I have been writing on WordPress for over 5 years, and have managed to run things myself. I have installed and updated WordPress numeral times, mistakenly deleted WordPress database and web content, as well as moved several times searching for better hosts and deals.

With these, I want to tell you and list my favorites WordPress plugins that I am currently running on my blogs if this helps you decide what to install on your new WordPress. These are plugins that if used properly can propel your blog to the top, although you also need great content to accomplish that.

My list of favorites WordPress plugins have changed over the years as I add more features or change webservers. I have tested many plugins and have come to the belief that the more plugins you run on your WordPress blogs or websites, the more complicated and slow they become. Some may disagree with this, but that’s what I have experienced over the years.

In fact running too many unnecessary plugins with WordPress may make your site vulnerable to attacks and exploits. The best solution is to install the bare minimum of plugins that will allow your site to function properly and nothing more.

There may be other factors that make your site vulnerable to attacks, but closing WordPress plugins loophole make help there too.

Now here’s my list of favorites plugins as of today’s date.

WordPress SEO Plugin — This plugins I won’t say it’s mandatory, but very important to have to help with the SEO aspect of your blogs. Without installing and using WordPress SEO plugin won’t kill your WordPress blog, but you may not enjoy most SEO juice to power your blog to the next level.

WordPress SEO plugin is on my list of favorites plugins. I have used it across all my blogs and has helped my blogs a lot.

My next favorite plugin is Akismet. This plugin comes with every WordPress installation and it’s a must if you’re running a WordPress blog. If you install WordPress but don’t activate Akismet, your blog will be hammered with spams.

If you’re running a WordPress blog, I will recommend that you activate Akismet or install similar plugin to stop spams to your blog. Akismet is my second favorite WordPress plugin and I have it activated across all my WordPress blogs.

My third favorite WordPress plugin is AutoptimizeThis plugin optimizes your blog by concatenating the CSS and JavaScript code, and compressing them into smaller and manageable size for your webserver. Speed is one factor you should consider when running a blog or website. If your website performance is better and faster, you’ll attract more happy visitors. On the other hand,  if you site slows down everytime visitors come and visit, you’ll probably lose them.

Autoptimize is on my list of favorite WordPress plugins.

My fourth favorite WordPress plugin is Compress PNG for WPThis plugin compresses PNG files using the TinyPNG API which speeds up your pages loading time. If you have huge images that are not optimized, they may also slow down your website. This can impact your visitors as well as your search engine positions. I only upload images in PNG format, so this plugin helps me a lot.

Compress PNG for WP is on my favorite WordPress plugin list.

My fifth favorite plugin is WordPress HTTPSIf you’re using SSL with WordPress, you should make sure all previously uploaded content and media are HTTPS compliant. For some reasons, WordPress isn’t smart and doesn’t help you switch all previously non HTTP content to HTTP compliant after switching. This is true with images and other media.

So, WordPress HTTPS is great plugin to install if you switched to HTTPS traffic. I have it installed and I am happy.

These are five of my favorite WordPress plugins. You may to add Caching plugin like W3 Total Cache and WordPress Super Cache, but I don’t need them as I run Nginx have have its built-in cache module installed.

I hope this helps, and if you have other plugins on your list that you wish to share, please leave a comment.

Thanks,

favorite wordpress plugins