I have to admit, I have had waaaaaaay too many plugins on my website, but after trying out many different plugin options, I am at the point where I can stop tweaking certain things for now. These plugins have frequent updates and I am confident they will be the top of their class some time.
Best part about these plugins? They are all 100% free. So, free+top of their class? I think that makes them the best wordpress plugins every blogger should have. Eventually, I will make a list of plugins that I pay for and are worth the money.
The Best WordPress Plugins: SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Everyone knows that SEO is important, however, we all make SEO way more mysterious than it needs to be. Like its some secret club we bloggers belong and continue with secrecy. The truth is, if you want fast results, you have to make sure you are considered a leader in your industry. You can achieve this by having other blogs and industry relevant sites post your content. More importantly, try and have the content be slightly different wording so it doesn’t look spammy to an SEO-bot. Also, always make sure you use lowercase letters when you save a picture, but that’s for another article.
1. My favorite SEO Plugin: Yoast
Yoast will give you an idea of whether or not your post is SEO friendly by evaluating your keyword choices you want the post to be known for and making sure it matches your title, url, content, etc. It also has advanced functions, like making sure a post is NOT searchable on a search engine if you want it kept private. WAY cool if you are posting an ebook PDF, etc. Its also handy for checking broken links/mapping. Totally one the best wordpress plugins available in its category! I can’t live without it!
The Best WordPress Plugins: Email popups
Not everyone has the same philosophy about email popups, but the proof is in the pudding! With popups I have doubled my email subscription list within a month. I call that impressive. I currently pay for my popups and found this one to be the most bang for your buck at $20 flat. To get to it, follow the link and type in “ninja popups” in the search. Definitely among the best wordpress plugins, but I will save it for another post. Disclaimer: I am part of their affiliate program and do receive a small percentage that goes towards making my blog better if you choose buy through the link.
2. Hellobar
I currently don’t use Hellobar, but I think its really awesome, useful, and out of the way so you don’t cause your readers to be annoyed by its presence. You can use this to promote your ebook, newsletter, or to send your readers to another url.
The Best WordPress Plugins: Social Media
Its exactly what it sounds like…simple…social icons. What could be better? When they are simple you can change the color to match your theme and blend it perfectly to looks great!
The Best WordPress Plugins: Comments
4. CommentLuv
After reading a lot about it, I decided to use the free version and connecting it to other plugins to create the same look as the version you pay for, making it one of the best wordpress plugins this year. The reason why its so great is you get to include a backlink to your blog, which increases your SEO and people commenting on your page because they get to link back to their site, which increases everyone’s traffic and comments. Show the luv!
Let people attach their twitter name when they comment. This is also free unless you want the pro version, but I don’t see any reason to pay if you have the next 2 plugins.
6. Subscribe to Comments Reloaded
This is a post subscription service that keeps people connected. They can subscribe to any post comments made after their comment to the post and unsubscribe at any time.
If you are a growing blog, you have seen plenty of spam. This is one way to prevent your readers from seeing it in your comments, making it one of the best wordpress plugins to have, even if you don’t want the other comment plugins.
Once you have all of these in place, it should look like this:
The Best WordPress Plugins: Links
Occasionally we all have urls connected to our page that don’t go anywhere and shouldn’t be there. This plugin checks for those random links that don’t belong. Its super simple and you can find it at the bottom of your dashboard once its set up.
The Best WordPress Plugins: Backups
Backing up your website is crucial! Please check these out if you are currently looking for a free way to back up your site.
9. UpdraftPlus
I’m currently loving updraft since you can save your files to any online provider, which means you don’t have to have the space for it on your computer. You can use: “Dropbox, Amazon S3, Google Drive, Rackspace Cloud, Copy.Com, OpenStack, FTP, SFTP, or WebDAV account , email them or keep them on your WordPress server. Choose from a variety of schedules, and send yourself an email report when it’s done. Multisite (WPMU) compatible.”
10. Akeeba Backup
Backups to your backups? I backup my files a bunch of different ways since you never know what can happen. Check this one out and let me know what you think!
What do you think are the best wordpress plugins? Do we use the same ones?
