Where would your WordPress blog be without a plugin or two? WordPress plugins add functionality to your blog. They make blogging easier, more secure or just simply prettier.
With over 31,000 WordPress plugins available in the WordPress repository alone, how do you start choosing? When you see lists of 50 or 101 essential WordPress Plugins, someone somewhere can end up with a bit of a plugin problem. That many plugins is too many!
As a self-confessed plugin-a-holic who is trying to kick the habit, I thought I would share my 12 (and a half) favourite plugins for WordPress.
12 Essential WordPress Plugins
1. WordPress SEO by Yoast (Free with premium upgrade/support)
In my view, the ultimate SEO plugin. Yoast’s WordPress SEO is the first plugin I install on any new WordPress website.
Why?
Because I can start noindexing archives from the get go and the title templates are incredibly useful. Not to mention, there’s everything you need to SEO your blog all in one place:
- On-page SEO tips and checks
- Search snippet preview
- Page analysis
- Google Authorship and Publisher
- Twitter Cards
- Facebook Opengraph tags
- XML Sitemaps
- RSS Enhancements
…and more!
2. AntiSpam Bee (Free)
Blogging on WordPress comes with its arch enemy – comment spam. I’ve been installing AntiSpam Bee on new blogs because:
- it does a great job
- it plays nice with other plugins, including GASP
- it’s free!
Find out more about it on this blog post
3. Backup Creator (Paid starting at $7)
If you have a WordPress site it is essential to regularly backup. I recommend the Backup Creator because of its simple 1-click backup and easy reinstall or clone features.
Backup your site – you never know when a backup is needed!
4. WordFence (Free with premium option)
Security is a big concern for any website owner. WordFence offers a firewall, login security, virus scanning, email prompts to update your plugins and theme and more.
WordFence provides real time protection. If a WordPress site with the WordFence plugin activated is attacked, the attacker is blocked. The nice part is the attacker is blocked on all other WordPress sites with WordFence installed too.
WordPress powers more than 20% of the web, that’s a fair few websites! It’s impossible to be 100% secure. Keeping your WordPress install up to date and Wordfence makes your website far more secure than the majority out there.
5. TinyMCE Advanced (Free)
This nifty plugin adds extra functionality to your Visual Editor. It’s the little things that make life easier – like changing font family and sizes without thinking about it!
WordPress Visual Editor with TinyMCE Advance plugin activated
6. Schema Creator by Raven (Free)
An easy way to add schema.org markup to your pages and posts. Choose from:
- Person
- Product
- Event
- Organisation
- Movie
- Book
- Review
- Recipe
The Schema Creator plugin is ideal for local businesses to easily markup their posts about their business, people, products and events. Fab too for bloggers reviewing products or sharing recipes.
7. Revive Old Post (Free with premium upgrade)
Formerly Tweet Old Post. Recently updated with new features, I’ve not explored the new options in this plugin as yet. The plugin now includes Facebook and LinkedIn settings.
Revive Old Post re-shares your blog posts. You can choose the interval, how old the posts need to be and which categories you want to share.
8. Shareaholic (Free)
I’ve recently moved back to Shareaholic. It’s 5 plugins in one, which is handy for trimming the masses I collect on here “trying plugins out”. Shareaholic features:
- share buttons at the top and/or bottom of posts,
- a share bar at the side,
- pinable images
- related posts.
The latest feature is a pop up after someone has shared your post encouraging them to follow you on your social profiles. Yes, I am trying that feature out!
9. nrelate Related Content (Free)
Retired for a little while at least until I see how the shareaholic plugin gets on with related posts, I love the nrelate plugin. It really digs down in your blog (up to 10 years) and displays related posts in a variety of formats.
For those who want even more options, you can pull related posts from your blogroll. You can also become part of the nrelate publisher network to monetise your related posts.
I can see me switching nrelate back on sooner than later. Shareaholic related posts doesn’t do the digging in and showing several options nrelate does.
10. WP Smush.it (Free)
In this age of images everywhere, WP Smush.it is an essential “must have” plugin. As you upload your images, it strips all unnecessary data and compresses JPEGs, which reduces the file size. You also have the option to bulk smush images already in your media library.
11. Google Analytics For WordPress (Free)
It goes without saying you need to measure how your website is doing. Google Analytics for WP connects your website without any fuss or messing with code.
11a. Google Analyticator (Free)
If you prefer to see an analytics overview on your WordPress dashboard, Analyticator gives you that option.
You don’t need both Analytics for WordPress and Analyticator, choose one or the other!
12. P3 Plugin Performance Profiler (free)
I know it’s not just me who gets a little heavy handed with plugin overload! When you get to that stage where so many are installed your site starts slowing down, P3 will show you what plugins are hogging your resources.
What are your essential WordPress Plugins?
Trimming down my favourites to just 12 (and a half) I class as essential WordPress plugins I come back to time and time again was tough. Right now I have 33 active plugins and a few more sitting waiting to swap back on when I’ve finished playing. I’m forever swapping and changing!
Over to you…
Have I missed any of your favourite plugins? List them in the comments!
12.5 Essential WordPress Plugins For Your Business Blog by Jan Kearney
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Hi Jan, That’s a great list – and a lot of them I’m already using because I learned about them from YOU! Of your list, it would be hard to choose, but I think Yoast SEO and P3 Profiler com high up the list
The favourites from my own researches are a couple I paid for, One Minute List Builder and WP Stealth Note, both from George Katsoudas. And if I had to choose one of those it would be WP Stealth Note because it’s so versatile.
And of course, CommentLuv!
Now I’d better check out the ones I hadn’t come across before…. Joy
I take it Stealth Note works well for you Joy? I’ll have to have a look at it – that’s the pop up window in the corner one?
CommentLuv – yup, that’s on my longer fav list!
I have never tried Yoast because I always used the other SEO plugin… but now that I run Genesis theme, is it necessary to have an extra SEO plugin at all? The Genesis framework has a built in SEO section.
Just wondering?
I answered that up on G+ Comments. No, not necessary – it’s personal choice. I love all the additional features of Yoast!
I must look into the anti-spam plugin Jan because some days I seem to be plagued by spam and all about the same handbags,earphones and shoes every day!
I have Yoast on my blog but I don’t understand half of what it’s supposed to be doing. I just hope I’m ticking the right boxes with it.
Hi Ana – I have been HAMMERED recently with handbags, shoes and a canada goose (whatever that is). Every few minutes a new spam comment, we’re talking 400+ per DAY in my spam folder.
That sort of volume is difficult to keep up with regardless of plugins and is a real burn on hosting/database size.
I do have comments off on older posts, but tightened that right up to turn off comments on anything older than 2 weeks. Now I have 6 comments in my spam folder – much easier to handle! The bots will move on and plague some other poor soul.
Yoast now offers instruction videos as an addon to the plugin, you can licence them for a single site.
Hi Jan,
your list more or less contains my favourite plugins as well. I might use another plugin for doing the same task, but it all comes down to preferences and what we are used to. In the end it is important to have the most necessary plugins installed that can make our life easier.
As for anti spam for example I am using Akismet and I am really satisfied with it’s results.
There are a couple more plugins that I can recommend to have a look at. One of them is WordPress Editorial Calendar, a tool that helps planning WordPress posts ahead. Another one is Comment Redirect by Yoast, which allows you to redirect first time commentors to a special kind of thank you page.
Coincidentally my last post was about WordPress plugins, so you can find my recommendations also in the link below.
Cheers,
Torsten
Hi Torsten, plugins do come down to personal choice – my list has the ones I always seem to come back to even if I take them off for a while to test out others. The majority have been around for what seems like forever and are constantly updated to keep pace with the changes at WordPress. I have a whole scrapyard of plugins (bought and free) that just fizzle out and never get updated – and that is a dangerous thing this day and age.
Akismet – I love it. The problem is it is no longer a free plugin (and hasn’t been for a while now). It has a monthly payment for commercial use. That’s fine. AntiSpam Bee is free and has the added advantage of emptying your spam folder too. Well worth a tip to the developer!
Thanks for your plugin suggestions – I have them somewhere although not activated here at the mo. I’m in the midst of a shake up on plugins (again) so I can see comment redirect going back on soon!
Great list, Jan. Will have to go and check some of those out!!