27 Best Free WordPress Plugins For Your Website

Ever wondered how those beautiful websites and blogs that you frequently visit can deliver such great user experience and functionality to their readers? The secret behind their abilities to do this lies in the plugins they are using! Yes, if you’ve been wondering how a basic WordPress theme can be transformed into a charming website or blog that attracts visitors like crazy because of how it’s presented, then you’ve come to the right place! Today, I’m going to share with you a list of best free WordPress plugins that you can download and use to improve the presentation, user experience and functionality of your website so that you can continue to grow your readership without any added expenses!

Here’s the List of Amazing Free WordPress Plugins That You Can Use:-

WPForms Lite

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Stay in touch with your website and blog readers by creating a contact form that they can easily complete while being on-the-go. With WPForms Lite, you can easily create multiple contact forms for your website or blog with their simple drag and drop form builder.

They also have some pre-built templates that you can use that includes form fields that you’ll need to create that perfect contact form. You can also customize the form to your requirements. The good thing about this plugin is that the contact forms you create with it are 100% responsive, SEO optimized and mobile friendly.

For spam prevention, you can also include a CAPTCHA or reCAPTCHA for your forms through this plugin.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

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You can encourage your website or blog readers to stay longer in your site by recommending related articles that they might be interested in. With the Yet Another Related Posts plugin, your readers will be given the opportunity to discover related posts according to a content that they have viewed within your website.

Content is being recommended to them using a versatile algorithm that takes into consideration your website’s article titles as well as content categories and tags.

The plugin will help to display a list of related content or display thumbnails so that your readers can easily choose and read your other content.

This will encourage more reader engagement and extend the time of them hanging out on your website – which will be good for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) too!

Regenerate Thumbnails

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The Regenerate Thumbnails plugin is a time-saver, especially when you want to update the size of the thumbnails already displayed in your website or blog. By using this plugin, you do not need to always re-adjust all your thumbnail sizes on by one. All you need to do is use this plugin and regenerate your thumbnails to the size that you want. The plugin will help you to delete old and unused thumbnails to save you server space.
This plugin is especially useful if you’ve decided that you want to implement a new thumbnail size to all your existing thumbnails or if you’ve just changed your WordPress theme and you have to change all your thumbnails to a specific size as a result of that.

TrustPulse

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Social proof is one of the best ways that will enable you to get more conversions and sales. With the TrustPulse plugin, you can show your readers a pop-up notification whenever somebody purchases something from you or registers for something. You can also notify your readers whenever someone takes action in responding to a campaign on your site during a set period of time. To make your brand image stand out, you can choose to create the pop-ups using the colours and images that relate to your brand.

By using social proof, your readers will become excited and psychologically moved to take action, buy from you or participate in whatever thing you are offering because they would fear that they’ll be missing out on something!

Uber ReCaptcha

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If you want a safe and secure website that is free from pesky spammers and unwanted attacks, then use the Uber ReCaptcha plugin. With this plugin, you can easily include Google’s reCaptcha checks to your website.
You can use reCaptcha security for your registration, login and comment forms. If the reCaptcha doesn’t validate the entries in your forms, the person’s contact will not be added to your list.

This plugin allows you to provide image and audio captcha support. You can also choose to generate audio or image reCaptcha in a number of languages.

UpdraftPlus

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The worst thing that can happen to you is losing all your website content. To have that peace of mind, I’d highly recommend you to use the UpdraftPlus plugin to automatically backup your website files on a consistent basis.

When using this plugin, you can store your backups in either Google Drive, Dropbox or any cloud service of your choice. You can set the backup schedule using this plugin.

And when you experience an unfortunate server crash, hacker attack or any other types of website difficulties, you can recover all your website contents with just a click of a button!

GeoDirectory

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If you are looking to build a directory with your website, then you can use the GeoDirectory plugin.
With this plugin, you get to grow your listing based on the information provided by your users. This can include relevant images, contact details, descriptions and hyperlinks.

You can create local listings, niche directories, staff listings and exclusive directories with this plugin. Your users can also add and manage their own business listing, as well as logos and descriptions.

Your website users who are finding businesses can also use the search function provided by this plugin.

Google Maps Widget

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If you’re looking to include Google map on your website, then use the Google Maps Widget. This is the best Google Maps plugin available and it’s free!

With this plugin, you can enjoy several customization options. You can change the width and height of the map you display in your website, change your map colour schemes, allow your visitors to zoom in and zoom out of your map and feature your map in various languages. You can also choose to display your map as either a satellite map, road map of terrain map.

Featuring Google map in your website is especially good if you are a local business because your customers will know where you are by looking at the map!

Yoast SEO

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If you’re looking to improve your visibility in search engines, then use the Yoast SEO plugin to guide your way to better SEO.

With this plugin, you get to create and automatically update your website’s XML sitemap, create catchy titles and meta descriptions for your articles and preview your content’s search snippets so that you’ll see what your viewers are going to see.

This plugin will notify you whether your content has good readability and is SEO optimized, which is good especially if you’re a beginner in SEO.

Jetpack by WordPress

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Having too many plugins may slow down the speed of your website. So if you’re looking to use a multi-function plugin for your website, then I highly recommend for you to get the Jetpack by WordPress plugin.

You can use this plugin to prevent attacks to your site, track statistics, improve your content social sharing and design your website.

ShortPixel Image Optimisation

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If you feature a lot of images with large file sizes, then your website may take a long time to load. This will affect your SEO. By using the ShortPixel Image Optimisation plugin, you get to compress, resize and optimize the images that you use for your website. This will help to increase your website speed so that your website will be good for SEO.

With this plugin, you can compress images with GIF, PNG and JPEG formats. You can also compress PDF files. You can either choose to compress one image at a time or select their bulk compression function.

WooCommerce

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If you’re looking to set-up your own online store on your website, then you can use the WooCommerce plugin.

With this plugin, you can customise the look and feel of your website while determining the functionality of your online store. You can create an online shop to sell your eCommerce products or other services of your choice.

You can offer a number of shipping options to your customers. With this plugin, you can get secured payments via credit card or other alternative payment methods.

Speed Booster Pack

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You can improve the speed of your website by using the Speed Booster Pack plugin. This plugin can be easily downloaded and used in your website. You’ll notice that your website speed will significantly increase when you use this plugin and loading your website will be much faster.

This plugin will minify your CSS files, deal with your overall JavaScript and CSS, moves your scripts to your website footer to improve your load speed, remove your RSD links and feed links and resolve a lot of other factors that are causing your website to run slowly.

W3 Total Cache

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You can also reduce your website load time by using caching. The option for you to do this is by using the W3 Total Cache plugin.

This plugin will enable you to cache objects, browser, pages and database. There’s also a media library tool that is made available to you through this plugin.

Shareaholic

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If you want to encourage more of your readers to share your articles, website or blog through social media, then the Shareaholic plugin is ideal for you.

With this plugin, you can create attractive social buttons that your readers can use to share your content through social media. You can choose between using their inline share buttons or their default floating share buttons.

Pretty Links

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If you’re into affiliate marketing, then you’ll need a tool that will help you to shorten your affiliate links as they are too long. Your best plugin for this is the Pretty Links plugin.

This plugin will enable you to cloak your affiliate links to make the link look more professional. You also get to track the number of clicks on your URL to see which links are getting a good response.

Social Icons

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If you want to display social media icons on your website, then your best bet is the Social Icons plugin.

This plugin is very easy to use. It provides you with the opportunity to display beautiful social media icons on your website. You can place the icons at your articles or pages by using shortcodes or widgets. You can use this plugin to create icons for over 100 popular social media platforms. There is also a customization option available for you when creating your social icons.

Smush

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If you want to improve your website speed by compressing your images, then the Smush plugin is your perfect option.

With this plugin, your images will be automatically resized and compressed without sacrificing their quality. This will ensure that your website will load faster, thus giving you better SEO.

VaultPress

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If you want a tool that can backup your website data regularly then you can use the VaultPress plugin.

With this plugin, you can backup your website files in real-time automatically. And you just need a single click to be able to restore your website.

This plugin also enables you to scan and detect any dangerous files that may harm your website. It also has strong spam protection.

Better Click To Tweet

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If you love creating tweetable content that can be shared by your readers through their Twitter accounts, then use the Better Click To Tweet plugin.

With this plugin, your readers will see your tweetable quote and be prompted to share your tweet to their Twitter followers.

This will definitely help you to increase your brand awareness.

Google XML Sitemaps

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If you want search engines to index your website, then you’ll need to use a sitemap. With the Google XML Sitemaps plugin, an XML sitemap will be created for your website for easy indexing.

The plugin will also update major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing whenever you publish something new on your website. This includes any new blog posts or articles you update on your site.

Akismet Anti-Spam

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If you want to avoid getting spam comments on your website, then use the Akismet Anti-Spam plugin.
This plugin will screen and filter any incoming comments on your website for spam.

Smart Slider 3

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If you’re looking to include a professional looking slider in your website, you can use the Smart Slider 3 plugin.

This plugin is simple to use and comes with beautiful ready-made templates to choose from. You can choose to have a block, showcase, thumbnail, full-width, bar or full page slider with this plugin. You can also adjust your slider width and height to suit your website theme.

This plugin works great with practically any theme and your sliders will be 100% responsive and SEO optimized too!

Wordfence Security

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If you want to keep your website secure, then use the Wordfence Security plugin. This plugin is one of the most popular all-in-one packages when it comes to securing WordPress sites.

It features a firewall, login hardening, live traffic monitoring and a malware scanner. It also blocks malicious networks and attackers from harming your website.

By using this plugin, you will be alerted whenever someone tries to hack your website. You can use this plugin to monitor your website traffic in real-time.

Elementor Page Builder

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If you’re looking to create your own web design but do not know any coding, then you can use the Elementor Page Builder plugin.

Elementor is a front-end page builder that lets you create your web pages using a simple drag and drop system. Although WordPress templates are usually very professional looking, they might lack some features and design elements that you need to make your business or blog stand out to your audiences.

With this plugin, you will get full control over the design and elements of your website without spending unnecessary time on complicated web coding.

The web pages designed in Elementor are 100% responsive and can work with any WordPress theme and widgets.

Insert Headers And Footers

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If you are looking for a simple way to insert code snippets to your website’s header and footer sections, then use the Insert Headers And Footers plugin.

With this plugin, all you need to do is insert your scripts to a simple interface. So you need not do any complicated modifications to your files that may ruin or crash your website.

This is especially a great tool if you’re not advanced in web coding.

Simple Author Box

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If you have a website that has multiple author contributions, then you might want to include a short box containing your authors’ profiles after the articles that they’ve written. The best way to do this is by using the Simple Author Box plugin.

With this plugin, you can create a professional looking author box that features the author’s name, description, gravatar as well as social icons linking to their social media profiles. You can customise the design of your author box to suit your website theme and corporate brand look.

All the author box designs are fully responsive and mobile-friendly.

So that’s it! My recommendations for 27 Best Free WordPress Plugins For Your Website revealed…Have you used any of these plugins before? Which are your favourites? Or do you have other free plugins to recommend? I’d love to know! If you have not started using these plugins but strongly feel that they would help your website to perform better, then I’d encourage you to give them a try and let me know your experience using them.

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