If you’re serious about blogging, you’ll need tools that will help you connect with a broad audience and protect your website against common threats. You might also need social media plugins to maximize your reach and to optimize your site for speed.
In this article, we’ll present our top ten must-have WordPress plugins for bloggers. Let’s dive right in!
Ten must-have WordPress plugins for bloggers
Now that we’ve discussed why you’ll need these blogging tools, let’s look at each of the ten essential plugins in turn. Each tool on the list has been selected as the best option for either promoting, maintaining, or securing your blog.
- Yoast SEO
- Jetpack
- Akismet
- WP Rocket
- Optimole
- MonsterInsights
- Smash Balloon
- Revive Old Posts
- Pretty Links
- OptinMonster
10 must-have #WordPress plugins for #bloggers (most are free)
1. Yoast SEO
Author(s): Team Yoast
Current Version: 19.5.1
Last Updated: August 9, 2022
96%Ratings5,000,000+InstallsWP 5.9+Requires
Search engine optimization (SEO) will be one of your top priorities if you want to grow your audience. That’s where Yoast SEO can help.
This handy tool helps you optimize your content based on focus keywords of your choosing, add SEO-friendly titles, and populate meta descriptions for pages and posts. Plus, it comes with an excellent readability analysis feature, offering practical suggestions for improvement.
Pricing: Free. Advanced users may want to opt for the premium version, which costs $89 per year for one website.
2. Jetpack
Jetpack – WP Security, Backup, Speed, & Growth
Author(s): Automattic
Current Version: 11.2
Last Updated: August 2, 2022
78%Ratings5,000,000+InstallsWP 5.9+Requires
Jetpack is a versatile plugin that’s a must-have for any website owner. It comes with various security features such as spam and malware protection, backups, and activity logs.
Jetpack also gives you further SEO advantages with built-in website analytics and social media integration. It enables you to add social sharing buttons to your posts for most popular networks. Additionally, it comes with various customization tools, giving you more flexibility in your blog design.
Pricing: Free. If you need more advanced options, you can also access one of the premium versions, which start at $19.95 per month.
3. Akismet
Author(s): Automattic
Current Version: 5.0
Last Updated: July 26, 2022
94%Ratings5,000,000+InstallsWP 5.0+Requires
Blogs can be an easy target for spammers, which is why you need to protect your website with a tool such as Akismet. This plugin scans through your comments and filters out the ones that resemble spam.
It also examines all contact form submissions and prevents your website from publishing malicious content. You can use its discard feature to block recurring spam messages, saving you a lot of disk space.
Pricing: Free. You can also upgrade to Akismet Plus for more advanced protection, which costs $10 per month for one site.
4. WP Rocket
A slow website can easily discourage visitors, which is why it’s smart to use caching plugins. WP Rocket creates cached copies of your site so that your server doesn’t have to do all the hard work. Moreover, it will preload the cache so that search engines can immediately index your site.
Besides that, WP Rocket can also compress static files and optimize your site’s code. Plus, it facilitates the lazy loading of images, which further boosts your page loading speeds.
Pricing: This premium plugin is available from $49 per year for one website.
5. Optimole
Image optimization & Lazy Load by Optimole
Author(s): Optimole
Current Version: 3.4.5
Last Updated: August 22, 2022
96%Ratings80,000+InstallsWP 4.7+Requires
If your blog relies heavily on images, you might need a little extra help with speed optimization. That’s where Optimole comes in. This plugin can help you compress your media files, making a massive difference in your site’s performance.
Apart from optimizing new images, Optimole can also bulk compress your existing JPEG and PNG files. Additionally, it enables lazy loading and supercharges your site with the CloudFront content delivery network (CDN) for extra speed.
Pricing: Free for up to 5,000 monthly visits. For busier sites, pricing starts at $19 per month.
6. MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights – Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress (Website Stats Made Easy)
Author(s): MonsterInsights
Current Version: 8.7.0
Last Updated: July 11, 2022
google-analytics-for-wordpress.8.7.0.zip
92%Ratings3,000,000+Installs4.8.0Requires
Once your blog takes off, it’s smart to monitor where your audience comes from and how they use your site. A plugin such as MonsterInsights enables you to integrate your website with Google Analytics without touching a line of code.
This powerful plugin gives you access to all the necessary metrics and real-time reports, which you can view directly in your WordPress dashboard. You can also measure other useful data, such as your downloads and clicks. It provides access to various add-ons such as Forms to track submissions as well.
Pricing: Free. To access more advanced analytics features, you can upgrade to premium for $99.50 per year.
7. Smash Balloon
Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed
Author(s): Smash Balloon
Current Version: 6.0.6
Last Updated: June 28, 2022
98%Ratings1,000,000+InstallsWP 4.1+Requires
If you’re an avid blogger, you’re probably active on popular social media platforms. Embedding your feeds on your WordPress site can make it more visually appealing, and it’s an excellent way to boost your follower count.
Smash Balloon enables you to connect several Instagram accounts, combine them into one feed, or split them into separate ones. You can also customize each feed and include a Load More button so that the images don’t slow down your site. Plus, you can also integrate your Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube channels.
Pricing: Free. The premium version comes with more advanced customization options, such as various layouts or content filters. Pricing starts at $49 per year for one site.
8. Revive Old Posts
Revive Old Posts – Social Media Auto Post and Scheduling Plugin
Author(s): revive.social
Current Version: 9.0.9
Last Updated: July 25, 2022
80%Ratings30,000+InstallsWP 4.7+Requires
Social media is an excellent source of referral traffic to your blog. However, manually re-sharing your content on all your channels can take up a lot of your time.
Revive Old Posts takes care of these tasks by sharing your new posts automatically to Facebook and Twitter. It also revives articles from your archive and re-posts them to maximize their reach. On top of that, you can set a schedule for your publications, include hashtags, and track clicks.
Pricing: Free. The premium version also enables you to share your posts to Tumblr, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Google My Business. Pricing starts at $75 per year for one website.
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