WordPress plugins are one of the biggest factors in making WordPress websites so powerful.
There are literally a wordpress plugin for every situation. All you have to do is google and there will be one that you can install easily on your website and get huge value from.
Whether it’s something to make your website faster, to help build beautiful, professional pages with a page builder, to backup your website automatically or to help with SEO.
So what WordPress Plugins do you need?
Ideally you want to limit the number of plugins you have installed and acitvated on your website as they can slow down your website.
But here is a list of the Essential wordpress plugins every website should have installed at the very minimum that are free.
1. w3 Cache
w3 cache is a plugin that is essential to help speed up your website. It creates a cache (version of your website) so that when someone lands on your page, it loads up faster.
Having a fast website is important for SEO purposes to rank on google, but also people have short attention spans. Waiting 10 seconds for a website to load, and they will usually just click somewhere else.
We live in a brutal world like that now. Get speedy!
2. SEO by Yoast
In order to rank in google your website needs to be SEO optimized. This is also called On-page SEO.
When you install this plugin, it will make it easy to correctly label each of your pages or posts and put in the right keyword, description and meta description.
This is what is shown on google, so it’s important to fill out the information correctly. Not only to let google know what your page is about, but also to get better click through rates and make people want to visit your page.
3. Prettylink
PrettyLink is the essential plugin for affiliate. It allows you to cloak your affiliate links. This simply means that instead of having the affiliate link look long and ugly. It get transformed into a smaller, more attractive link.
For example, if your affiliate link to a product is
—> http://dogtrainingproduct101.com/affiliate101353/skjgjdl/id=32434
You are then able to transform that link to say something like
—> http://yourwebsite.com/dogtrainingproduct101
4. Aksimet
This plugin comes already installed with wordpress. It is a spam filter and will prevent any spam comments on your blog posts. It’s easy to active you just have to manually go into the settings and activate it.
5. ewww image optimizer
Images slow down your website. Of course, you will be putting images on your website for a range of beneficial purposes that you can’t avoid.
This plugin optimizes the images that you upload to your website automatically and shrinks down the file size, without losing it’s quality.
So essentially, you are cutting down the file size and keeping your website fast, but keeping it’s image quality.
Beautiful.
6. Updraft Backup
Be warned, back up your wordpress website!
Just like your computer and files – you don’t want to live in regret and wished you had taken action when disaster strikes.
WordPress sites are sometimes vunerable to Malware, viruses or hackers.
This plugin automatically backs up your website to things like Dropbox, or your computer, making it automatic and hassle free.
Use this plugin along with a backup from your hosting account such as Bluehost and you can live stress free and know that all your hard work will never go to waste.
7. Ultimate Social Duex
This plugin creates beautiful looking social media icons that make it easy for people to share your content.
Social sharing is a valuable part of SEO and also getting more visitors, so making it easy for people to share your stuff is important.
There are lots of different social plugins out there but this is my preferred plugin due to the great look and design of the icons.
