My Top 10 Go-To WordPress Themes & Plugins

I’ve built hundreds of websites on WordPress.

It’s one of the easiest ways to get a website up and running for free, and for me, has become the most convenient by far.

Over time, I’ve come to appreciate certain themes and plugins that have become my go-to.

This helps me eliminate a lot of the guess work, and saved me thousands.

Here are some of my favorite WordPress Themes & Plugins.

Favorite WordPress Themes

GeneratePress

GeneratePress has been my go-to theme for building Niche Sites for a VERY long time now, it’s extremely light-weight out the box and works in most cases.

I like to use GeneratePress Premium as it gives you access to their Site Library, where you can import templates, saving even more time.

Couple this with GenerateBlocks Pro, and you have all you need to build magnificent pages for almost any type of niche site.

You can see a few live examples on SurveysToCash.

GeneratePress Premium costs $59 per year, but you can get it for $1.99 on my Etsy store - this is a copy of my Lifetime pass.

Caards

I recently came across this theme on ThemeForest, and couldn’t find the GPL license for it, so I paid the full price.

This theme has lately become my “GeneratePress Killer”, because anything I’ve been rebuilding or building from scratch is getting this theme.

It’s lightweight, modern, easy to set up, and has super nice in-built features like the sticky table of contents.

You can see a live example of this on WhatGoesWellWith.com

I rarely use any other themes, but here are some honorable mentions:

• Astra

• Kadence

• REHub

Favorite WordPress Plugins

WP Rocket

Absolute must-have, this plugin makes your website load super fast.

• Caching

• Minification

• Deferred Loading

• Image Optimization

• Compressed File Cleanup

• CDN Integration

This plugin costs $59 per year per site, but you can get a GPL copy for $1.99.

RankMath / Yoast

These are also must-haves, and both perform equally as good, which is why I mentioned them both.

These apps allow you to monitor and edit specific SEO elements of your site, basic stuff like meta titles & descriptions, but more critical features like schema and other on-page/technical avenues.

These apps both offer free versions which are good as they are, but you can unlock advanced features for $59/yr.

You can also get them for $1.99 with Lifetime Updates off my Etsy store.

ConvertKit

To collect emails and leads, I usually use ConvertKit, and set up a welcome email, automations, sequences, etc.

WordFence

Security is a top priority here, I always like to have this and UpDraft enabled as soon as possible to avoid getting shafted in any way.

These are “set it and forget it” type things you should 100% do for yourself.

For example, if you accidentally break your site, you can restore the last working version from Updraft.

If you get hacked or have some malware, Wordfence will get rid of it.

In the rare case you ever need it, this will save you.

Wordfence has a free tier but it only protects your site after 30 days, you can get Premium for just $1.99 on my Etsy store or pay $119 like a clown.

LinkWhisper

Another must-have if you’re doing affiliate marketing.

This tool improves your internal linking, which translates to better user experience, more sessions & hopefully more conversions.

Internal Link Juicer

This is a bit different to LinkWhisper, it lets you set a keyword for pages, such that, whenever these keywords are mentioned on any other page, it automatically links back to the page.

Useful for internal links that aren’t product related (LinkWhisper’s job).

Updraft

This plugin backs up your site, which again, in the case that you blow up your site, you can easily restore the last working version.

Free version exists and works fine, but you can get the premium version from my Etsy store for just $1.99.

WP Sheet Editor

I can’t live without this plugin.

It lets you edit every aspect of your website using Sheets.

It’s useful for bulk editing hundreds of pages, titles, tags, categories, prices, image names, literally anything you can think of.

It would otherwise take me hours if not days to complete simple tasks like updating categories and tags in bulk.

This is a paid app, but you can get the premium version cheaper on my Etsy.

Joli Table of Contents

This is a great plugin if you’re not using Caards, as table of contents are super important when it comes to user experience.

If you’re gonna have one, you ought to have the best.

Joli’s Table of Contents is the most sleek and doesn’t cost much for premium.

I haven’t used this one lately since I’ve been using the Caards theme.

Insiders Take

I hope this list gives helps you improve your site, but remember, while these plugins can help, they are not required in any way.

Your success relies on your ability to juggle the responsibility of entertaining visitors such that they become fans, whilst also enjoying your project, and not burning out, which is done best when you’re building something you love.

If you feel like these plugins might help, but you can’t afford spending hundreds a year to have them, I recommend getting GPL copies from my Etsy store, they work perfectly and get lifetime updates.