Plugins are to your WordPress site what apps are to your iPhone. 📱

In other words, they extend the standard functionality of your site by adding some much-needed features. Essentially, as you’re figuring out how to make a website on your own, plugins are how you can get some great features without knowing any coding.

Here are the plugins you should consider getting – best of all, they are all free:

  • Yoast SEO – helps you make search engine optimization tweaks and make your site more accessible to the search engines in general.
  • Google Analytics for WordPress – this one integrates your website with the most popular traffic analysis solution on the web.
  • Wordfence Security – improves the security of your WordPress site.
  • UpdraftPlus – does automatic backups of your website.
  • Optimole – optimizes your images.
  • WPForms – lets you add interactive contact forms to your website, which your visitors can use to reach you directly – much better than displaying your email in plain text on your site.
  • Also look through this list of the most popular WordPress plugins of all time. You might find something interesting there as well.

Installing plugins is simple. If it’s a free plugin that we’re dealing with, then all you need is the plugin’s name.

Go to your WordPress dashboard and then to Plugins → Add New. From there, input the name of the plugin that you want into the search field, and then click on “Install” and “Activate.”