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Must-Have WordPress Plugins 2022

You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking for must-have WordPress plugins 2022. WordPress continues to soar to meteoric heights, and with 50,000+ plugins readily available to help you automate your workflow, it can be tricky knowing where to start.

Stick around as we unveil our pick for must-have WordPress plugins in 2022. We’ll take you through some cutting-edge examples of WordPress plugins that stand the test of time and meet a variety of different needs.  From security and social media to SEO, onsite design, eCommerce, and more. Here are the top WordPress Plugins for 2022.

1. Keep Your WP Site LockTight with Sucuri Security 💻

Securi Security Homepage - Must-Have WordPress Plugins 2022

Cost: $199 per year

 Sucuri Security is by far one of the most necessary WordPress plugins in the world today.  These days, onsite security is everything and Sucuri Security boasts a range of cutting-edge security protocols, encryption technology, and site scanning protocols to keep your WordPress account lock-tight in any situation. You can opt for the free version or get your site scanned every 12 hours on the premium version. As part of the free version, you’ll get a range of built-in services like file integrity monitoring, blacklist monitoring, and constant security notifications and pop-ups. For a nominal $17 a month, the Sucuri Security plugin will run an end-to-end site auditing service every 12 hours. 

Sucuri Security features include: 

  • Security activity auditing
  • File integrity monitoring
  • Post-hack security actions
  • Firewall protection
  • Remote malware scanning
  • Blacklist monitoring
  • Security hardening
  • Frequent security notifications

2. Get the Need for Speed with WP Rocket 🚀

WordPress Rocket homepage - Must-Have WordPress Plugins 2022

Cost: $49 to $249 per year  

One of the original website optimization plugins for WordPress, WP Rocket is hands down one of the top WordPress plugins for optimizing page speed and increasing website performance. The plugin speeds up your website, reduces loading times, and caches your pages for quick viewing. WP Rocket is especially helpful for eCommerce businesses and online stores, where you can seamlessly refine and archive your product range without overloading your site. 

WP Rocket features include: 

  • Caching options for mobile site users.
  • Multi-page caching for quick viewing.
  • Preloading and caching pages.
  • Limiting HTTP requests and reducing loading times.

3. Get them shopping with WooCommerce 🛍️

Woo Commerce homepage - WordPress Plugins

Cost: Free, with  a percentage taken for every online purchase made

Convert your blog or website into a fantastic online store with the WooCommerce platform. Embed products, create checkout navigation, craft CTA’s, and boost product descriptions anywhere on your website. The plugin is free to download and comes with no monthly subscriptions. You’ll only pay once a purchase is complete of 2.9% + $0.30 handling fee. You can customize your webpage to the moon and back and place the right products in front of your target audience to maximum effect. 

WooCommerce features include: 

  • Multiple themes, templates, and formats
  • Unrestricted customization across the entire site 
  • A built-in blogging function and content publishing platform
  • The ability to embed products, checkout points, and landing pages
  • Filters, tags, and categories for more straightforward site navigation. 
  • Onsite product ratings and reviews
  • Unlimited product capping

4. Grow Your Business with AffiliateWP 🛍️

Affiliate WP Homepage - Must-Have WordPress Plugins

Cost: $149 to $299 per year

AffiliateWP is an end-to-end affiliate marketing plugin designed specifically for WordPress. The plugin makes it easy for beginners and advanced affiliates alike to set up their onsite affiliate program and recruit online advertisers to boost their website traction with various products and services. In addition to paid advertising, publishers can generate higher exposure for their site with a list of dedicated incentives for affiliates that bring in conversions.

Affiliate WP features include: 

  • The ability to onboard an unlimited number of affiliates.
  • Integration with other top eCommerce platforms 
  • Affiliate coupon tracking.
  • The ability to generate unlimited creatives and templates.
  • Real-time reporting, tracking, and analytics

5. Race to Page 1 with Yoast 🏆

Yoast SE Homepage - Top WP plugins

Cost: $99 per year for one website + free version 

The Yoast SEO plugin shows that you’re always using the best onsite SEO practices across all pages. The plugin acts as a real-time SEO analyzing tool, pinpointing where you can enhance your SEO writing efforts to rank higher on the Google search engine and improve your readability. The premium subscription also unlocks a host of templates for titles and meta descriptions and highlights deadlines. It suggests strong keywords that you can use to boost your site content engagement and authority. The Yoast SEO plugin has 5M+ active installations and 350M+ downloads. 

Yoast features include:  

  • Keyword placement for better site optimization and ranking
  • Auditing and the elimination of dead links from your site
  • Previews for how best to boost and share your site content on social channels 
  • Real-time readability, quality, and link suggestions while writing
  • Access to the Yoast SEO academy for various SEO-specific tutorials

6. Keep Image Size Top of Mind, with Smush 🎨

Smush Homepage - WordPress Plugins

Cost: $19 per month

No matter how epic the content, your site can drop to page 3 for something as simple as forgetting to resize your images. The Smush WP plugin improves overall site speed by reducing the size of your images while speeding up loading times. Smush automatically compresses and scales onsite images while backing up the originals. 

Smush features include:

  • The ability to resize unlimited images in a few clicks. 
  • 2x compression feature for a much faster loading time 
  • The ability to backup all original images.
  • Automatic resizing and scaling for any image size

Essential Website Monetization Strategies. 

While these must-have WordPress plugins 2022 automate various onsite tasks and workflows, they will always work best with optimized sites that bring in the most traffic possible. If you are looking to boost your onsite audience, harness top-tier traffic, and earn passive revenue from your site for years to come, check out these Essential Website Monetization Strategies for 2022.

7. Keep Reaching Out, with Bloom 💐

Bloom Homepage - Must-Have WordPress Plugins 2022

Cost: $89 to 249 per year

Bloom is one of the most notable must-have WordPress plugins 2022 for fast and effective email lists. The plugin comes with over 100 subscription templates that can instantly retrieve email data, along with a host of tailored templates and design options that match and customize to your company’s unique branding requirements. You can also target posts to include email opt-ins, pop-ups forms, and more, with real-time analytics to help you pinpoint the best performing email threads. 

Bloom features include 

  • Multiple email templates and customization options
  • Real-time display settings and automated sending triggers
  • Up to six different email opt-in categories
  • Built-in A/B testing, optimization, real-time data, and analytics

8. Get the Best Feedback with WP Forms ✏️

WP Forms Homepage

Cost – $31 to $239 per year


WPForms is ultra-effective for generating quick forms and surveys that you can send out to your user base in a few simple steps. The plugin’s ultra-cool drag and drop features allow you to create various outgoing templates from an easy-to-navigate platform, including contact forms, subscription prompts, payment lists, and more. WP Forms has been downloaded around 500,000 times and continues to soar in popularity.

WP Forms features include:

  • Simple drag & drop, fully customizable form builder
  • A range of pre-built form templates
  • Mobile responsive form creation
  • Instant notifications and prompts 
  • Built-in lead and entry management for easy navigation
  • The ability to upload files and media with form submissions

9. Serve Up the Best Site Pages with WP Bakery 🍞

WP Bakery Homepage

Cost: $59 to $299 per year

Another top WordPress Plugin that you’ll need in your site optimization arsenal is the WP Bakery page builder. If you’re starting a site or revamping an existing one, WP Bakery can build any number of additional onsite pages from scratch. It works with almost any WordPress template and includes an award-winning backend editor to optimize and refine your site flow. You can instantly pull 100+ different templates and start building hard-hitting website pages for desktop and mobile. 

WP Bakery features include:

  • An award-winning backend editor for simple page creation
  • A range of instantly downloadable site templates and themes
  • A seamless and easy to navigate backend/frontend interface
  • The capacity to create and link pages in multiple languages
  • Complete mobile optimization and creation capability

10. Say What You Need To Say with Grammarly 📣

Grammarly Homepage - Must-Have WordPress Plugins 2022

Cost: $29.95 monthly subscription.

Grammarly is a robust and ultra-effective writing assistant for new and existing onsite pages. The plugin helps generate readable, grammatically sound, and SEO-friendly content as you’re writing it. Grammarly reviews every sentence and searches for appropriate replacements for errors when found. The plugin is fully compatible with both desktop and mobile, with both a free version and a monthly subscription available to download.

Grammarly features include: 

  • A Real-time grammar, spelling, and punctuation checker/editor
  • A leading plagiarism checker/editor
  • Automated suggestions for writing better clarity and style
  • Explanations and tips for compelling content creation
  • A learning academy to further refine your writing style

11. Find it and Fix It with Broken Link Checker 🔍

Broken Link Checker Homepage

Cost: Free 

Broken links can be a real issue for ranking and overall site authority. The Broken Link Checker is a built-in site auditing tool designed to pinpoint any broken or dead links and eliminate them to improve your site’s credibility. The plugin will automatically scan all pages for broken links and deliver reports back to you to help you better optimize your site. 

Broken Link Checker features include: 

  • Dead link manual scanning across all published pages. 
  • Real-time reporting while scanning onsite pages
  • The ability to edit and refine the parent page of a broken link. 
  • Reporting capability downloaded in a CSV format

12. Stay Social with Smash Balloon 🎈

Smash Balloon Homepage - Must-Have WordPress Plugins 2022

Cost: $49 to $299 per year

Last but not least, we hit social optimization. The Smash Balloon suite gives you the ability to directly share your latest onsite content with various social platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter. Currently used by 1.4 million websites, the plugin gives large businesses and solo bloggers the ability to reach their target audience quickly.

Smash Balloon features include: 

  • Customizable WP display for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter & Youtube feeds
  • Search engine integration and accessibility
  • Embedding of videos and interactive Flash content
  • Tailoring and selecting the best posts for onsite display
  • Boosting and displaying the best user comments onsite 

That’s it for this list of must-have WordPress plugins 2022. Don’t forget to check out the latest strategies to monetize your onsite traffic, and if you haven’t yet started to use the Adcash Publisher platform, then feel free to reach out to any of our dedicated Publisher Managers for a chat around your site’s unique requirements.

Or alternatively, sign up and submit your site below and we’ll find an exclusive demand for your audience.

Did we leave out any crucial options? Let us know in the comments below. All the best on the journey ahead, and catch you on the other side of epic website building. 

Bye for now

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