WordPress is a powerful web publishing platform, but what makes it so popular is the ability to install “plugins” which cater to a site’s individual needs.
I rely on WordPress to run my blogging business, which earns me six figures each year of scalable income.
If you’re interested in starting your own WordPress blog, check out my guide to starting a money-making blog.
Today I’m going to share the best essential WordPress plugins for bloggers of all types.
What Are Plugins?
Plugins are handy tools that enhance the features of your website in a variety of ways. They are kind of like “apps” on your phone except they only apply to your website. Plugins can do many different things and each one serves a unique purpose.
Plugins can be used to make your site more secure, add functionality like share buttons, or help readers sign up to your mailing list. The possibilities are truly endless!
The old Apple slogan applies here: “There’s an app plugin for that!”
Essential Plugins for Bloggers
There are a lot of great WordPress plugins out there. But, which ones are the best? In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the most popular plugins and discuss why they’re so great. Whether you’re just getting started with WordPress or you’re looking for new plugins to add to your repertoire, read on for some of the best WordPress plugins out there! These are my personal top recommended plugins for WordPress bloggers to have installed on their site for greater productivity.
Akismet
Akismet is a spam filtering plugin that comes pre-installed with WordPress. It’s one of the most popular plugins for WordPress, with over 2 million active installs.
The plugin helps to protect your blog from spam comments by automatically checking all comments against the Akismet Web service. If a comment is determined to be spam, it will be marked as such and not appear on your blog. You can also review the spam comments caught by Akismet and release any that you think are legitimate.
Yoast
Yoast is a WordPress plugin that helps you write better content. It does this by checking your writing for common mistakes and giving you feedback on making your writing clearer and more concise. Yoast also helps you optimize your posts for search engines, making it easier for people to find your content online.
Overall, Yoast is an essential plugin for anyone who wants to improve their writing skills and rank higher in search engine results pages. Try it out today and see the difference it makes!
Site Kit by Google
Google’s Site Kit is a must-have plugin for any WordPress site. It integrates with Google’s suite of tools, including Search Console, Analytics, and AdSense, to give you a comprehensive overview of your site’s performance.
Site Kit also includes malware scanning and security monitoring to help keep your site safe and secure. If you’re using Google AMP pages on your site, Site Kit will automatically create and manage the necessary AMP versions of your pages.
Overall, Site Kit is an essential plugin for anyone running a WordPress site. It provides all the tools you need to monitor and optimize your site’s performance, and it’s 100% free to use.
Wordfence Security
Wordfence Security is a free plugin that helps you protect your website from hackers, malware, and other online threats. It includes features like two-factor authentication, malware scanning, real-time traffic monitoring, and more.
If you’re looking for a comprehensive WordPress security solution, Wordfence Security is worth checking out. It’s free to use and works with most hosting accounts, so don’t hesitate to install it today!
UpdraftPlus
If you’re looking for a reliable and trustworthy WordPress backup plugin, use UpdraftPlus. It’s one of the most popular plugins on WordPress.org, and it’s been downloaded over 2 million times.
UpdraftPlus is very easy to use. You can back up your entire WordPress site with just a few clicks, and there are also several advanced options available if you need them. Plus, the support team is always quick to answer any questions or help solve any issues.
So if you’re looking for a reliable and easy-to-use WordPress backup plugin, we highly recommend UpdraftPlus. It’s completely free to use, so you have nothing to lose by trying it out!
jQuery Pin It Button for Images
If you’re looking for an easy way to add a “Pin It” button to your images, look no further than the jQuery Pin It Button for Images plugin. This plugin makes it simple to add a Pin It button to your images, and it even provides options for customizing the button’s appearance and size.
Shareaholic
Shareaholic is simple to install and configure, and it gives you a ton of options for sharing your content on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It also has built-in analytics to see how well your content performs online. Overall, it’s a handy plugin highly recommended to anyone using WordPress.
Nice-to-Have Plugins
These are the plugins that I believe are nice for bloggers to have, but they’re not essential!
Smush
If you have a habit of forgetting to shrink your photos before uploading, then Smush is the plugin for you. It will downsize your images before uploading them to your server, saving you storage space and decreasing your webpage load time. It can also lazy load your images, decreasing your page load time.
WPS Hide Login
If you take security seriously, then WPS Hide Login is a great way to hide your WordPress login page from would-be hackers. After all, if they don’t know about your login page, they can’t run a script to try and guess your password.
Really Simple SSL
If your blog is old, you may have some insecure links or images lurking around. Really Simple SSL is a plugin that makes sure that all your internal blog links (to posts or images) are properly formatted using HTTPS.
Redirection
If you’ve updated the URL of a blog post, you need to make sure the old URL redirects to the new one. That’s where Redirection comes in! This plugin redirects all users to the page you want. It’s great if you still have old social media links pointing to former URLs.
Contact Form 7
The Contact Form 7 plugin helps you add a contact form wherever you need one. The Contact page is a great place to use this!
WP Word Count
I love this plugin! The WP Word Count plugin tells you exactly how many words you’ve written on your blog. You can get the total word count as well as the average word count per blog post. It can help you easily find posts on your blog which have a low word count so you can beef them up! It’s the best and easiest way to sort blog posts by word count in WordPress.
WP Sweep
WP Sweep allows bloggers to quickly clean their WordPress database without logging into the backend. You can instantly delete older blog post versions, spam comments, and trashed comments.
Paid Plugins
These are premium WordPress plugins that must be paid for.
WP Rocket
WP Rocket is a premiere caching and page speed plugin that promises to decrease your page load time, increasing your positive SEO signals to Google.
How to Install a Plugin
You can easily and quickly install any of these plugins directly from the backend of your WordPress website.
Navigate to the Plugins page.
Click “Add New”
Type in the name of the plugin you want. Make sure it’s the right one!
Click “Install.”
Click “Activate” and boom! You’re ready to go.
Update Your Plugins Regularly
Just like you update your apps on your phone, plugins need to be updated too as new versions are released. It’s crucial to stay up-to-date with the latest WordPress plugins so you can take advantage of all that they offer.
You’ll need to update your plugins from time to time to ensure you’re using the latest version. Plugin updates can include bug fixes and important security patches so don’t delay in updating for too long!
Occasionally a plugin update can cause havoc on your site, but these instances are rare.
It can be time-consuming and challenging to sift through the thousands of WordPress plugins to find what best suits your needs. Luckily for those looking for a bit of help finding the perfect plugin, we’ve compiled this list as an easy reference guide. I hope you found it useful! What are your favorite plugins?