WordPress is a great online, open source website creation tool with very extreme extra features which are not provided by other. But if you need additional functionality to your dashboard then take a look at some of the must have plugins.
Jetpack – Jetpack is a bundle of useful plugins in one. Jetpack features include enhanced social sharing enabling users to subscribe to posts and comments and much more. The one plugin you need for stats, related posts, search engine optimization, social sharing, protection, backups, speed, and email list management.
W3 Total Cache – Faster load time is crucial as it impacts user experience as well as SEO performance. W3 Total Cache will optimize WordPress for speed and performance with browser caching minify and content delivery network support.
iThemes Security Pro – iThemes Security Pro help patch common security holes and vulnerabilities, protecting you from attacks. This plugin defends your site from brute force attacks, blocks bad users, enforces strong passwords and more.
WooCommerce – No Website can survive without traffic. Optimizing your website for SEO is crucial. This plugin packs all the SEO optimization you need for all your content pages, page analysis, sets up XML sitemaps and more.
Contact From 7 – Contact Form 7 lets you quickly and easily add multiple contact forms on your website without extra code. Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.
Advanced Custom Fields – Advanced Custom Fields plugin can help transform your WordPress website into a fully fledged CMS. Advanced Custom Fields is the perfect solution for any WordPress website which needs more flexible data like other Content Management Systems.
Disqus – The Disqus comment system replaces your WordPress comment system with your comments hosted and powered by Disqus. Disqus plugin can make commenting easier and more interactive. It helps your site load quicker, comments are SEO-friendly, prevents spam and more.
BackupBuddy – With BackUpBuddy you can schedule database and file backups, have them stored in off site storage, including on the cloud, and easily migrate your website. With just a few clicks, BackupBuddy backs up your entire WordPress website from within your WordPress dashboard.
Akismet – Akismet is an intelligent spam-fighting plugin. Akismet checks your comments and contact form submissions against our global database of spam to protect you and your site from malicious content.
I will add SEO Yoast!