This document provides a summary of essential WordPress plugins as identified by Anthony Hortin, a designer and developer at Maddison Designs. It discusses plugins for page building (Divi Builder), security (WordFence), caching (WP Rocket), SEO (WordPress SEO by Yoast), backups (BackupBuddy), ecommerce (WooCommerce), forms (Gravity Forms), galleries (Envira Gallery), spam prevention (Akismet), and other miscellaneous plugins. Alternatives to the main plugins discussed are also provided.

1. Anthony Hortin @maddisondesigns maddisondesigns.com
Essential Plugins
for your WordPress Website

2. About me
Designer/Developer @ Maddison Designs
WordPress Theme & Plugin Developer
WordPress Theme & Plugin Directory contributor
Created Easy WP Guide (over 170K downloads)
Co-Organiser Melbourne WordPress WordCamp 2013
Co-Organiser for monthly WP Melbourne WordPress Meetups

3. Plugins are ways to extend and add to the functionality
that already exists in WordPress.
The core of WordPress is designed to be lean and
lightweight, to maximize flexibility and minimize code bloat.
Plugins then offer custom functions and features so that
each user can tailor their site to their specific needs.
“
”

4. 44,873 Plugins*
* In the WordPress.org Plugin Directory as at June 1, 2016

5. Divi Builder
“A Drag & Drop Page Builder Plugin For WordPress”
46 Content modules. e.g. Accordions, Buttons, Galleries, Maps, Sliders
Pre-built templates to help with your designs
Simple, easy to use User Interface
Ability to save your own templates
Ability to create Global items. e.g. Any changes are applied to each instance
Customise colours, spacing and typography with just a few clicks
Paid plugin
http://www.elegantthemes.com/plugins/divi-builder
Page Builders
Alternatives
Beaver Builder - https://www.wpbeaverbuilder.com
Page Builder by Site Origin - https://wordpress.org/plugins/siteorigin-panels
Visual Composer - https://vc.wpbakery.com

6. WordFence Security
“Wordfence Security is a free enterprise class security and performance
plugin that makes your site up to 50 times faster and more secure.”
Real-Time blocking of known attackers
Scans for Heartbleed vulnerability and many known backdoors
Scans for malware and phishing URL’s
Scans core files, theme & plugins against WordPress.org
Rate limit or block security threats like aggressive crawlers, scrapers & bots
See real-time site traffic
Falcon caching engine
Free plugin
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence
Security
Alternatives
iThemes Security - https://wordpress.org/plugins/better-wp-security
All In One WP Security & Firewall - https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-wp-security-and-firewall

7. WP Rocket
“Thanks to our plugin, WordPress has never been so efficient”
Easy to set up and very fast
Google Fonts optimisation
eCommerce friendly (eg. cart/checkout)
Minification/Concatenation of scripts & files for faster loading
Compatible with Apache, Nginx, Microsoft IIS & LiteSpeed web servers
Paid plugin
http://wp-rocket.me
Caching
Alternatives
WP Super Cache - https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache
W3 Total Cache - https://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache
WordFence Security - https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence

8. WordPress SEO by Yoast
“Improve your WordPress SEO: Write better content and have a fully optimized
WordPress site using Yoast's WordPress SEO plugin.”
Helps you write better content
View search engine preview rendering of your content
Page analysis
Generates XML Sitemaps
Built-in breadcrumbs functionality
Social integration
Free plugin
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo
SEO
Alternatives
The SEO Framework - https://wordpress.org/plugins/autodescription
All in One SEO Pack - https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack
SEO Ultimate - https://wordpress.org/plugins/seo-ultimate

9. BackupBuddy
“The best way to back up (and move) a WordPress site.”
Database only or Full backups (files & db)
Offsite storage (Stash, Amazon S3, Dropbox, Rackspace Cloud, FTP, email)
Schedule backups
1GB of free BackupBuddy Stash storage
Ability to exclude files & tables
Easily migrate sites between domain names (incl. URL replacement)
Email notifications
Paid plugin
https://ithemes.com/purchase/backupbuddy
Backup
Alternatives
VaultPress - https://vaultpress.com
WordPress Backup to Dropbox - https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-backup-to-dropbox
UpdraftPlus - https://wordpress.org/plugins/updraftplus
BackupWordPress - https://wordpress.org/plugins/backupwordpress

10. WooCommerce
“WooCommerce is a powerful, extendable eCommerce plugin that helps you sell
anything. Beautifully.”
Sell physical and digital products
Smart Dashboard widgets and reports
Manage stock levels
Multiple payment gateways
Can be extended with free & paid extensions
Flexible and customisable
Free plugin
http://www.woothemes.com/woocommerce
eCommerce
Alternatives
Easy Digital Downloads - http://easydigitaldownloads.com
Jigoshop - https://www.jigoshop.com
iThemes Exchange - https://ithemes.com/exchange

11. Gravity Forms
“Advanced Forms for WordPress Websites Just Don't Get Any Easier than
Gravity Forms”
Drag ’n drop visual form editor
Multipage forms
Easily create order forms
Conditional fields
Schedule forms
Can be used to create user generated content (eg. create Posts)
Numerous add-ons to extend functionality
Paid plugin
http://gravityforms.com
Forms
Alternatives
Contact Form 7 - http://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7
Ninja Forms - https://wordpress.org/plugins/ninja-forms

12. Envira Gallery
“Envira Gallery is a responsive WordPress gallery plugin that creates incredibly
simple and easy workflows around building and managing galleries in
WordPress.”
Create responsive image sliders and galleries
Simple drag ’n drop interface
Multisite compatible
Customisable
Numerous add-ons to extend functionality
Paid plugin
https://enviragallery.com
Sliders & Galleries
Alternatives
Soliloquy - http://soliloquywp.com
Meteor Slides - https://wordpress.org/plugins/meteor-slides

13. Akismet
“Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet Web service to see if they
look like spam or not.”
Automatically checks all comments and filters out the ones that look like spam
Easy to setup (Requires API key from akismet.com)
Free plugin
https://wordpress.org/plugins/akismet
Spam Prevention
Alternatives
WP-SpamShield - https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-spamshield
Spam Destroyer - https://wordpress.org/plugins/spam-destroyer

14. Black Studio TinyMCE Widget
“The visual editor widget for WordPress.”
https://wordpress.org/plugins/black-studio-tinymce-widget
Image Widget
“A simple image widget that uses the native WordPress media manager to add
image widgets to your site.”
https://wordpress.org/plugins/image-widget
Regenerate Thumbnails
“Allows you to regenerate your thumbnails after changing the thumbnail sizes.”
https://wordpress.org/plugins/regenerate-thumbnails
Widget Logic
“Widget Logic lets you control on which pages widgets appear using WP's
conditional tags.”
https://wordpress.org/plugins/widget-logic
Adhoc

15. Imsanity
“Imsanity automatically resizes huge image uploads.”
https://wordpress.org/plugins/imsanity
Easy FancyBox
“Easy FancyBox plugin for WordPress websites gives you a flexible and
aesthetic lightbox solution for just about all media links on your website.”
https://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-fancybox
Beautiful Taxonomy Filters
“Supercharge your custom post type archives by letting visitors filter posts by
their terms/categories.”
https://wordpress.org/plugins/beautiful-taxonomy-filters
Advanced Custom Fields
“Advanced Custom Fields is the perfect solution for any WordPress website
which needs more flexible data.”
https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields
Adhoc

16. I’m Anthony Hortin
You can find me here
@maddisondesigns
maddisondesigns.com
@easywpguide
easywpguide.com