly, good-looking, lightning-fast, and SEO-optimized WordPress themes. 

You get to choose from 41 premium themes divided into a long list of categories:

  • Blog;
  • Business;
  • eCommerce;
  • Photography;
  • Agency;
  • Membership;
  • And more.

On top of that, after subscribing, you get access to 101 child themes that include advanced add-ons to their premium themes. 

You can also access all of their premium plugins with either of the two available subscriptions. In other words, it’s a deal worth checking. 

Downloads: 4,000,000+
Rating: 4.8/5
Best feature(s): A wide variety of themes optimized for performance and SEO 
Suited for: Building a user-friendly website
Price: Starting at $92


Learn more about SuperbThemes →


Bonus: Hostinger - Best WordPress Hosting

Hostinger Best WordPress Hosting


Your hosting is the foundation of your entire website.

Regardless of the plugins and themes you decide to use later, if you’re building on quicksand, you’re setting yourself up for failure. That’s why you need to rely on a hosting provider that specializes in WordPress.

Hostinger’s WordPress Hosting is one of the best choices you could make for the success of your online business. It includes anything you would expect from a high-quality hosting plan - free SSL, DDoS protection, uptime guaranteed, and more.

When it comes to the WordPress-specific stuff, it has them as well:

  • 1-Click WordPress installer;
  • Automatic WordPress updates;
  • WordPress staging tool;
  • WordPress Pro features like WP-CLI, PHP version control, SSH access, Git integration, and more.

And last but not least – you can rely on 24/7 support via live chat. 

Rating: 4.6/5
Best feature(s): Free SSL; Speed-optimized servers; Automatic WP updates 
Suited for: Building your WordPress site on high-quality infrastructure
Price: Starting at $9.99/mo


Learn more about Hostinger →
 

Bonus: Codeable - Best WordPress Developers

Codeable Best WordPress Developers


Despite the rich list of plugins and themes available, there will come a time when you’ll want to get out of the box and add some customizations to your website. So you might need a developer.

Codeable is the only WordPress freelancer platform that matches customers like you to the best WordPress experts in the world.

Whether you want to:

  • Build a custom theme;
  • Build a custom plugin;
  • Further secure your website;
  • Integrate custom APIs.

You can find the right WordPress developer who can make it happen. 

All you have to do is create a project brief, and Codeable will match you with the 5 developers most suitable for your job. 

Then, the platform automatically averages all offers from freelancers who estimate your project to ensure you get the fairest price and the highest quality work. 

Customers: 25,000+
Rating: 4.9/5
Best feature(s): The easy-to-start process; Pricing averages 
Suited for: Hiring a WordPress developer
Price: Depends on the project


Learn more about Codeable →


How to Select The Right WordPress Solution for Your Website

A good starting point is to have a checklist of your requirements and their importance.

The “importance” metric is vital because sometimes you won’t find a solution that checks all the boxes. Knowing the things you’re not ready to compromise with will make the decision process faster and easier. 

Another general rule is to always choose premium if you can afford it. The free WordPress themes and plugins are a good option if you’re just starting and operating on a tight budget. 

However, once it suits your budget, convert to premium immediately.

The premium alternatives offer more advanced features, flexibility, security, and support.

Now that you know the basics, here are quick checklists to guide you through the process of selecting a WordPress solution:

How to choose a WordPress plugin

  • Make a list of requirements
  • Check the number of active installations
  • Go through the reviews
  • Check “last updated” and compatibility
  • Check out the plugin support forums
  • Run performance tests before/after installing it
  • Go for the premium option (if it suits your budget)

How to choose WordPress plugin

 

How to choose a WordPress theme

  • Make a list of requirements
  • Check the number of active installations
  • Check “last updated” and compatibility
  • Go through the reviews
  • Don’t compromise with responsiveness, performance, flexibility, accessibility, and support
  • Make sure it’s not bloated - less is more when it comes to theme features
  • Run performance tests before/after installing it
  • Go for the premium option (if it suits your budget)

How to choose WordPress theme

 

How to choose a WordPress hosting

  • Make a list of requirements
  • Compare different providers and plans
  • Check the included features (e.g., SSL, domain name, DDoS protection, backups, email, etc.)
  • Check for server reliability and uptime guarantees
  • Learn what the upgrade options are
  • Look for dedicated support
  • Understand differences in Sign-Up prices vs. Renewal prices
  • Run performance tests (if possible)
  • Check the reviews

How to choose wordpress hosting

 

How to hire the right WordPress developer

  • Make a list of requirements
  • Create a detailed job post
  • Prepare questions you want to ask them
  • View the developer’s portfolio
  • Check reviews and testimonials
  • Evaluate their pricing, and your budget
  • Discuss post-deployment steps and revisions

How to hire the right wordpress developer


And one last thing - always play the long game. Compromising for short-term gains will inevitably lead to long-term losses.

Niko Kaleev
Web Performance Geek

Niko has 5+ years of experience turning those “it’s too technical for me” topics into “I can’t believe I get it” content pieces. He specializes in dissecting nuanced topics like Core Web Vitals, web performance metrics, and site speed optimization techniques. When he’s taking a breather from researching his next content piece, you’ll find him deep into the latest performance news.