Top 5 WordPress Plugins You Need in 2023
3 April 2023
Introduction
WordPress is a content management system (CMS) used by amateurs and dedicated web designers alike. It provides essential elements for creating a basic website.
To customise your site’s functions, appearance, and performance, you’ll need some plugins. With this blog post, we have listed the pros and cons for the top 5 WordPress plugins in 2023.
1. Social Sharing, Marketing and SEO Plugins
These plugins provide tools for optimising your site to appear higher on search engines. This helps with searchability and traffic.
Pricing: Free. premium plans start at $99 for one website (as of March 2023).
| Pros | Cons |
| Accessible and user-friendly | Not good at understanding intent |
| Works as an SEO proofreader | Can be pedantic |
| Helps you fix flaws | Wastes time by searching for stop words |
| Prevents your RSS feed from content scrapers | Constantly requires updating |
2. Website Performance
Plugins speed up load time, optimise images and provide users an overall better user experience. These plugins offer not just performance, but also security.
Pricing: $50/month when billed annually (as of March 2023).
| Pros | Cons |
| Add essential features conveniently | Interface is bloated with features |
| Is always up-to-date | Slows down your site |
Pricing: Free. Premium plans start at $119/year (as of March 2023).
| Pros | Cons |
| Optimised for maximum performance | Absence of automated website cleanup |
| Has a robust dashboard | Access to key functions is limited for free users |
| Features an endpoint firewall | Resource-intensive |
3. Website Analytics
These plugins let you track your performance. Analytics plugins help you understand your visitors’ conversion rates and audience better.
Pricing: Plans start at $99.50/year. (as of March 2023)
| Pros | Cons |
| Provides detailed reports | Very costly |
| Easy-to-use interface | Limited features in the free version |
Bonus plugin: turn your site into a store
Pricing: Plans start at $24.95/month with a triennial plan (as of March 2023).
| Pros | Cons |
| Sales tax management and reporting | Reliant on other plugins to function |
| Top-tier integration with WordPress | Doesn’t offer a lot of built-in customisation |
| Features popular payment gateways | Backend dashboard can be slow |
| Interface is very simple to use | Takes considerable time to set up properly |
Find out how to build a WordPress online store with WooCommerce here.