The available plugins for the WordPress content management system is overwhelming. And Keeping up with all the updates, is nearly impossible. However, some of the plugins that I have been using in the past have been standing above the rest. It is mainly because they have been tested and fulfilled an important need.

This article is dedicated to just presenting the essential plugins that are available:

WP DB Backup

Description: WP-DB-Backup allows you easily to backup your core WordPress database tables. You may also backup other tables in the same database.

Cost: FREE

Plugin URL: (https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-db-backup/)

Contact Form 7

Description: Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.

Cost: FREE

Plugin URL: (http://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/)

AKismet

Description: Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s “Comments” admin screen.

Cost: FREE| Business $5 per month | Enterprise $50 per month

Plugin URL: (https://wordpress.org/plugins/akismet/)

ShareThis

Description: ShareNow is the new social tool that allows you to leverage frictionless sharing without having to create your own custom solution and puts your users in control over how they share content. Placed on the right or left side of your content, ShareNow makes it easier for your users to share, delete and re-share to their social network timeline.

Cost: FREE

Plugin URL: (https://wordpress.org/plugins/share-this/)

All in One SEO Pack

Description: All in One SEO Pack is a WordPress SEO plugin to automatically optimize your WordPress blog for Search Engines such as Google.

Cost: FREE | Pro for $79 per year

Plugin URL: (https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/)

Conclusion

Before using a plugin, one needs to ask if the plugin is crucial. Do I need it? Do users need it? Do they want it, but don’t really need it, and if that’s the case, do I want to give it to them? What am I giving up by giving space and power to this feature? Can I use that spot for better purposes? Don’t get me wrong, plugins are nice. Some of the coolest WordPress sites just wouldn’t be possible without them, and the extensive nature of the platform is one of the reasons it is so powerful and widely used. My point is just don’t go overboard, that’s all I’m saying. Keep it as simple and as clean as you possibly can, and you’ll be just fine.