Now that you have started a blog and you are ready to get your voice out to the world, you need the best WordPress plugins to increase the functionality of your blog and to make your life easier as you publish.
What is a WordPress plugin?
A WordPress plugin is an app or software that adds more functionality to your WordPress website. Plugins allow you to make small or major changes to your website even if you have zero coding knowledge.
WordPress allows developers to create plugins that website owners can add to their sites to improve them. Some WordPress plugins are free while others are paid. Premium plugins obviously offer more features than free ones. Some premium plugins have some free features that you can use but you have to pay to use the locked features.
Examples of some functionality that you can add with a plugin adding social media sharing buttons, adding an e-commerce store, organizing your publications, and adding contact forms among other things.
How many WordPress plugins do you need?
Many new bloggers wonder how many WordPress plugins they need on their blog. As a new blogger, you can just start with what you absolutely need to get you going and then you can add more as you grow and need more blog functionality.
To be on the safe side, do not download a plugin you do not need. Much as they are great, unnecessary plugins may slow down your site. It is also important to check the rating of the plugin before downloading it.
How do you install a WordPress plugin?
To use a WordPress plugin, you first need to look for the one you need, download it and then activate it for your site. Follow the steps below to install a WordPress plugin.
- To add a WordPress plugin on your site, you need to login to your WordPress admin area.
- Once you’re logged in, on the left-hand side, click on plugins, then add new. It will take you to an area with several plugins. On the top, you will a list with featured, popular, recommended, favorites and premium plugins listed by WordPress, as shown in the diagram below.
If you are not sure of what you need, you can just browse to see what is popular with website builders, what is recommended and anything else that may interest you.
- If you already know what you are looking for, just type in the plugin’s name in the search box and then select it from the search results.
- Click install now and when installed, click on activate to activate it on your site
WordPress plugins to start with on your new blog
I would recommend the following WordPress plugins for new blogs:
Yoast SEO
Yoast is the best SEO plugin for WordPress and one that I can’t do without. This plugin analyzes your content and shows what to do to improve your SEO. It also provides XML sitemaps for your website.
Antispam Bee
If you want to say goodbye to spam comments on your website, this is the best plugin to install. Antispam Bee is not only free of charge but also GDPR compliant.
Some of the things that this plugin does are allowing comments only in a specified language, blocking commentors from some countries, validating IP addresses of commentors, searching various databases for commentors who have previously been marked as spammers, and notifying you about spam issues among other things.
WPForms Lite
This plugin helps you to create contact forms on your blog using the drag-and-drop form builder.
Some forms you can create with this plugin are contact forms, subscription forms, feedback forms, payment forms, etc. You can start with the free version and later upgrade to the premium version if you need to activate more features.
WPForms is mobile responsive and very easy to use. They even provide a video with detailed instructions on how to use it on your website.
Easy Table of Contents
Who doesn’t love an organized table of contents? This plugin helps you to display an automatic and user-friendly table of contents on your blog posts and pages. You have the freedom to choose where and when to insert the table of contents. You can even choose to hide it from a post.
Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights
If you are serious about your online business, then you will need the statistics provided by this plugin.
This plugin comes with a dashboard full of reports showing you how many visitors have visited your website, where they are coming from, how they got to your website, the device used and your most popular content and among other things.
You can then use the information provided to grow your business.
OptinMonster
A common saying in the blogging world is that the money is in the list. OptinMonster is the best plugin to help you grow your email list using opt-in forms, email pop-ups, floating bars, exit-intent pop-ups and more.
Easily integrating with your email service provider, OptinMonster is easy to use for beginners looking to grow their email lists. They provide a 30 days free trial period where you can check it out and see if you like it.
Really Simple SSL
This lightweight plugin makes your site SSL proof. Once you get an SSL certificate, you just activate the plugin and with one click you enable SSL on your site so it runs on https.
Scriptless Social Sharing
We all love it when readers share our posts, don’t we? This is where Scriptless Social Sharing comes in. This plugin enables you to add social sharing buttons on your posts so that your readers can easily share your content on social media.
The plugin has a settings page where you select what, where, and how you want your content shared.
Tablepress
If you love tables in your content, then TablePress is the plugin to use. The plugin allows you to insert tables in your content and input any data in the tables with no coding experience.
Mammoth
If you need to upload your documents from Microsoft Word or Google Doc to the WordPress editor without having a total mess of your content, you will have to use Mammoth.
Mammoth converts .docx documents to HTML to produce a clean copy after uploading it to WordPress. Some supported features that will be uploaded without issues are headings, lists, tables, images, text boxes, footnotes and endnotes, and links.
Broken Link Check
This plugin goes through your content and notifies you when there are missing images and broken links inside your content. You can also set the plugin to prevent search engines from following any broken links in your content.
The plugin allows you to easily edit the link from its page without having to manually update every affected page.
Wrapping it up
In your blogging journey, you will definitely need WordPress plugins. This is especially true for the majority of the people who blog but have no coding knowledge or experience at all. The plugins make life so much easier and you just need to pop out the content and most of the other things are taken care of.
You can start your website with the WordPress plugins discussed in this post and then add others as your needs dictate. Enjoy your blogging journey.
If you have not yet started a blog, read this step-by-step guide on how to start one in under twenty minutes.
