With over 38 000 free WordPress plugins available in the official WordPress Plugin Directory alone & countless others as well as premium ones available online, Bloggers are constantly struggling with which are the must-haves. Keep in mind, having too many active plugins isn’t a great thing. It can eventually make your blog/website clunky, cause conflicts and definitely slow it down which turns into a real problem. So when it comes to choosing which are must-have WordPress plugins, choose wisely.

Who better to learn from than the best? We’ve put together a list of leading WordPress experts and their must-have WordPress plugins. Of course, not because a WordPress plugin is in this list than you should install it, only do so if it responds to your blog’s needs.

Make sure to share the post if you enjoy it, it took a long time to put together with the one purpose of helping YOU get more out of your blog!

Must-Have WordPress Plugins

Benjamin Bradley – The “Professor” at iThemes Training

Benjamin has an extensive background in web development & programming. He’s known as one of the most knowledgeable minds when it comes to WordPress and now provides live training webinars for the iThemes Training community, constantly cranking out valuable material.

Must-have WordPress plugin: Pods

A content development framework for WordPress

Berrie Pelser – WordPress SEO Host

Thankfully, Berrie’s tweets are in English, unlike his website which is in Dutch, so make sure to follow him for the latest and most accurate WordPress information. He’s an authority when it comes to WordPress SEO and also provides reliable WordPress hosting services.

Must-have WordPress plugin: WordPress SEO (Yoast)

Helping make thousands of WordPress sites more Search Engine friendly

Syed Balkhi – Award Winning Entrepreneur & Marketer

Syed Balkhi is the man behind the extremely well-known WordPress resource site, WPbeginner.com. He also runs OptinMonster and Soliloquy, both very successful WordPress plugins. The must-have plugin below is from his editorial staff but it is clear Syed stands by it as well.

Must-have WordPress plugin: BackupBuddy (paid)

Beginner friendly WordPress backup and migration plugin.

Adam Connell – Founder of BloggingWizard.com

Adam’s blog has been a go-to WordPress resource for years now. He provides valuable advice, tips and strategies that anyone can implement on their blog in order to increase visitors, engagement, subscribers and so on. There are 5 WordPress plugins he installs on every blog he puts up, here’s one of his must-haves.

Must-have WordPress plugin: W3 Total Cache

Improves the user experience of your site by increasing server performance

John Jantsch – Small Business Marketing Consultant

John has been called the World’s Most Practical Small Business Expert for consistently delivering real-world, proven small business marketing ideas and strategies. He’s also the author and speaker of the Duct Tape Marketing blog where he shares his amazing insight. Huffington Post calls him one of the top 100 “Must Follow” on Twitter.

Must-have WordPress plugin: ManageWP (paid)

Manage all your WordPress sites from one powerful dashboard

Michael Stelzner – Founder of SocialMediaExaminer.com

Mike is nothing short of a genius. His “blog” Social Media Examiner consistently helps millions of small businesses discover how to best use social media and blogging to connect with customers, drive traffic, generate awareness and increase sales. That explains his 350k+ Facebook fans.

Must-have WordPress plugin: Digg Digg

All in one floating bar with share buttons plugin

Andy Crestodina – Writer of Content Chemistry

Andy has provided web strategy advice to more than 1000 businesses over the last 12 years. He has written more than 170 articles on content marketing topics including SEO, email marketing, social media, and Analytics. Andy’s also the web strategist and co-founder of Orbit Media Studios.

Must-have WordPress plugin: Advanced Custom Fields

Visually create additional fields for your WordPress site

Stuart Walker – Niche Market Guru

Stuart runs NicheHacks.com which focuses on helping people finding untapped, profitable, niches. He’s owned a series of niche sites and blogs on topics ranging from travel, dating and gadgets to kitchens and online marketing. He’s now sharing his tips and tricks on NicheHacks hoping to help others succeed and live free from full time employment, just like him.

Must-have WordPress plugin: SNAP (Social Networks Auto-Poster)

Automatically re-post your posts on social networks

Adrienne Smith – Traffic & Engagement Superstar

Adrienne has been online for the past 6 years and had focused on learning how and what drives communities. By now she’s definitely an expert at WordPress and all things having to do with blogging including driving traffic and especially building relationships with your readers. Learn from her at AdrienneSmith.net.

Must-have WordPress plugin: CommentLuv (paid)

Get more comments and social engagement on your blog

Jean Galea – Founder of WPmayor.com

As mentioned above, Jean Galea is the founder of WPmayor which he started in 2010. It has since become a go-to resource for anything WordPress related, but mostly they specialize in WordPress plugin, theme and service reviews so you can see why his opinion matters.

Must-have WordPress plugin: Gravity Forms (paid)

Advanced forms for WordPress websites/blogs

One bonus must-have WordPress plugin for goodluck and my current favorite…obviously it’s the Bablic.com WordPress Localization plugin which lets you translate your WordPress site within minutes. Try it out by just entering your URL on our homepage, would love to hear some feedback in the comment section below.

Keep in mind, some of the plugins may not apply to your needs but if they do, rest assured these are the best of the best. If you enjoyed the post and found it to be valuable, please share and help others learn about the must-have WordPress plugins.