7 POWERFUL WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR ALL TYPES OF WEBSITES 2022-23

What do we mean by powerful WordPress plugins?
First of all, what is a plugin? How does it work? And for what? And when can I call it a powerful one?
All these questions and more on how can we choose our plugins, how can we activate and deactivate our plugin, and finally, how can we check if there is a conflict between 2 plugins, we are going to answer keep focusing, and let’s start.

So, what is a WordPress plugin?
A WordPress plugin is an app or a piece of software( developed either by WordPress itself or any other individual programmer) you can add to your WordPress site. And Rather than building out every feature from scratch (or sacrificing some functionality because you don’t know how to build it), It extends the functionality or adds a new feature to your existing website while also keeping it safe and secure.
(Click here if you don’t know initially what WordPress is and what the best web hosting is).

And since WordPress is both the world’s most popular blogging platform and the most widely used CMS, sorting the wheat from the chaff can be a real challenge; I mean, how can you choose the right plugin for your type of work in 2021-2022 between more than 50 thousand plugins?!! And remember choosing the right plugins is crucial for the speed, security, and user-friendliness of your website.

Nowhere is the most comprehensive list of the 20 best powerful WordPress plugins, crowdsourced from some of the most successful online entrepreneurs and bloggers on the web for any type of website and all kinds of user-level, depending on whether the free or premium version you choose.
Some plugins are free, while others are premium products with a price tag to match.

If you want to know and try the best stock footage, videos, logos, and many others, you must know and try Envato elements.

Powerful WordPress Plugins for Security and Backup

1- WORDFENCE:

For any site owner on the web, Security is a massive issue, and as we said, since WordPress is such a popular CMS, there’s a lot of knowledge out there about how to compromise it and exploit security holes. Now for WordPress websites, there is that magnificent plugin, “Wordfence.”
Wordfence protects your WordPress website from online hackers and attackers. It does this with an endpoint firewall that examines and blocks malicious traffic.

On top of that, the Wordfence security scanner acts as a powerful sidekick of the firewall. It looks for malware and compares core, theme, and plugin files with what is in the WordPress.org repository, checking their integrity and reporting any changes to you.
With Wordfence firewall and security scanner, your WordPress website is safe, and It does allow you to monitor attempts to access your site (like software vulnerabilities) maliciously so you can address them before your website gets attacked and adds in support for the likes of two-factor authentication, and reCAPTCHA on your website, which is a security must-have in the modern era.

2- UpdraftPlus:

Nobody wants things to go wrong on their website, but accidents are often inevitable with working on the significant web. Backing up a WordPress website is the last thing that comes to most people’s minds… Until they need a backup to restore their compromised websites, which is a catastrophe if you’re not prepared, believe me.

UpdraftPlus simplifies backup and restoration. With UpdraftPlus, you can back up your files and database into the cloud folder of your choice (Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, and more), and restore them with a single click.

It’s free to use, but you can upgrade to a premium plan for more features like:

• Incremental backups.
• Duplicate and migrate your WordPress website easily.
• More storage destinations (OneDrive, BackBlaze, Azure, SFTP).
• Database encryption.
• Advanced reporting, and more.

And the best of it is that restoring a previous version of your site doesn’t require you to log into your web host’s control panel. You can do it instantly from WordPress, which is faster for many users.

3- Akismet anti-spam

If you allow comments on your WordPress site, you’ll know what a headache comment spam can cause. One way to deal with this is to enable comment moderation, but once the volume of spam reaches a certain level, there often aren’t enough hours in the day to deal with it.  
Akismet is the must-have WordPress plugin to protect you from spam comments. It comes with WordPress CMS as you install WordPress into your hosting server.

How does Akismet work?
Using Akismet is as easy as installing and activating — the plugin will automatically handle the rest of the work. Every time a visitor posts a comment, Akismet checks it against its database (collected from all participating websites since 2005). If it’s spam, it’s deleted automatically. If spam gets through and the user marks it as spam, it gets added to the database so Akismet can filter similar spam in the future.
Of course, you can’t rely on Akismet to capture every single piece of spam, and there’s also the possibility of false positives. But by telling it when it has missed spam or identified false positives, it can learn and get better over time. 

Akismet is free to download, but you’ll need an Akismet.com API key to use it. Keys are free for personal blogs; paid subscriptions are available for businesses and commercial sites.

But is this the only option I have for anti-spamming? What is the best alternative?

The best alternative is CleanTalk Spam protection, AntiSpam, and FireWall by

Cleantalk Antispam Description:

No CAPTCHA, no questions, no animal counting, no puzzles, no math, and no spambots. Universal AntiSpam plugin.
this is the beauty and gorgeous of Cleantalk antispam.

CLEANTALK ANTISPAM FEATURES:

1. Stops spam comments.
2. Stops spam registrations.
3. Stops spam contact emails.
4. Stops spam orders.
5. Stops spam bookings.
6. Stops spam subscriptions.
7. Stops spam surveys and polls.
8. Stops spam in widgets.
9. Stops spam in WooCommerce.
10. Checks and removes the existing spam comments and spam users.
11. Compatible with mobile users and devices.
12. Compatible with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU).
13. Real-time email validation. Is email real or Not?
14. Blocking disposable & temporary emails.
15. No Spam – No Google Penalties. Give your SEO boost.
16. Mobile friendly Anti Spam & Firewall.
17. Stops spam in Search Form.
18. Disable comments.
19. Spam FireWall: Anti-Flood
20. Spam FireWall: Anti-Crawler
21. Hide the «Website» field for comments.

CleanTalk is a free anti-spam plugin that works with the premium Cloud AntiSpam service cleantalk.org.
You will have a 7-day free trial and then a meager annual fee for that great antispam.

WordPress plugins for design and performance

Now let’s look at some top plugins that turn the barebone WordPress CMS (content management system) into a beautiful, high-performance site.

4-Elementor Pro:

With 3+ million active installs and a 4.9 out of 5 stars rating, Elementor allows you to place a variety of page elements with a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG interface. This way, constructing your ideal website is as easy as clicking and dragging your desired elements into the builder area. 
Elementor Page Builder is one of the most popular drag-and-drop WordPress page builders available.

Elementor offers:

• Best-in-class page editor
• 300+ designer-made templates and 90+ widgets
• Responsive editing, and more.

Simply put: you can build an entire WordPress website (that is beautiful, professional, and high-converting) visually and without writing a single line of code.
Its Pro plan is even more powerful — comes with more pro templates and widgets, Theme Builder (create global designs for header, footer, post type, etc.), WooCommerce Builder, and more.

For its ease of use, simplicity, and compatibility with many WordPress themes, Elementor is a highly recommended plugin for beginner website owners and those less comfortable touching the back-end WordPress code.

5- WP Super Cache:

This plugin generates static HTML files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After an HTML file is generated, your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts.

The static HTML files will be served to the vast majority of your users:

• Users who are not logged in.
• Users who have not left a comment on your blog.
• Or users who have not viewed a password-protected post.

99% of your visitors will be served static HTML files. One cached file can be served thousands of times. Other visitors will be served custom cached files tailored to their visit. If they are logged in or have left comments, those details will be displayed and cached for them.

WP SUPER CACHE has 2+ million active installs thanks to its easy-to-use settings (and it’s free).

RECOMMENDED SETTINGS

1. Simple caching.
2. Compress pages.
3. Don’t cache pages for known users.
4. Cache rebuild.
5. CDN support.
6. Extra homepage checks.

6- Rank Math SEO:

Optimize your website for search engines OR die… If you have a website and create content, repeat this every day before you do anything else.
Unfortunately, WordPress doesn’t come with any SEO functionalities. This is where Rank Math SEO comes into play.

Rank Math is a Search Engine Optimization plugin for WordPress that makes it easy for anyone to optimize their content with built-in suggestions based on widely-accepted best practices.
Easily customize important SEO settings, control which pages are indexable, and how you want your website to appear in search with Structured data.

It lets you customize the search settings (focus keywords, post title, meta descriptions) of each blog post and helps you score every blog post with an SEO checklist. You can then preview how your pages and posts will look in the SERPs, in rich snippets, and even when shared on social media.

Rank Math also comes with modular frameworks such as 404 monitor, redirections, AMP, sitemap, and Google search console integration that you can toggle on and off.

It’s hands down the best SEO WordPress plugin you can find in 2021. Of course, you can use the free version, and it will be fairly enough for you as a beginner, but believe me, the RANK MATH pro version can take your website SEO beyond your imagination in no time at all.

7- Easy Digital Downloads:

Like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads helps you sell online with a WordPress website.
But it focuses on digital products like an ebook, pieces of software, a PDF file, and anything digital that — like its name — a customer can download, use, or consume.

Easy Digital Downloads turn your WordPress website into a complete digital store with the shopping cart, customer account, discount code, and Payment flexibility that you can start accepting credit card payments using Stripe as well as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal.
It also has a built-in reporting feature for quickly viewing your stats and tracking your store’s download activity with Unlimited file downloads for all customers.

it can make a Customer account page that, through the use of a single shortcode, output an entire purchase history table that is only viewable by logged-in customers. Unauthorized users will not have access.
And, of course, the ability to Monitor all there is to know about how your product files are being downloaded by your customers. Easily track the date, time, and even IP address of all purchased and downloaded files.

Easy Digital Downloads is a great Plugin you should have if you are considering making an online Digital download store.

Finally
on the big web now it’s nearly impossible to run a WordPress website without adding functionality through plugins, and since On WordPress there’s a plugin for just about anything you can think of on your website no matter what type of business you run, then you can imagine why WordPress powers the third of the entire internet.
So turn your WordPress website into a well-oiled machine in 2021-2022 with these powerful must have plugins above.

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