Whether you run a blog, a portfolio or a business site, a few well-chosen plugins do most of the work. Here are ten free ones that cover the basics: search, forms, design, security, backups, speed and analytics. Install only what you need: fewer plugins mean a faster, safer site.
1. Yoast SEO
Category: SEO
Manages titles and meta descriptions, gives real-time readability and keyword feedback, builds XML sitemaps and controls how pages look when shared on social networks.
2. WPForms Lite
Category: contact forms
A drag-and-drop form builder with templates and built-in spam protection. A contact form takes a few minutes.
3. Elementor
Category: page builder
A visual editor with drag-and-drop widgets, templates and mobile editing, for pages that go beyond what your theme offers.
4. Wordfence Security
Category: security
A firewall, malware scanner, login protection with two-factor authentication and protection against brute-force attacks.
5. UpdraftPlus
Category: backups
Scheduled backups to Google Drive, Dropbox and other storage, and one-click restores. Set it up before you need it.
6. LiteSpeed Cache
Category: performance
Page caching, image optimisation, lazy loading and CSS/JS minification. It is at its best on LiteSpeed servers.
7. Really Simple Security
Category: SSL and security
Formerly Really Simple SSL. Detects your certificate, moves the site to HTTPS, fixes mixed content and adds basic hardening.
8. Robo Gallery
Category: galleries
Responsive photo and video galleries with grid, masonry, Polaroid, mosaic, slider and YouTube layouts, a lightbox, hover effects, lazy loading and a Gutenberg block. The free version includes 3 albums and 6 layouts. See the v5 demos.
9. Broken Link Checker
Category: SEO and maintenance
Finds broken links and missing images in your content so you can fix them before visitors and search engines notice.
10. Site Kit by Google
Category: analytics
Brings Search Console, Analytics and PageSpeed Insights into the WordPress dashboard, with no code to paste.
Final thoughts
These ten cover what most sites need on day one. Keep them updated, remove plugins you no longer use, and check your site speed after adding anything new.