5 Must Have WordPress Plugins for Your Blog
Alright, so you have a nice new shiny blog and are ready to get out there and start publishing some content. I applaud your enthusiasm, but let’s look at a few WordPress plugins you might want to consider installing before you light the blogging world on fire.
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1. Social Warfare
What is one to do with all that interesting blog content? Share it to social media, of course.
Social Warfare is a handy WordPress plugin that adds stylish social media sharing buttons to all your posts and pages without any fuss.
It’s easy to use and highly customizable. Best of all, there’s a free version. Creating a social media footprint is a must for any aspiring blogger. A visit to your website can leave a lasting impression that reaches a wider audience if someone happens to share it with their social feeds.
Adding sharing options to your blog is a snap with Social Warfare. Drag and drop which social networks you’d like to be included and your all set.
The ability to add floating buttons that will travel down the page as you scroll is a nice touch. If you find yourself wanting more style options you can upgrade to a pro plan for access to more features and customization.
Facebook and Pinterest are the main social media websites I use for blog promotion and I like the look of the default buttons, so the free plan suits my needs, for now.
I love the simplicity of this plugin. It just works! To add your social media accounts just input the URL’s into the corresponding boxes. Easy peasy.
Don’t let the opportunity for more traffic to your blog slip away. Make it easy for your readers to share your content with their social media accounts. Download the Social Warfare WordPress Plugin.
2. Rank Math SEO
What? No Yoast SEO Plugin? Nope, don’t get me wrong, I love Yoast and have used it plenty in the past but I’d like to switch it up and recommend a Yoast SEO alternative.
Rank Math is a fantastic plugin that makes sure your staying within the lines of picture-perfect SEO. WordPress is an extremely search engine friendly platform right out of the box and uses clean html code which complies with Google standards.
Rank Math will inject some supercharged SEO juice into your blog and optimize your content for better search results. We all want more traffic, right? Having high quality on page SEO can help you get some free organic traffic by making sure you’re loved by search engines everywhere.
Keyword SEO Score
Get nudged in the right direction when it comes to your keyword selection.
Simply input your chosen keywords and Rank Math will analyze your content then make recommendations on what you can improve. It’s like having a wise professor of keyword linguistics beside you every time you write a new article. Disclaimer: An actual professor of keywords is not included.
The goal is to obtain a score of 100 and it works great for long tail keywords.
With a little keyword tinkering, you can vastly improve your on-page SEO.
When it comes to WordPress SEO plugins, Yoast is the most popular, but I’ve always rooted for the underdog. I’ve used both plugins and I can honestly say I love them both equally. Yoast might be slightly more powerful but Rank Math is very lightweight and efficient.
Here is a breakdown from the friendly folks from Rank Math as to why they feel an alternative to Yoast is needed.
You really can’t go wrong with either, so don’t stress too hard about this decision. Go with your gut and choose the one you find most appealing. Rank Math is a free plugin, so give it a try.
3. MailChimp
A super easy to use and incredibly simple to manage email subscriber platform.
MailChimp lets you create embedded signup forms, popup forms, automated email campaigns and much more.
Encouraging repeat visits to your website should be a top priority for every blogger. This can be accomplished by using MailChimp to build an email list that can be used to notify subscribers directly each time you publish new content.
Building an email list is just as important as growing your social media presence.
Be careful not to spam your subscribers’ inbox with relentless emails. Many websites do a daily email blast but I prefer to only send out emails when I have new and interesting content to share.
Sending out an email promoting the same old content every day is a good way to get thrown in the spam pile.
Free accounts with MailChimp are perfect for new blogs and give you space for 2,000 contacts and the ability to send out 10,000 automated emails a month. Once you outgrow the free version you can easily upgrade to a plan that better fits your needs.
Sign Up for a Free Account with MailChimp
4. Akismet
Spammers be gone! Akismet is the spam police of your comment section and they’re always on duty.
A blog comment section that is bombarded with goofy comments and toxic links is not great for business. It will deter legitimate readers from commenting and can even negatively impact your website in search engines. Not cool.
Easily configure Akisment to catch unwanted comments and banish them to the spam pile.
Sometimes this plugin can act a little aggressive and block legitimate comments. Check now and then to ensure it’s behaving appropriately and only blocking unwanted messages.
Pricing
Akismet for personal use works on a name your price system. Try it out for free and pay for it if you enjoy it. It’s always a good idea to support developers who offer affordable plugins.
5. WP Super Cache
A caching plugin can supercharge your blog’s speed.
WP Super Cache will serve cached pages to your readers for quicker load times and better page speed.
More than a Caching Plugin
WP Super Cache allows you to compress pages for faster load times, optimize your content, and lazy load images. All of this translates into faster loading times which in turn makes for better user experience.
You can easily configure a CDN through WP Super Cache.
Why Every Blog Should Use a CDN
CDN (Content Delivery Network): A third party service that allows your blog to serve static content (images, JavaScript) from servers placed across the globe. This can significantly increase your page speed and load times. Signing up for a CDN is something every blog can do to increase their website performance. Cloudflare offers a free plan that should be more than suitable for any new blog just starting out.
On top of boosting your blog’s load speed, a CDN enhances security and eliminates certain threats.
Final Thoughts
There are thousands of useful plugins you can use to inject some extra functionality into your blog.
Although, you should try and limit your plugins to only the ones you absolutely cannot live without. Installing too many plugins is a good way to slow your blog’s speed performance down to a crawl.
See a plugin you like but are unsure how to install them? Read our easy to follow tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.