New to wordpress. Help me with the essential plugins and configuration

Security:

• Wordfence has an option to limit login attempts, so you won't need that extra plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/
• Rename wp-login is no longer updated, but it keeps most wanna-be poser hackers from getting to your login page: https://wordpress.org/plugins/rename-wp-login/

Backup:

• Duplicator works great for me, especially on my client sites hosted on GoDaddy: https://wordpress.org/plugins/duplicator/

Themes

• Free themes on the Wordpress site are safe and I believe they have to go through an approval process before being submitted: https://wordpress.org/themes/

SEO:

• I just use Yoast SEO: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/

Spanishpotato said:

I'm starting a blog on wordpress and I wonder what I should do before posting. I want to avoid problems with security, when changing theme, or having to fix something in each entry when I have published 100... I hope you can help me to complete the list:
Security:
Login Lockdown: limit login attemps
Sucuri security: malware removal and website monitoring
iTheme security
Backup:
Manually: Cpanel + Filezilla
Automated: using some plugin and saving it in Dropbox
Themes:
Should I buy a premium theme? free themes can have malicious code, not updated... is it a high risk using wordpress? Any reliable application to analyze themes?
Also a stupid question. If I use a free theme in one of my blogs hosted in the same hosting plan and I am hacked, could it affect my other blogs?
Initial on-page SEO:
Wordpress SEO by Yoast
.htaccess redirect from without www to with www
tags h1, h2... any plugin?
SEO friendly URL: do you think homepage-url/post-name-with-keyword is the best choice? It is simple, and this can avoid duplicate content. I can also make changes in the categories.
optimizing images size? Any tip or plugin?

Click to expand...

For security i personally use these plugins
admin-username-changer, this hasn't been updated but still works. I use it everyday without any problems.
https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/admin-username-changer/
To limit login attempts, again this hasn't been updated but i use this everyday. The plugin emails you after 4 unsuccessful login attempts. - https://wordpress.org/plugins/limit-login-attempts/
For backup - duplicator. Easy to use and it will backup everything including database,plugins,posts,pages in fact everything. You can also use this to move your site to another host, i used this today to move a blog from localhost.


To optimize your images use this free plugin, it will optimize existing images and automatically optimize future ones. - https://wordpress.org/plugins/ewww-image-optimizer/installation/


For checking themes use this free plugin - https://wordpress.org/plugins/tac/

THank you for suggestions, I am not sure if this is useful, but sometimes I needed to lock website fast, and SITE LOCKDOWN plugin worked just great!

Hood luck

there are always so many plugins but that doesn't mean you got to use them all, some have never been updated for sometime and the moment you upload it causes those errors, next time you are not able to login because of malfunctioning just deactivate them all via ftp then log into your site activate them 1 by 1 till you know which one is the problem and uninstall. you can get that tutorial on the youtube.