by James Sowers |
Last Updated: April 24, 2019 This post may be sponsored or may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission, at no additional cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Read the full disclosure.
If you’re like a lot of bloggers I talk to, you’re probably always looking for a list of “Best WordPress Plugins for bloggers” that can make your tasks much easier.
I am no different.
In fact, when I started I had loaded my blog with numerous plugins for every single task I could have done manually.
To be honest, not all of them were great.
Most of them slowed down my blog which caused a major drop in terms of traffic and conversion.
So here’s what I did – I spent an entire week filtering out all the unnecessary plugins I had installed on my blog.
And when I was done, I had 8 WordPress plugins finalized.
These are the only plugins you’ll need to install on your new blog. And they’re the BEST.
Read on.
1. Contact Form 7
What I really like about this plugin is – it does only what is required.
Nothing fancy.
You can customize and have multiple forms to collect data.
It’s lightweight and doesn’t cause your site to slow down.
If you’re starting a new blog, this contact form is all you need.
Price: FREE
2. All In One WP Security & Firewall
I’ve noticed that a lot bloggers don’t care about security because well, “Who has the time to spoil someone else’s party?” Right?
According to me, this is the MOST IMPORTANT.
Any website in the world can be hacked, and you don’t want to be one of the victims.
I use All in One WP Security & Firewall to keep my blog secured.
Price: FREE
3. Social Pug
I am currently using the free version of Social Pug and I really like it.
With the free version you can add beautiful-looking floating social share buttons and also display the number of shares.
Also read:
If you’re using the free version, visitors can only share to the following social platforms:
- Google+
The premium version has some really awesome features like:
- Sticky social share buttons on Mobile
- Popup social share buttons
- Hide share count if the article hasn’t received much of shares
- Click-to-tweet
- Share tracking which allows you to know where your visitors are coming from
- Ability to share to MORE social networks like Reddit, Tumblr etc
- ..And much more
Price: FREE + Premium plans starting from $29
4. Updraft Plus
Let’s admit it – one of the greatest fears of having a blog is losing it.
Starting everything again from scratch can be the worst nightmare ever.
If you’re smart enough, you’ll want to keep backing up your blog so that if something goes wrong, you don’t lose everything.
Updraft Plus is the best in the business for backing up your blog.
You can setup full, manual or scheduled backups of every single file that is present in your blog which includes your theme, plugins and other important stuff.
The best part? You can store your files on multiple cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive and Amazon S3.
The free version itself has almost all the necessary features, but if you want something MORE superior, then the premium plans has everything you need.
Price: FREE + Premium plans starting at $70
5. ShortPixel Image Optimizer
Images can drastically slow down your blog because it’s a lot bigger than normal text.
But it would be silly to eliminate images from your blog as they make your blog look appealing and attractive.
That’s where ShortPixel Image Optimizer comes to the rescue.
This plugin optimizes and compresses your images so that it doesn’t slow down your blog.
With the free plan you can compress up to 100 images in a month and if you plan to choose one of their paid plans starting at $4.99, you can compress 5000 images/month.
They have bigger paid plans as well so it’s totally worth checking them out.
Price: FREE + premium plans starting at $4.99
6. Yoast SEO
Have you ever tried to optimize your posts for search engines but ended up getting nowhere? Or maybe it’s too tough for you.
If so, then you’ll LOVE this plugin.
- It lets you see how your pages would appear in search engines
- Checks if your post has keywords
- Suggests having a great meta-description
- Suggests content improvement for easy readability
- Optimizes your post for social media
- ..And much more
It has a free plan but if you’re serious about SEO then their premium plan can do wonders.
Price: FREE + Premium plan at $89
7. Antispam Bee
Once you start a blog, there will be a lot spam comments coming in.
It’s necessary to remove those comments because you don’t want your blog to look awful.
However, keeping a track of all those spam comments and removing them one by one can be time-consuming.
That’s where Antispam Bee comes handy.
It has some amazing features like:
- Blocks spam comments
- Allows comments only in your chosen language
- Notifies you whenever a new spam comment is detected
- ..And much more
Price: FREE
8. W3 Total Cache
Caching plays a big role in optimizing your blog because it enhances the speed and performance.
If you have clearly no idea about what is caching, here’s an article that explains it well.
I use W3 Total Cache and didn’t find a reason to switch to another plugin.
Price: FREE
Conclusion
If you want a better functioning blog then you should be using all of the above WordPress Plugins.
They’re all lightweight and come with free plans, so it’s a no-conflict decision.
I’ve used them all and they’ve only made my job easier.
Which WordPress plugin do you like the most?
Tell me in the comments. 🙂
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