Whenever I build a new WordPress website, one of the first things I do is to install a collection of plugins. These do the basic things I need for pretty much every site and are ones I have confidence in. While WordPress itself is regularly updated and secured, plugins are not. They are maintained by individuals or small teams and in some cases get abandoned, so you can find that they fail to keep up with WordPress developments and stop working, or worse, they provide a way for hackers to get into your site. My advice, only use recently updated plugins, look at the star ratings and check out whether support posts are being dealt with.
General Plugins
Antispam Bee
Contact Form 7
Imsanity
MailPoet
MainWp Child
UK Cookie Consent
Wordfence
Genesis Plugins
Enews Extended
Simple Share
Simple Edits
Title Toggle
Simple Hooks
Simple Social Icons