This article focuses on the plasmonic effect of gold nanoparticles incorporated in mesoporous TiO2 photoanode for high efficiency dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC). We have adopted a facile TiCl4 posttreatment process for coating a thin TiO2 shell over the gold nanoparticles. The device without TiCl4 treatment and containing bare or uncoated gold nanoparticles exhibits a drop in efficiency compared to the control device. The cells fabricated with gold nanoparticles and posttreated with TiCl4 show higher efficiencies than the control device. The improvement in efficiency is attributed to a higher value of photocurrent in the plasmonic devices arising due to the near-field enhancement effects. The TiCl4 treated plasmonic cell provides a short-circuit current density ( J SC) of 12.90 mA/cm2 compared to 10.76 mA/cm2 obtained from the control device. The overall power conversion efficiency is enhanced from 4.81% for the control DSSC to 5.71% for the TiCl4 treated plasmonic DSSC. This plasmonic DSSC has also been compared with another type of plasmonic DSSC containing Au@SiO2 core-shell nanoparticles. The photovoltaic performances of the two types of plasmonic DSSCs utilizing dielectric shell coated Au NPs are found to be similar, indicating the suitability of the TiCl4 treatment for facile and reproducible fabrication of plasmonic solar cells.