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Many WordPress bloggers and web publishers spend so much time going through various plugins, installing and removing them, trying them out and then changing them later, and so on. Finding the best and most useful WordPress plugins can be a taxing and a challenging task.
Well, don’t you worry. We’ve made it easy for you! We compiled our very own list of the most valuable plugins that WordPress publishers like you will surely love and greatly benefit from.
1. WordPress SEO by Yoast
Number one on our list is this free SEO plugin which is highly utilized by many for good reason. With this plugin, you can easily manage categories, tags, and meta titles and descriptions for each post and for every page of your website. It even allows for custom descriptions that you can use for Google+ and Facebook.
2. Akismet
Every blogger, web publisher, and web administrator encounters the problem of spamming. If you’re still an apprentice to WordPress, you probably haven’t had a taste of the worst case scenarios yet when it comes to receiving spam comments. So get rid of them through this user-friendly, free plugin. Akismet will surely keep out these no-nonsense prowlers.
3. Digg Digg
All the top Internet gurus recommend this plugin for a WordPress website. Have you ever read a blog post with a floating box on the side that had the logos or icons of different social media sites? That’s thanks to Digg Digg, which enables your readers or users to quickly like or share your content.
4. Backup WordPress
Are you 100% sure you’re not going to lose any of your files? What if you’ve worked up a huge amount of content already and suddenly, everything goes berserk with a single, simple virus? Instead of going into panic mode, it’s certainly much better to have a Plan B. The backup plan of your entire site and complete database can be done by this plugin.
5. Google Analytics for WordPress
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Image by Vico & Motta Soluciones Web from Flickr
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A lot of bloggers are very conscious about their statistics. To find out how many people are viewing you and where they’re coming from, as well as how you’re doing on search engines, you can try installing this practical plugin.
6. All in One WP Security and Firewall
Just like a house, your WordPress site should also have adequate security from outsiders and troublemakers. Keep out those hackers and spammers and protect your data and system with this plugin.
7. Contact Form 7
Naturally, when you’ve grown several readers and followers already, they will want to get in touch with you through a contact form. Furthermore, having enticing contact forms that encourage visitors to sign up for newsletter subscriptions, free reports, promos, and more will help increase your regular traffic and build your email list too. This plugin is great for highly customizable forms and for handling multiple forms.
8. Wysija Newsletters
If you want to spend less time creating beautiful and informative newsletters for your email list, you ought to try this very useful plugin.
9. WP Video Lightbox
These days, more people are drawn toward videos. This is why video marketing has zoomed up the list of online marketing strategies in just a short span of time. Hence you must also equip yourself with this plugin that will allow you to easily embed videos in an overlay display.
10. Yet Another Related Posts
This plugin, as the name suggests, is yet another one that incorporates related posts to encourage readers to check out your other blog entries too. This way, you can increase their length of stay and engagement in your website by suggesting relevant content they can check out.
If all this seems too much for you to handle and you don’t really have the time to monitor and improve your website yourself, it’s best to opt for managed hosting services so that you can let expert webmasters handle everything. Availing such services will give you leverage and lessen your stress as well because you won’t have to get anxious over downtime s or go crazy over technical operations. You can simply focus your efforts on content and marketing alone.
About the author
If it’s about Wordpress or any website related topic, then Adam Prattler is your go to guy! He’s a web design enthusiast and an avid ethical guest blogger from post-me.