In this blog article, we present the 5 most popular WordPress plugins of 2022 to help you get your WordPress website off to a successful start. We show you what you can do with these WordPress tools.
1. Yoast SEO
What makes Yoast SEO one of the 5 most popular WordPress plugins?
This SEO plugin helps you achieve better rankings on Google by optimizing your website from a technical perspective and providing search engines with more information to help them find your content. It is already well known that keywords are the heart of websites and blog posts. If you have ever created SEO-optimized content for websites or blogs, you are probably familiar with the importance of using keywords correctly. Yoast also provides you with a useful guide for defining a keyword for each page or post, incorporating it frequently enough, and ensuring that your text remains readable. In simple terms, Yoast makes your work easier and keeps track of all the important search engine optimization criteria for you.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of Yoast SEO?
Advantages:
• it is compatible with almost every other WordPress theme and plugin
Disadvantages:
• loading times can be affected somewhat by the extensive code, which can also increase the risk of security vulnerabilities
Conclusion:
This tool is incredibly practical and easy to use. At the moment, it is one of the best SEO plugins available for WordPress. With millions of installations worldwide, it is clearly a market leader, which is why Yoast is one of our top 5 most popular WordPress plugins.
2. WP Rocket
What makes WP Rocket one of the 5 most popular WordPress plugins?
WP Rocket is a premium caching add-on that helps improve your website's loading speed for better SEO rankings. It also offers automated features as well as the optimization of files such as CSS and JavaScript and the compression of image files.
Why is WP Rocket relevant for search engines?
Page speed is an important factor for Google rankings. Faster loading times on mobile devices and computers lead to better performance test results and search engine rankings. WP Rocket can help you address precisely these weaknesses with an easy-to-use solution.
What advantages does WP Rocket offer compared with other free caching and performance extensions?
• simple and easy-to-understand handling
• combines various performance functions in a single plugin
• cache preloading (preloading the website), continuous development and adaptation to new technologies
• clean optimization
What is the real disadvantage of WP Rocket and other caching and performance plugins?
Some optimization settings can cause parts of a website to stop working correctly. This is not specific to WP Rocket, but can happen with all plugins and providers that modify JavaScript and CSS files.
Conclusion:
If you want to improve your website's loading time, WP Rocket is a clear recommendation. It is a highly efficient and reliable WordPress extension and one of the best web performance plugins for WordPress, which is why it belongs to our top 5 most popular WordPress plugins.
3. Elementor
What makes Elementor one of the 5 most popular WordPress plugins?
This ingenious tool is a page builder for WordPress and is used as a plugin. It works best with a compatible theme. Minimal themes such as Hello Theme (developed by Elementor itself) or GeneratePress are particularly suitable. Such minimally designed themes turn every page into a blank canvas for the Elementor Page Builder. This gives you a visual editor that allows you to create outstanding websites quickly and conveniently in the frontend using drag and drop. You really do not need any knowledge of CSS or HTML. Almost everything can be configured using the visual page builder. The WordPress plugin is very clearly structured and has a user-friendly interface, making it very suitable for beginners.
What are the advantages of Elementor?
• Easy to use:
The Elementor interface is very intuitive, and users can quickly find their way around. Widget by widget and section by section, you can implement your own web ideas relatively easily. Individual website elements can be clicked and edited directly inline. The result is immediately visible.
Another advantage:
Elementor is offered as a freemium model. You can use Elementor in both the free and premium versions.
Visual creation without coding:
Even a WordPress beginner can easily build a website by clicking elements together. All changes are immediately visible, and the numerous clearly organized configuration options for the elements leave virtually nothing to be desired.
Global elements:
If you have elements that should be identical across multiple websites, the global widgets provide you with a powerful tool. If something needs to be changed, you can update multiple subpages with a single modification.
Customize everything with the Theme Builder:
The Theme Builder is one of the reasons Elementor is so popular. You can use it to customize headers, footers, blog posts, and more directly through the page builder. Conditions allow you to assign these elements to specific subpages.
What are the disadvantages of Elementor?
Despite its great popularity, Elementor also has a few disadvantages:
Dependency:
If you decide against using Elementor, a complete redesign of all pages created with Elementor will probably be necessary. The texts and images will remain, but without their styling. You would need to write some CSS instructions or transfer the CSS stylesheets before deactivating Elementor, which requires a deeper understanding of web technologies.
Performance:
The many functions in the code generated by Elementor can make your website slower. This makes it more difficult to achieve a good PageSpeed score. However, there are ways to improve the PageSpeed score by optimizing CSS and JavaScript with plugins such as WP Rocket (see above) or Elementor itself – it is simply not quite as easy as creating the website.
Performance:
The many functions in the code generated by Elementor can make your website slower. This makes it more difficult to achieve a good PageSpeed score. However, there are ways to improve the PageSpeed score by optimizing CSS and JavaScript with plugins such as WP Rocket (see above) or Elementor itself – it is simply not quite as easy as creating the website.
No lifetime licenses:
Unfortunately, Elementor no longer offers lifetime licenses. This means that you either pay annually or forgo important updates.
Can I implement SEO with Elementor?
For a website to provide a great user experience, it needs useful, high-quality content, good usability, and an appealing design. When these conditions are met, they generally result in high user engagement and a positive user experience.
Elementor can help you create an outstanding design and improve the usability of your website.
Conclusion:
The fact that you can design an individual and professional website without specialist knowledge makes Elementor an excellent web tool. With more than 7 million installations, Elementor is one of the most widely used WordPress page builders and therefore belongs to our top 5 most popular WordPress plugins.
4. UpdraftPlus
What makes UpdraftPlus one of the 5 most popular WordPress plugins?
Who hasn't experienced a plugin, theme, or WordPress update causing a website to crash, potentially preventing access to the backend? Perhaps important images were accidentally deleted, or your website was even subjected to a hacking attack. In such cases, the UpdraftPlus backup plugin can be extremely useful. The plugin makes it easy and convenient to create backups of your website.
The great thing about UpdraftPlus is that even the free version provides a solid and functional WordPress backup solution. For additional features, UpdraftPlus Premium is a good choice.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of the UpdraftPlus add-on?
Advantages:
• if backups to external storage fail, the backup is retained locally
• easy to use
• a freemium version is available
• the premium version includes a license for two WordPress installations
• incremental backups
• intuitive dashboard
Areas for improvement:
• a mix of German and English in the interface
• frequent and intrusive prompts encouraging users to upgrade to the premium version
Conclusion:
Overall, UpdraftPlus is a professional solution that performs backups reliably. Website operators should always create backups at regular intervals, which is why this add-on is one of our must-have and top 5 most popular WordPress plugins. With a rating of 5 out of 5 stars and 3 million active installations, it is one of the most widely used WordPress backup extensions.
5. Borlabs Cookies
What makes Borlabs one of the 5 most popular WordPress plugins?
Due to the legal requirements of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), website operators must provide a cookie banner to comply with the regulations, as cookies and other data may be considered personal data. Borlabs Cookie is an essential and helpful plugin and is considered one of the leading cookie banner solutions.
Borlabs Cookie includes tracking code support for Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel, but you can also use Matomo/Piwik, etracker, Google Tag Manager, and more. Borlabs Cookie can block virtually any type of JavaScript and almost any type of content.
The Borlabs Cookie WordPress component allows your visitors to choose via a checkbox or switch button which cookies and cookie groups they want to consent to (opt-in) and which they do not. Many other cookie plugins merely inform users about the use of cookies and sometimes only offer an opt-out option, which, as discussed above, is not GDPR-compliant.
What else can Borlabs improve?
• it is very easy to configure Borlabs Cookie in a legally compliant manner
• management of individual cookies and cookie groups
• blocks embedded media through content blockers (double opt-in)
• many customization and configuration options, particularly for the design of the cookie box, allowing it to be individually customized while remaining legally compliant
• works with most common caching plugins and WordPress themes such as Divi, Thrive Architect, and Elementor
• works with multilingual websites (WPML or Polylang)
• very good German-language support
• continuous development and regular updates to keep the cookie plugin aligned with current legal requirements
• JavaScript blockers for scripts inserted into your website by other plugins
• the price is absolutely fair for the features offered!
What else can Borlabs improve?
Offering a lifetime deal would be a welcome improvement, as Borlabs Cookie currently requires annual payments. An automatic cookie detection feature would also be a great addition.
Conclusion:
Cookie banners are an absolute must nowadays. Borlabs Cookies stands out from other cookie plugins, particularly because of its legally compliant opt-in procedure. When configured correctly, it provides a high level of legal certainty. A clear winner in all respects and therefore one of our top 5 most popular WordPress plugins.
Final words about the plugin list
There are numerous software extensions for WordPress that can be very useful, but less is more. You should focus on a few specific plugins, especially those that are continuously developed and updated by their providers. Keeping plugins up to date helps prevent security vulnerabilities. So when choosing plugins, make sure these criteria are met, and feel free to check their ratings as well, as they indicate how well a plugin performs.
All in all, this plugin list has been carefully compiled to help you get the greatest possible benefit from a powerful online presence.
Do you have any questions about this topic? Do you need help creating your website? We would be happy to advise you as a professional full-service internet agency from Munich. Feel free to contact us for a non-binding initial consultation.
