WordPress is the best and easiest to use blogging or website platform out there on the market. And did I mention that it was free? What makes it so versatile is the ability to install plugins to add to its functionally. Today I am going to talk about 10 of my favorite WordPress plugins.
Plugins add so much functionally to a WordPress blog or website. There are so many things that become available to you on your website, or your blog. [clickToTweet tweet=”Using plugins we can create almost anything” quote=”Using plugins we can create almost anything”] The sky is truly the limit. If you can dream it up, then there is a plugin out there that will help you create it.
There are literally thousands of plugins out there. Most of them are free, but there are also some paid ones out there that are really good.
Here are my 10 favorite free plugins, but they are by no means in any particular order.
1-Yoast SEO
Formerly know as WordPress SEO by Yoast, Yoast SEO is not just any SEO (search engine optimization) plugin. It is a complete website optimization package.
Not only can you change the way your article titles and descriptions appear in a Google search, it also allows you to add open graph meta data, page analysis, and build and publish your xml sitemap.
Not to mention it helps you add key search words to all your articles. All of these things are important if you want to be found in a Google search.
2-WP Super Cache
Speed is very important to your site. If someone lands on your home page and it takes a long time to load, then they are going to move on to somewhere else.
WP Super Cache helps to optimize your site for speed and performance. It allows you to set up page and browser caching, compress pages for qucker downloads, and setup a content delivery network for your static files.
3-WP Google Fonts
The Google Fonts plugin in great as it allows you to pick the fonts you want to use on your site from the Google Fonts collection. And, these fonts will look the same on any device, desktop or mobile, or any browser.
This means you can pick a font, for say, the h1 through h3 tags and then pick another one for the h4 through h6, and then pick another one for the paragraph or body text font.
This is so much simpler than coding it within your CSS file and this make the fonts uniform accross your site. Which, I think, makes the overall appearance of site better.
4-Fast Secure Contact Form
Fast Secure Contact Form is a really good plugin as it allows you to setup and modifly and style almost any type of form for your website.
I used to use Contact Form 7, and I know a lot of people that do, but I just found that it was very limiting with what you could do with it. So, then I found this plugin and it can do very complex forms without any problems.
I used this plugin to build my Web Design Questionnaire that is on my Services page. I have also used it on other websites that I have developed that need more complex forms.
5-Comment Luv
Comment Luv is a plugin that I just recently started using, but it has already became on of my favorites.
Once installed it awards someone that comments on your posts or pages, by allowing them to chose, from a list, of their last 10 most recent posts, to leave as a link on your site within the comments section.
You have full control over this as you decide whether they get to leave the link or not, but it is a great incentive for people to leave comments on your posts.
In turn, if you go to website that has Comment Luv installed as well, you have the ability to pick one of your 10 most recent posts to leave as a link on their site.
This is a great way to get some link juice from someone else site, but if you leave a comment, make sure it is a good one. Be sure that you have read their article so you can make a decent comment that not only reflects what you have read, but adds to the discussion. Not doing this could get your comment rejected as spam and not allowed on the site.
6-G.A.S.P
What is this? No worry, the first time I saw this I though it was something that flew through the air and buzzed. It stands for Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin. Say what?? Yeah its better off with the initials.
Really all this plugin does is put a checkbox on your comment form that asks your users to confirm that they are not a spammer. The idea behind this is that when robots crawl you site to spam it, their not human, so they cannot check the box. And its a little bit easier on your visitors than putting a captcha box for them to fill in.
But I think this is neat that it puts this little check box there so that is why its one of my favorite plugins.
7-Akismet
Akisment is a very good plugin to control spam on your site. And it is one of the plugins that is already included when you install WordPress, but it is not activated. I highly recommend that you activate it and use it on your site to control spam.
Spam is an issue on all WordPress blogs. Once you start using WordPress, and adding posts to blog, or adding pages, you will start to get spam. Akisment helps to control that.
8-Floating Social Bar
There are a lot of ways to add social sharing to your site. Some better than others. I like using Floating Social Bar, as it is easy to set up and is very lite, which means it won’t slow your site down any. And it is not very intrusive on the design.
Yes you want people to notice your social sharing buttons, but you don’t want them be a distraction for people reading your post. I think this Floating Social Bar just a good just of just being there, viewable and accessible but not distracting from your post.
The plugin does what is says, it floats at the top of the page as your scroll down the post, it move down with your but stays at the top.
9-Genesis Simple Hooks
This plug in is amazing as to what it does. Now, I use a Genesis Theme on my site, which means I am using the Genesis Framework. Genesis Simple Hooks breaks apart your website into sections and enables you to add code to just about any part of site.
For example lets say I want to add a Google Adsense ad to my site, say, above the header, then I would just go to this area of my site, say, within this plugin, and add the code to display my ad.
Also, I may want to add something below the content of my blog post, like a banner, or product, then I would just go to this area in the plugin, and add the necessary code to display the banner.
10-Pretty Links
Pretty Links is a plugin that allows you to change how your existing page or post hyperlinks look. It also will track the amount of times someone has clicked on your link. Which I think is great thing as it allows you to see the traffic on your links.
Suppose you had a page, like mine, that was titled,
https://robswebdesign.net/download-free-stuff/?preview=true&previewid=831&previewnonce=e875354610
Looks awful, right? Well you can use the pretty link plugin to create a new link called:
https://robswebdesign.net/download-free-ebook
Doesn’t that look better? Its a whole lot shorter and easier to read and remember. People are more likely to click on this link than the previous one.
Pretty Link is also good if you do affiliate marketing. Often times the affiliate link is long and makes no sense. And also affiliate links can often change. Well by using the Pretty Links plugin not only can you turn them into something that makes more sense and shorten them as well, and then more people are apt to click on them. Heres an example below:
This:
https://secure.hostgator.com/~affiliat/cgi-bin/affiliates/clickthru.cgi?id=
Changes to this:
https://robswebdesign.net/hostgator
This link is much nicer and also includes my website name, so it looks like you are going to another page on my site.
Your Favorite WordPress Plugins?
So there you have it. My 10 favorite WordPress plugins. What are your favorite WordPress plugins? I would like to hear about them in the comments.
Robin McDonald
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Nikhil says
October 15, 2015 at 6:28 amHi Rob,
you supplied a great list of plugins. I have owned most of the plugins on my blog you have listed here. I have my separate view for the plugins. In my opinion, we should choose the plugins according to our blog or website theme.
I had not had good experience with the Floating social bar plugin. SO I had to remove it from my blog. It is a good plugin but was not compatible to my blog’s theme.
I would like to know which caching plugin your are using on your blog. Wp super cache and w3 total cache are two names come in my mind when I think of caching of any WordPress installation.
Well, I loved your list of plugins.
have a good day………:)
Rob says
October 25, 2015 at 4:18 pmHi Nikhil and thanks for stopping by.
I am glad to hear that you have used the plugins I listed here. I would agree with you that your theme can make a difference in which plugins you use. Some just work better than others with different themes.
Sorry you had issues with the Floating social bar plugin. It is a very light plugin, and I have not had any issues with it, but I just recently switched to the social warfare plugin.
As far as a caching plugin goes, I am using WP Super Cache. It just seemed to work better for me than the W3 Total Cache.
Thanks again for commenting on my post. Talk to you later.
Brent Jones says
September 11, 2015 at 8:36 pmHi Rob,
So it looks like I’ve been doing things the stupid way…
I just read about Pretty Links in your post.
I do that same thing… but what I do is create a page for each link in WordPress under a parent page called “links”.
Then I use a plugin called Safe Redirect Manager to forward that page to my affiliate link.
Then I use a plugin called PC Hide Pages to prevent Google from indexing that new page I created.
And the final product looks like this…
ie: brentjonesonline.com/links/social-warfare/
(^ Directs to my affiliate link)
Didn’t realize there was a simpler way to do this, so thanks for the tip.
Brent
Brent Jones recently posted…Find Targeted Readers with Don Purdum
Rob says
September 12, 2015 at 11:57 amHey Brent, and thanks for the comment.
Yes I do like Pretty links. I use it for all my links that I want to track. It works especially good for affiliate links as they can sometimes change, and it make it easy to update them once, and be done. Sounds like you were doing a lot of work with yours. 🙂
Good luck if you decide to try Pretty Links. There is also a Premium one that I have considered buying, and probably eventually I will. But for now the free one works great for me.
Talk to you later.
Leslie L Denning says
September 8, 2015 at 1:21 pmHi Rob. I use many of the same plugins you do, which makes me feel good because I know that you are a whole lot more technical than I am. I don’t use Akismet because CommentLuv does such a good job of catching spam. I can’t remember the last time I had a spam comment.
I love Yoast SEO. That has really taken the pain out of SEO for me. I haven’t tried PrettyLinks, but I will look into it. I usually try to ‘pretty up’ my link when I’m writing a blog post, though.
Thanks so much for sharing this information. I also appreciate information from people who know. 🙂
All the best,
Leslie
Rob says
September 15, 2015 at 10:13 pmHey Leslie and thanks for commenting. I have been having issues with my spam folder, or I would have responded sooner.
Akisment is a good free plugin to start with, but I am not sure if it plays well with CommentLuv or not. I probably don’t need both. Do you use just the one??
Yes Pretty links is a good one if you do affiliate marketing. There is also a premium version, but I find that the free version works great for me right now.
How can I not mention Yoast SEO. Really a great plugin as well to help make your post SEO friendly.
Thanks again and will talk to you later.
Hassaan Khan says
September 8, 2015 at 11:52 amHi Rob,
I always encourage great content, especially when it’s a list or collection. I know how tough it is to create a collection that really helps the readers. In fact, I’m looking forward to using ‘Pretty links’. I have known this plugin for a while but still doing link cloaking manually. I want this.
Thanks for sharing a such a great list of plugins.
Rob says
September 15, 2015 at 10:15 pmHey again Hassaan, thanks for comment and glad you liked the article. Yes Pretty links is a good one, especially if you do affiliate marketing. It does great tracking of all the hits on your links.
Let me know how it works out for you. Talk to you later.
Myra Caballero says
August 24, 2015 at 9:44 pmI really want to move my blog to WordPress, but am having trouble getting up the nerve to attempt the move (not tech savy!). I’ve seen commentluv on other people’s sites & I think its really great. This post will be a very helpful resource when I actually do finally get around to moving!
Rob says
August 25, 2015 at 2:23 pmThanks for visiting my site Myra,
I am glad you enjoyed this post. WordPress is really a great blogging platform to use. Where does your blog reside currently?
Myra Caballero says
August 30, 2015 at 9:30 pmIt’s on Blogger, which has been really easy to use, but is pretty limited on what you can do with it.
Myra Caballero recently posted…3 Essential Green Websites for the Conscious Consumer
Rob says
August 31, 2015 at 11:06 amHey Myra,
Blogger is a good platform to start out with as it is free, but there are also some limitations with it as well. I started on Blogger but quickly realized that I needed something more, so I went to a self-housed WordPress platform.
If you are thinking about doing the same, you may want to check out may article where I explain how to do this. Here’s the link: How to Move Your Blog From Blogger to WordPress And in this other article, I explain why I moved. Why I Moved From Blogger To WordPress
Talk to you soon.
Carol Amato says
August 22, 2015 at 6:06 pmHi, Rob,
This is my first visit to your blog, and I’m glad I came. ? I also want to thank you for your interest in my Triberr tribe also – great to have you aboard.
I like your list of faves – plugins are a weakness of mine. Have had to reign myself in during the last year or so in order to make my site run optimally. LOL
The social media sharing plugins can be quite ‘heavy’ on the server and cause slowing of rendering content… So went with a lighter weight version, custom that came with my custom Genesis theme.
I do like Yoast, that’s for sure. I receive a lot of benefits from using this SEO plugin, and am glad it’s free too.?
However, I use W3 Total Cache in conjunction with my MaxCDN for ultimate speed in content delivery. Just love it and works well for me. Have heard good things about WP Super Cache though.
Used to use Pretty Links, in fact used that exclusively for branded links up until about a year ago when I got my own URL shortener (software – YOURLS). All of my links are now on CarolSentMe.com, and the analytics is fantastic.
One of my favorite plugins is EWWW Image Optimizer. Can’t tell you how this has helped my site size and speed. Awesome indeed, and free!
Thanks for sharing this excellent post, and will be spreading the word…
Have a great weekend.
Take Care,
Carol Amato
Rob says
August 24, 2015 at 12:03 pmHi Carol,
Thanks for letting me join your tribe and thanks also for visiting my blog.
Yes plugins can get very addictive as there seems to be one for just about everything. I have about 25 active ones on my site right now. Not sure if there is a magic limit of plugins you can have before they start to slow your site. I have read before that it is not necessarily the number you have, but which ones and the quality of the plugin. Bad ones can definitely harm your site.
Yoast is one of my favorites as well. It offers so much value for a free plugin.
I have heard a lot about W3 Total Cache, and I know it is recommended to work better with a MaxCDN, I just prefer WP Super Cache as it is usually included with the WordPress Install, and I don’t you any type of managed hosting. Once I feel the need to use managed hosting, I will probably change to that.
Yes I love pretty links. I have considered buying the pro version, but not quite ready for it just yet. I have never heard of YOURLS, I may have to check it out first. Thanks for the tip!
Thanks again for visiting my blog, your welcome back anytime.
Sinan says
August 20, 2015 at 1:01 pmHey Rob,
Thanks for the nice article!
I Was using Contact Form 7 but there were a lot of problems with it and I change it with FSCF – just flawless.
About the Genesis Simple Hooks can I use it without Genesis Framework?
Rob says
August 20, 2015 at 1:28 pmGlad you enjoyed the article Sinan. I still use Contact Form 7 on my contact page. It is still good for simple forms. But for more complex ones, that have more details I agree the Fast Secure Contact Form just works better.
So sorry to tell you, the Genesis Simple Hooks plugin can only be used with the Genesis Framework. One of the great things about the Genesis Framework is that it is highly customizable. So this plugin is just one of many that helps will that.
Adrienne says
August 17, 2015 at 6:53 pmHey Rob,
First I just want to say that I LOVE the look of your blog. I still can’t make up my mind what theme I want but I will be eventually change my theme. I hate to though,I’m so use to is and it’s easy to add code. I just wish they paid more attention to this version but they could care less now.
I currently use Thesis and it has it’s own SEO function built in which is the only reason I haven’t used Yoast SEO although I keep hearing rave reviews. So I tried to install it one day and the instructions were so over my head I freaked out and immediately deleted it. Why can’t they make things simple for those of us that need it.
I currently use 2, 4 and 5 that are on your list but of course GASP is part of CommentLuv Premium so we don’t need a separate plugin which is why CLP is my favorite plugin. Yep, love this one so much because I haven’t had spam in years. I love to be able to have total control over my comments and it doesn’t get much better than CLP.
Glad you shared this list with us, thanks so much and I’ll be sure to share this post as well. Great job.
Have a awesome week Rob!
~Adrienne
Adrienne recently posted…Who Should You Really Connect With In The Blogosphere?
Rob says
August 17, 2015 at 7:41 pmHey Adrienne,
Thanks so much for visiting my site again. Not sure if you noticed or not but I made some changes this past weekend. I remember reading somewhere on your blog about knowing the message that you are trying to convey, and I have to admit, that after reviewing my blog, it wasn’t very clear. I hope now that it is. I started this site to help people set up their own website. The setup part is really not that difficult if you have some guidance. The challenge comes when you try to make it look a certain way. Yeah the themes help, but to really make it sizzle you need to know a little about CSS code.
About your theme, it looks really clean and sharp, and I have heard good things about Thesis, but I guess I am just a Genesis man. I love what you can do with the Genesis themes. And even though they have built in SEO functionality, I still like the Yoast SEO plugin as you can do so much more to improve your SEO with it. If you haven’t already, you should give Genesis by StudioPress a look see.
Comment Luv, as you know if one of my favorites as well, but I just started using it. I already had GASP installed, so didn’t see the need, as of yet, to go with the premium version. I did see what all of the features were, and I like some of them, so I plan to revisit it later. I took a look at Disqus, and I have a login so that I can comment on other sites that use it, but I don’t like the fact that when someone visits my blog to comment, they have to sign in and set up an account. Just an extra step that I think some people would not take.
Thanks for the compliment on my site. I am still looking at making some more changes soon. I am not really liking my logo, so I will probably change it up a bit. Do you have any recommendation on how I could improve the site? Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks again, talk to you soon.
P.S.
Adrienne, if you need any help setting up the Yoast SEO plugin, just let me know. I would be glad to help..