A fresh WordPress install works, but it isn’t ready for the real internet. This week I added three plugins that cover the basics every professional site needs: being found, staying safe, and recovering fast.
1. SEO with Yoast
Yoast SEO adds a panel under every page and post for an SEO title, meta description, and focus keyphrase. It also generates an XML sitemap automatically so search engines can discover new content. I used AI to draft each meta description, then edited it to fit the 150–160 character range.
2. Security with Wordfence
Wordfence adds a web application firewall and a malware scanner. I started the firewall in learning mode so it would not block legitimate traffic, ran a full scan, and turned on login protection against brute-force attempts.
3. Backups with UpdraftPlus
Backups are insurance. UpdraftPlus is scheduled to back up the database daily and files weekly, and I ran a manual backup to confirm it works before I needed it.
Bonus: a working contact form
Contact Form 7 replaced the placeholder on my Contact page with a real form, so visitors can reach me without my email address being exposed to spam bots.
Lesson learned
Plugins are powerful, but each one is also code that has to be trusted and kept updated. Before installing, I now check three things: compatibility with my WordPress version, when it was last updated, and how many active installs it has.