Our Top Five Essential WordPress Plugins for 2021
Ready to take your website to the next level? We have curated a list of essential WordPress plugins that are bound to help your business increase site traffic and qualify new leads.
Renewal Digital has used hundreds of the available plugins for WordPress, and through trial and error have found some of the top contenders in the market that we believe you need to try out on your website. Many of our clients ask about the best plugin to use when optimizing for SEO, or for site speed, etc. and to help answer their questions we have picked our top 10 essential WordPress plugins that you need to be using in 2021.
Google Site Kit
Google Site Kit is a plugin built by Google that helps with integrating some of the web’s most popular analytics and search engine tools into your website’s WordPress dashboard. Included in Google Site Kit are varying integrations for Google Analytics, Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and AdSense. These four tools are used by millions of businesses around the world and are must-haves for generating and measuring website traffic, trends, and overall success. Google Site Kit holds a strong first place position on our list of the top 10 essential WordPress plugins for 2021. Best of all, the plugin is free to install and many of the mentioned tools are free to use with your website as well!
Cost: Free, additional charges may apply for AdSense in particular.
Honorable Mention: MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights is a very popular plugin similar to Google Site Kit and definitely a worthwhile mention. MonsterInsights provides analytics regarding traffic, bounce rate, etc. right on your WordPress dashboard. It is a convenient option for those seeking a simpler way to gauge website success. MonsterInsights works directly off of the Google Analytics API, so the quality of information between both plugins is relatively the same.
Cost: Plus plan starting at $200 per year.
Yoast SEO
When thinking about WordPress and SEO, Yoast quickly comes to mind. As our second place contender for the most essential WordPress plugins, Yoast puts the power of SEO into the hands of beginners all the way to industry experts. We have a detailed guide on the importance of SEO that helps explain key concepts and strategies. Through easy to follow prompts, Yoast will automatically scan and score specific pages from your entire website on how well they are optimized for search engines. Yoast provides feedback and teaches you how to fix many of the most common SEO errors that hurt your search engine ranking. Two plan options are available: A free version which provides basic functionality to help optimize your pages, and a paid version that automates page redirects, internal linking, and provides access to customer support and additional tutorial videos.
Cost: Paid license starts at $89 per year, free version is a great starting point however.
Divi
Divi is one of the world’s most popular WordPress website page builders, and rightfully ranks as our third most essential WordPress plugin. Additionally, Divi comes with the Divi Theme that is built for the Divi Builder. One of the best benefits of Divi is the community behind the plugin. There are millions of people running Divi on their WordPress websites today, and a huge customer support team is available to help out if need be. Elegant Themes, Divi’s parent company, is making huge strides to take over the page building industry and has excelled at optimizing Divi for page speed, featureset and capabilities, user intuitiveness, and growing the massive community behind their product that was mentioned prior. Elegant Themes has one of the best pricing models out there when it comes to WordPress page builders, a $250 fee gets you a license to the plugin for life, and for unlimited websites. Compared to other builders which commonly use a subscription model such as Thrive Themes, Divi is the clear winner in regard to pricing. Check out our detailed comparison of Divi vs. Thrive Themes for further elaboration.
Divi also excels in creating an intuitive experience to perform web mobile optimization on a site. In the theme, developers can easily toggle between desktop, tablet, and phone resolutions to make adjustments as needed. In addition, sections and elements can be hidden below specified resolutions to reduce page clutter on smaller screens.
Cost: One-time charge for $250 or $89 per year.
Worth noting that an upgrade from annual to lifetime is available for the difference in cost ($161.)
LiveChat
LiveChat is a service provider for creating instant client connections. LiveChat adds a chat box to the bottom right of a website and allows for customers to connect directly with a business in real time. LiveChat is one of the most popular services out there and has a seamless integration into WordPress using their plugin. One of the most prominent benefits of the software is its integration into a larger ecosystem containing HelpDesk and KnowledgeBase. Together, these products help to formulate a smooth workflow for handling multiple different types of client questions, concerns, or comments. We actively use LiveChat here at Renewal Digital on our own website as well as our clients as it has become a valuable marketing asset.
Cost: $192 per year, per agent.
AIO WP Migration
When migrating a website between different web servers or development environments, AIO WP Migration makes the processes seamlessly efficient and user friendly. With this plugin, users are able to easily download, upload, and backup their website with the click of a button. It is worth noting that backups must be managed on a frequent basis as they tend to take up excessive amounts of storage if left unattended to.
Cost: Free.
Interested in finding more possible plugin additions for your website? Check out our following post on the top five must have WordPress plugins you need to be using.
