15 Must-Have WordPress Plugins For 2019 And Beyond

By Maulik Patel

05 Sep 2019

Similar to “there’s an app for that,” it goes like “there’s a plugin for that” in the WordPress community.

The plugin is a small piece of software with a group of functions one can add to the WordPress site. It is used to either extend the functionality of the site or add new features. Let’s say you have a smartphone, and you add apps to it to increase its functionality. Plugins do the same thing to your WordPress website.

For those who don’t know anything about coding or those who want to save coding time, plugins are a God-send.

Plugins can work as a sword as well as a needle to carve the best out of your site. They can turn your ordinary website into a big e-commerce store, social media channel, or discussion forum. Or they can add small features like Instagram Feed or an image gallery to enhance the glory. They can go as far as making your website a lead generation tool or remain as limited as adding a contact form — your call.

Eager to Try Them Now?

With 55000+ WordPress plugins, it’s difficult to decide which are the best WordPress plugins. WordPress community often asks for a magical list of plugins that covers it all. The magic list is available only when you list out desired features and find out matching plugins. If that doesn’t work, my all-time formula is lookup at trends and evergreen features. Put them on paper and begin your search for plugins.

In this article, I applied my formula and piled the best WordPress plugins list of 2019. They are trend-compatible and future-ready too.

Let’s have a brief look at each of them:

1. Beaver Builder – For Page Building

Beaver Building is one of the best page building plugins with drag and drops features. It offers dozens of customized templates to kickstart your website design. You can mix and match elements of all templates to create your dream website. All you have to do is drag and drop one feature to the other. Similar to copy-paste. And your website will be ready in less time than expected with eye-appealing pages to impress users.

2. Smart Slider 3 – For Adding Sliders

Often, I come across websites with welcoming sliders at the top of the home page. I feel like they are light bulbs of websites, making them shine in the crowd. Just like a shop, in a crowded street, adds light to catch the attention of customers.

Would you like to add a similar effect to your website?

WordPress’ Smart Slider 3 plugin gives you the freedom to add sliders quickly as per your desired way. Its three mind-blowing features are cherries on the cake for slide lovers:

Slide Library: A library full of premade slides to add and build sliders quickly
Layer Animations: allows you to add motions and transitions effects
Dynamic Content Generator: Import content from third-party sites like Instagram, YouTube, etc., and add them to your sliders.

3. WPForms – For Adding Contact Forms

WPForms

Who doesn’t need a contact form?

Contact form is what Google crawls when users are looking for the location of the business. Users search for contact forms first to get answers to their queries regarding products or services. In short, it is a must for all types of websites. With coding, it takes time to build a contact form. But with the WPForms plugin, building a contact form is a matter of seconds.

WPForms offers a wide variety of form templates, starting from the basic contact form to advance forms like survey forms, subscription forms, donation forms, etc. It comes with a drag and drops functionality, allowing you to add form by taking it from one place to another.

4. User Role Editor – To Manage User Permission

E-commerce or membership websites give access to users at different levels. For e.g., if I am a new user on Amazon, I have to either purchase as a guest or should sign up to purchase. And if I am a regular customer, Amazon permits me to purchase directly. Similarly, for membership sites, users who paid less will have access to a few features while high-paying users can enjoy ample features of the same site. If you too have to manage different stages of users based on their charges or sign-ups, User Role Editor is for you. It lets you create custom permissions and define the roles of users in your WordPress site.

5. Better Search Replace – Find and Replace Plugin

Editing is a website’s all-time work. Every time a new trend or feature emerges, you have to edit your website. Sometimes you have to replace old features with new ones. Or sometimes you have to add more. With coding, editing seems like a daunting task. But with Better Search Replace plugin, editing is like playing a game with the website. It works similar to the Find and Replaces feature of Microsoft.

6. Insert Headers and Footers

Web owners often need to customize headers and footers as per their niche demands. Making changes to an existing theme takes a load of coding for editing and replacing. Insert headers, and footers plugin shrinks this task by giving you a place where you can insert codes to add desired header and footer. For e.g., you can insert code of Google Analytics, custom CSS, Facebook Pixel, etc., to add them in your headers or footers.

7. Live Chat – For Live Chat Feature

Ever came across the site with live chat support popping up with a human face. It tells you that humans are there to help with all your queries. It increases users’ trust towards the site.

Wanna add it to your site without single-line coding?

Tidio plugin lets you add live chat to the website. It allows you to give access to supporters who will be available to answer the users’ questions. Everything a customer types in the “Live chat” box will be visible to your supporters’ team. It’s also a lead generation tool that gains and stores your customers’ contact information.

8. W3 Total Cache – To Improve Performance

Your targeted audience expects your site to load in less than 3 seconds. Also, Google emphasizes the site’s speed in its algorithm. That means site speed doesn’t only impress users but also search engine rankings. And don’t forget that users’ expectations for mobile-friendly are high. W3 Total Cache is one of the most popular caching plugins in the WordPress community. It improves the overall performance of the site and reduces its page loading speed by caching every aspect and using features like Content delivery integrations.

Most popular sites like MattCutts.com, AT&T, Mashable.com, etc., use this plugin to maintain the excellent performance of their sites.

9. Sucuri – For Site Security

Sucuri

Only a web developer knows the pain to create a site from scratch once malware attacks it. And developers who rely on themes for web development are not even aware of how much their site is at risk.

Don’t worry. You don’t need to hire a hacker to keep your site secure. Sucuri plugin performs the same action. It shields your site against malware, force attacks, and other risks. Sucuri scans all website traffic through its CloudProxy Servers, and then only it allows users to enter the site. The plugin, however, doesn’t affect your site’s performance. On the contrary, Sucuri reduces server load and improves site performance.

10. Yoast SEO – For Search Engine Ready Site

I know SEO is something that should be taken care of by the SEO team. But web and graphic designers play a critical role in SEO. An SEO-optimised website catches the quick attention of search engines and takes less time to reach the top rankings of Google. I am not talking about keywords and content. Being a designer, you have to look after the technical side of SEO like XML sitemaps, robots control, meta-information editor, etc. Yoast SEO comes with all such functionalities to guide you through the right SEO direction. It helps you avoid duplicate content, take control of breadcrumbs, title and meta description templating, etc.

11. OptinMonster – A Lead Generation Plugin

Want to make your site a lead generation machine? Add the OptinMonster plugin, and you are good to go. OptinMonster gives you pre-built templates having a proven record of converting prospects into customers. It gives you a set of perfect campaigns to choose from like lightbox popup, fullscreen welcome mat, floating bar, etc., to grab the instant attention of users. It lets you grab the information of each visitor and create a customized message for them.

12. Constant Contact – An Email Marketing Tool

Which successful business doesn’t have email marketing as a part of its marketing strategy? Even at its highest peak, Amazon still sends emails to its customers. Why not you? Install Constant Contact in your website and let the plugin take care of your email marketing campaign. It not only comes with dozens of customizable email templates but also gives you promotion ideas to scale up your email marketing skills and results.

13. Shared Counts – To Add Social Shares

Give your users a chance to share your evergreen content on social media with social sharing buttons. Shared Counts allows you to add social sharing buttons to a site or blog. It supports all major social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Email Sharing, etc. It tracks and displays total shares of your blog. It’s not necessary to add all buttons; you can customize them as per your necessity.

14. UpdraftPlus – To Backup Data

What if the server crashes suddenly and you lose important files? What if any new update ruins your old features? What if your site loses charm just because of a single user error? A website is open for all such vulnerabilities. You can protect it with a security plugin, but security can’t stop the loss of files. That’s why you need a backup plan as well. UpdraftPlus keep a backup of all your files including database, themes, and plugins. You can easily restore files without any technical knowledge. It supports big, fat, cloud storage options like Google Drive, DropBox, and Amazon S3 to store data in safe hands.

15. MonsterInsights – For Analytics

To improve your site based on users’ desires, you have to keep track of how users interact with your site. It’s only possible with Google Analytics. MonsterInsights connects your site with Google Analytics and gives you access to all-inclusive tracking features. Track users, notify their behaviour and improve accordingly.

Did I miss any plugins?

When it comes to WordPress plugins, the sky is the limit. Plugins like the “Coming soon” feature, announcing “Contest,” E-commerce-specific, theme editor, etc., are also there to try for. To search out the specific plugin you are looking for, I suggest checking out directly on Google or finding out on WPBeginner’s Plugins Category. All the best.