Hi I am looking for the best paid or free plugins that will help with: Performance, security, social, stats, sidebar widgets.... Please recommend what you use Thanks
Honestly this depends so much on who you ask. I've been on the WP documentation team for like 5 years. I've never seen anyone agree on the top ten plugins. There are so many, some are so good.. Clef .. phone app. and a whole list of other ones. WP Malware scan.. Login lockdown to prevent the ability to peck at the admin area until you get in, wordfence of another firewall ( watch this one and set it to not send you emails since if you get hit the software will send you an email each time and your hosting will shut you down) Must have's for me in Wordpress include Easy Contact Forms Meta Slider Akismet for spam control WP Smushit for speed--compresses for you. Google XML Sitemaps--rebuild your sitemap automatically and keep your site visible All on one or Yoast SEO (really six of one and half dozen of another on this one--depends on who you ask.) Wp Security Scan--lets you take a look at all the little holes and fix them. WP Cache.. take care with this one, I have seen it create some site user issues. Google Analytics Plugin--Just what it says.As opposed to having to do the analysis of your google stuff by hand, adding the code and etc, you use the plugin. Simple, sweet, effective Video Widget_ Video widget is plain and simple. NO fuss, no frills, works with every instance of WordPress that we’ve tried and beats the others hands down for ease of use for a new WordPress User.
xml sitemaps jetpack google analytics (even though it's a bit out of date) contact form 7 I use a plugin that culls users who have never posted or commented if the plugin doesn't come from a reputable source make sure you read the source and look out for any gotchas. If it's encrypted, walk away. If you're not sure google to see what other people are saying about it.
Why wouldn't you use Yoast's native support for XML sitemaps? Is there a reason you'd use a separate plug-in for this?
Akismet - comments (even though comments are disable I'm thinking this must be the one) All In One SEO - nice a simple with option for sitemap turned on All-in-One WP Migration - I was building WP locally so needed something to move to server. Really easy to use and great as a backup plugin as well. Brid.tv - video player plugin with tons of options for adds Custom Sidebars - if you need a different sidebars for different categories this one will do the job Mail Chimp's - own plugin for mails Multisite Language Switcher - great way for handling site in 2 or more languages WP Super Cache - smoothens up pages keeping my load down (I read problems my occur with different plugins but with these mentioned here no problems so far)
My top plugins: 1. Yoast 2. Mailchimp 3. Google Analytics 4. Contact Form 7 5. YouTube Embed 6. Font plugins (there are many)
I have been using Word Fence for security and it has detected changes in code through attacks. Not sure how plugin affects speed of site though, does anyone have some thoughts on its use?
Well this completely depends on what you're wanting to achieve. There are a few plugins I use on every site such as Contact Form 7 and Yoast SEO, Google XML Sitemaps etc... but other than that, it really depends what you need to do. Nobody will ever agree with a "top 10 list" because of this, however it's nice to see plugin suggestions. I'd be interested to see the response as to what themes/plugins people use for different types of websites, be it micro niche, authority, business etc...