Whether you’re starting your blog from scratch or thinking of remodeling it, one thing is for sure. You need good, reliable plugins that can help you in various ways. From optimization to tracking, to communicating with your audience, WordPress blogger plugins are a must-have. But, with so many of them out there – which ones to choose?
That is why we made this list of the best WordPress plugins for blogs that will make your blog work well, shine and stand out! The things we do to improve our website performance, yes?
13+ best WordPress blog plugins
1. Akismet
Much more than your usual anti-spam tool, Akismet is a WordPress blog plugin that fights spam comments in a bad-ass way, making your blog safe and secure from any spam attack. And if you think – for a second – you have no reason to fight spam since you’re “just a blogger”, here’s a screenshot from one of our user’s blogs:
And, he doesn’t even blog that regularly!
Just, take it from us: download and install Akismet, and you don’t have to worry about a thing 🙂
2. AMP
We talked about this earlier, in our Top 2018 SEO tips from the YoastCon conference. If your site isn’t mobile-optimized, you might as well don’t exist. And all of your hard work and dedication go out the door. Why? Google is making it its business to favorite mobile-first (or everything) websites. So, it’s only natural that this AMP plugin is your way to make your blog mobile-optimized in every way. And, did we mention that, not only will your blog be mobile-ready, it will go much smoother and faster? Google loves that, you know, that’s why it contributed to making this useful plugin.
3. FS Poster
For bloggers, sharing their blogs on social media accounts is important to bring traffic to a website, boost engagement around the post, improve site SEO and rankings.
WordPress users are so lucky to have tools that automatically publish blog posts to social media accounts.
One of such plugins is FS Poster – WordPress Social Auto Poster plugin that integrates 15 popular social networks and allows the post automation at the same time from WordPress to social media. However, it is not limited to simultaneous posting, the users can also schedule their posts for a later date with intervals. Plus, the posts are not limited also to blog posts, you can auto-post images, videos, custom posts, and even WooCommerce products to social media networks. With the analytics feature, you can track link clicks and analyze your URL performance.
The most important advantage that FS Poster provides is that it is only 45$ for a lifetime usage along with the full features access, lifetime updates, and 24/7 customer support.
4. Better click to tweet
One of the most useful Social Sharing plugins out there. Once you’re done with your writing, you need to put it out there for people to see and interact with it. And your posts will go much better if you have stuff like this – a blog plugin option for readers to share quotes on Twitter with one click! The easy way to make tweetable content and help your readers consume your content in a better way.
5. Broken Link Checker
While we’re talking about things Google doesn’t like, this fact comes to our mind. Broken links. If you want to destroy your blog life and make sure you’re not on Google then, yes, please mess up with your links. It’s one of the biggest SEO don’ts. That is why Broken Link Checker is a good way to make your blog updated and with a spot on links, which Google likes. How does this plugin work? Simple, it monitors your blog and looks out for any broken links and/or missing images. You just need to install it, and you’ll have all the info on your dashboard, like this:
Once you have all the facts, you can either edit, unlink, mark as not broken, or dismiss the notification.
6. Clear Cache For Me
This plugin is a real piece of work. It comes pretty handy combined with W3 Total Cache or similar plugins – and why? Let’s just say, you want your blog to be user-friendly and run fast, right? Well, along with all the features other cache plugins have, this one clears cache from widgets, too. To explain this more humanely, the reason to clear cache is that you want to make any change that you do on your blog visible. Cach is a form of cached data/copy of your blog pages that, in time, take up a lot of place on the server and disables users from seeing any change you might have made. And while other similar plugins do the trick for most of the blog features, this one is responsible for clearing that cache from widgets, too.
7. EWWW Image Optimizer
One of the ways to improve our blog performance is to make sure photos we use are optimized and aren’t taking up too much storage space. And by doing that, your blog will be faster and possibly get a better ranking on search engines. EWWW Image Optimizer is just a kind of plugin that will take care of your images, in any format, and make your blog fast and easier to deal with. The things we do for performance, right?
8. Meks Easy Instagram Widget
Whether you want to make a custom Instagram feed (with followed hashtags) or to showcase your own, this plugin is a go-to way to do it. This is one of the free plugins that we offer within our premium themes, and we made it solely for the best user experience. To use this plugin and all of its features you don’t need Instagram authorization. Just install it and choose the feature that best suits your blog needs. And while you’re at it – be sure to leave a review and tell us what you think of it, thanks!
9. Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights
Every blog and every website needs to have Google Analytics installed. The reasons for that are many, and we already described it in our recent article. This time, we’re sharing with you this handy plugin that will ensure you can set it up all by yourself. Moreover, this plugin will have all the necessary data on your dashboard like this:
As you see, this plugin shows you the data that matter, like the number of visitors, how they find and use your blog.
10. Google XML Sitemaps
Another useful and important plugin for your blog. Listing blog URLs is something that every blog/website should do to help search engines better index your site. Just install this plugin and help crawlers to see the complete structure of your blog. Having an XML Sitemap on your blog is a big yes for SEO, too. With it, you will improve your SEO because Google ranks not the only blog itself but its pages too.
11. Redirection
Every once in a while, we all have these error pages. Or, we change something, move the article from one place to another, change the URL for whatever reason and leave it like that. Well, guess what? Search engines don’t like that, and it’s a big SEO no-no. The redirection plugin is valuable because it helps you to manage all these 301 redirections and keeps track of 404 error pages. You don’t want to have loose ends on your blog, and this is a tool that helps you tighten it up.
12. Revive Old Post
This plugin is one of those automation and time management tools. It helps you in the way it automatically shares your old content and promotes it on Social Media. How cool is that? You just need to set up which Social Media channels you want to use, define sharing interval and number of posts and that’s it! With it, you’ll have more time to focus on writing your content.
13. W3 Total Cache
You will want to have this plugin if you want better blog performance and reduced download time for your blog. It works as a great optimization tool since it speeds up your site, improves your overall performance, and makes a better user experience. Together with Clear Cache For Me, your blog will be fully ready to take that Google passes grade 🙂
14. Yoast SEO
Personal favorite SEO tool is this Yoast SEO plugin. You all know by now that WordPress itself is SEO-ready, but you still need that one ingredient that helps you really stand out with your content. Yoast SEO is just that. A tool that really, truly helps you to write better content and be more visible in search engines. Within it, you’ll get valuable intel on how to write better articles, headlines, keyword density, and all other SEO tech specs you need in order to be seen on Google. Install it and let the transformation of your writing process begin!
Hope this article will help you decide on which blog plugins to use. These are our top pics of the best plugins for WordPress blogs to use. Let us know if you think we should add some more and let us connect on Facebook and Twitter.
