With myriads of WordPress plugins out there, it’s hard to decide where to start. I’m not going to bore you with an intro that’s only trying to add to this article’s word count just for the sake of it. Just a quick note, however, that the first option I give you is what I have personally used while the second option I’m recommending is another highly-recommended option. Some I’ve used, while some are just a close second from my research. Without further ado, these are the best WordPress plugins that your business website must have:

Quick List of the Best WordPress Plugins Your Business Must Have

Plugin Type	1st Option	2nd Option
Google Analytics Installation	MonsterInsights	ExactMetrics
Security	iThemes	Wordfence
Site Speed Optimization	Hummingbird	SG Optimizer
Image Optimization	Smush	Imagify
Back Ups	UpDraftPlus	BackUpBuddy
SEO	Rank Math	Yoast SEO
Post/Page Cloning	Yoast Duplicate Post	Duplicate Page
Contact Form	WPForms	Ninja Forms

Google Analytics for WordPress

MonsterInsights

Installing your Google Analytics tracking code to your business’ WordPress site is a breeze with MonsterInsights. The free plugin version gives you a quick look at the following insights:

• Pageviews
• Sessions
• Average session duration
• Bounce rate
• Top 10 countries
• Top 10 referrals
• Top posts and pages

Perhaps my favorite data from MonsterInsights are the device breakdown and the top 10 referrals. These tell me exactly where my traffic is coming from and what device they’re using when they visit my site. And to no one’s surprise, the majority of my visitors are on mobile! This is why making sure that your website is fully responsive and mobile-friendly is crucial. Google doesn’t like it when your audience has a terrible mobile experience and this increases the bounce rate.

ExactMetrics

ExactMetrics is another user-friendly WordPress plugin for installing Google Analytics on your business’ website. Just like MonsterInsights, it provides an easy way to view your Google Analytics insights within your dashboard. It’s GDPR compliant and it provides a wide range of reporting features if you upgrade to its paid version.

Security Plugin

iThemes Security

This WordPress plugin for features security checks (duh), local and network brute force protection, and password requirements, among others. One of my favorite features of iThemes Security is the Password Requirements. For instance, if your existing password doesn’t meet their security standards, you’ll be asked to change your password on your next login.

If you upgrade to iThemes’ paid version, you can take advantage of two-factor authentication (2FA), scheduled malware scans, password-less login, and more advanced security features and customer support for your business website.

Wordfence

Another top-rated WordPress security plugin for your business website is Wordfence. It’s one of the most popular and highly-rated security plugins on WordPress at the time of writing, boasting more than 3 million active installations. Just like iThemes, Wordfence also offers firewall, 2FA, malware checks, and more.

This is what we use for one of the affiliate websites I help manage. It works so well even I got locked out of our account! It lets you know when your password has been compromised or is weak and won’t let you log in unless you change your password.

Site Speed Optimization Plugin

Hummingbird

From the trusted developer WPMU DEV, Hummingbird is one of the most user-friendly site speed optimization plugins I’ve ever used. I’ve tried other ones before, but Hummingbird’s interface is the most intuitive. Even if you’re a complete beginner, won’t feel overwhelmed when using this WordPress plugin for your business website.

Don’t be fooled by their cartoon icon, as Hummingbird offers powerful optimization tools such as GZIP compression, page and browser caching, asset optimization, gravatar caching, and more. My favorite feature is definitely the lazy load, where it won’t load the section of your website until your visitor scrolls to that part. This helps load your page faster as it doesn’t have to load all the elements of your page at once. It even lets you choose the effects you want once your visitor scrolls to a specific section.

SG Optimizer

If your website is hosted by SiteGround, SG Optimizer is a must-have WordPress plugin for your business website. It only works on SiteGround though, which is a bummer for those who are using a different hosting provider.

SG Optimizer can help you get blazing fast load speeds that will get your Google PageSpeed Insight on the green. Just like Hummingbird, SG Optimizer offers browser and page caching, GZip compression, image optimization, front end optimization, and more.

Image Optimization

Smush

Smush is another must-have WordPress plugin for your business, especially if you upload a lot of images. It’s also developed by WPMU DEV, the developer behind Hummingbird. I guess it’s safe to say that WPMU DEV is my favorite WordPress developer by far!

This award-winning plugin features lossless compression, lazy load, bulk smush, and more. You can smush ALL the images on your site on one click on the paid version while the free plugin requires you to click “Smush” after every 50 images. It can process different files such as .JPG, .PNG, and .GIF.

Imagify

Imagify is another popular image optimization WordPress plugin that has similar features as Smush. I still prefer Smush to this plugin, but hey, if you have problems with Smush’s superhero icon, go for Imagify.

Back-Ups Plugin

UpDraftPlus

I can’t emphasize this enough: get a back up WordPress plugin! It’s one of those plugins for your business that you set and forget about…until emergency happens and you need your website’s back up.

I love how UpDraftPlus is just quietly working in the background and uploading my backup files directly on my Google Drive. It can also upload your backup on other cloud services like Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and more. Setting it up is easy painless, too.

BackUpBuddy

If you’re using iThemes security, you can sync BackUpBuddy to backup your site. It features different smart backup profiles such as complete backup, database only, or themes, files, and media only.

SEO Plugin

Rank Math

I use Rank Math on my website for SEO. The first goal when writing posts and pages should still be about how you’re helping your readers and an SEO plugin for your business WordPress site is not the be-all-end-all.

With that caveat aside, I chose Rank Math for my website over the more popular Yoast SEO. Its features are more comprehensive and it’s completely free at the time of writing. It seamlessly integrates with Elementor and I like its scoring system more than the smiley face indicators on Yoast. It also has a heading analyzer which scores your headline depending on the kinds of words you used. Are you using easily understandable words? Power words? Emotional words? Rank Math’s score can help you craft better headlines if you’re new to writing.

YoastSEO

With more than 5 million active installations, Yoast SEO is undoubtedly the most popular SEO plugin on WordPress websites for businesses and personal sites alike. This is actually what we use on the websites we manage (but not this one). It’s intuitive and beginners won’t have a hard time understanding the basics of SEO with Yoast. I find it one of the best ways to start learning how to do on-page SEO optimization even if you have zero experience.

Post/Page Cloning Plugin

Yoast Duplicate Post

Yoast Duplicate Post provides an easy way so you can, well, duplicate the pages or posts that you use across different blog posts or pages. When you install this WordPress plugin to your business website, it will add a “Duplicate” option underneath the post/page details.

In the affiliate websites we manage, we create the blog post templates for different types of articles and make them sticky. That way, whenever our writers need to write a new article, they can just duplicate the template and change the details in the post.

Ninja Forms

Duplicate Page boasts more than 1 million active installations. Just like Yoast Duplicate Post, Duplicate Page is one of the best WordPress post cloning plugins for business websites. It even lets you add user roles to restrict certain users from cloning pages.

Contact Form

WPForms

WPForms is lightweight and easy to customize. Sure, its options in the Lite version is limited, but it’s pretty much what you need on your website. Its form builder is easy to use and it allows for integrations with leading email marketing tools.

Ninja Forms

Ninja Forms is a robust WordPress form plugin for your business. The free version already offers a lot of tools for the form builder, and its premium version even lets you accept payments directly from the form. Its interface is more updated compared to WPForms, too. If you want to check out Nina Forms pricing plans, click here.

Which plugins have you installed on your business’ WordPress site? What’s your favorite plugin for your site? I’d love to know in the comments!