Website optimization is extremely important. There are numerous little things you need to think of, such as your page loading speed, caching, image compression, lazy loading, hosting site analytics locally, etc. Luckily there are a bunch of different plugins that can help you fix that.
There are cache plugins, image optimization plugins, plugins for better loading times, or Google Analytics plugins that fix mistakes associated with Google. In short, there are many. However, before choosing a plugin, make sure it is of good quality. What we mean by that is look at the number of active installs, when it was last updated and how frequently it is updated, check the reviews, and if you’ll get any technical support. Remember, what matters is the quality of plugins, not the quantity.
That’s why, for this article, we decided to come up with a list of the best plugins you should have to ensure your site is optimized and running well.
1. WP Fastest Cache
WP Fastest Cache is a free cache plugin with an amazing 5-star rating. It has more than 1 million active installs and is often updated. It is really easy to configure and you even get a simple tutorial that shows you step by step how to set it up and make it work.
The main feature of this plugin is that it is designed to make your site load faster. Other features included are: an admin can delete all cached files and CSS or js files, you can block cache for a specific site if needed, you can enable or disable the cache option for mobile devices and/or logged-in users, and it comes with SSL and CDN support.
This plugin has a premium version too, which comes with all of the aforementioned features, along with the Minify Html, Minify CSS, mobile and widget cache, gzip compression, browser caching, the ability to enable or disable emojis, and more.
2. ShortPixel Image Optimizer
ShortPixel Image Optimizer is a freemium plugin made to help you with image optimization. It is a reliable plugin that is made to help improve your SEO. It is often updated, has great ratings, and more than 200,000 active installs. And it is compatible with any other gallery, slider, or e-commerce plugin.
This is a lightweight and easy to use plugin that compresses all your past images or PDF documents. Your images can be in almost any image type (JPG, PNG, GIF, or WebP). The new images are automatically resized and optimized.
Once the images are optimized, it will lead to faster page loading time, better user experience, more visitors, and better search engine rank. There are no file size limits and you can also optimize thumbnails, along with other images. When resizing images, you can choose in which dimension you want them.
Once you sign up, you will get instructions that will help you learn how to use this plugin. Also, there are premium versions available which you can check out here if you need the plugin for optimizing more than 100 images.
3. Clearfy
Clearfy is another WordPress plugin designed to optimize your site speed. It disables all of the unnecessary features in WordPress that could be taking up your CPU. It can remove query strings, load fonts asynchronously, host the Google Analytics tracking code locally, limit the number of post revisions, disable autosaving, emojis, Gravatars, shortlink tags, and more.
It also clears your website code, eliminates any vulnerable segments of your site, speeds up search engine indexing, and makes your site lighter and faster. This plugin is quite versatile and has a lot of other features. It will take some time to explore all of the features it offers, but they can be quite useful and helpful, so take the time and see what you can use to improve your site.
On and also, this plugin has a really high rating and more than 100,000 active installs.
4. Smush
Smush is one of the best plugins for site optimization and also serves as an image compression plugin. It has more than 1 million active installs and its reviews are 90% 5-star.
It is a multi-site and multi-file type compatible plugin. Its features include lossless compression (it strips unused data that affects your image quality), a lazy loader, bulk smush of up to 50 images with one click, image resizing options, automated optimizations, and incorrect image size detection (helps locate images slowing down your site).
However, while the plugin compresses your images, it does not lower the quality of the images. Instead, it simply reduces the size of them.
5. CAOS
CAOS is a plugin designed to help you optimize your site analytics. When you test your site speed for example on GTMatrix and it tells you to leverage browser cache, this is the plugin to download.
You just have to install the plugin and enter your Google Tracking Code. This will help you load your site faster and get a higher score on PageSpeed and Pingdom.
There are more than 20,000 active users and they are all really satisfied with the way this plugin works.
Conclusion
The plugins we have listed will help you maintain and run your site smoothly. And the great news is that these plugins are all simple to use, and can run in the background, without disturbing or lowering the quality of your site.
They have been designed to help you improve your site, increase the number of visitors, and improve your visitor’s experience.
Hopefully, now you know which plugins to download and we are certain your site will be working better once you download them.
