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Wondering what are the best wordpress plugins? Firstly not only is blogging a great way to express your creative side and clear your mind. But as the world becomes more aware of how profitable blogging as a business is. More people are turning to blogging to achieve a part time and even a full time income. Whilst blogging is great, it can be tricky wondering how to get started if you haven’t created a blog before. However, there are some steps you can take at the start of your blogging adventure in the form of using the best plugins to make blogging as easy as possible for you. So here is my list of the best wordpress plugins for blogs.
Yoast SEO
Out of all the plugins that I’ll mention, Yoast SEO is definitely my favourite. Not only is it helping me to write this post, but helps me to write all of my posts. This is a fantastic tool focusing on your SEO and readability. With an easy to understand traffic light system, a green light means you’re ready to go. Red on the other hand, means that you still have a bit more work to do. But that’s no problem because you’re told exactly what to do to turn Green.
Updraft Plus – Backup/Restore
I definitely recommend this plugin being the first plugin that you activate on your blog. Updraft Plus – Backup/Restore is what you’ll be using to make sure that you don’t lose any of your hard work. Should anything go wrong with your website, you’ll be able to use this plugin to restore your website back to an earlier date. What I find especially useful is the wide range of options for where exactly your backups are stored to. Such as; Updraft itself, Google Drive, Dropbox and more.
Elementor
For anyone that wants to be able to easily adjust their blog posts and website pages. Elementor provides an easy to use drag and drop style page builder. I always use this tool once i’ve written my blog posts to add my images and social media links that you can see at the bottom- middle of my posts.
Pretty Links
Pretty Links is a great tool that allows you to shrink any URL into being more pleasing to the eye. This in turn increases the likelihood of your readers clicking on a link. What’s even better is Pretty Links allows you for free to keep track of how many clicks you’re actually getting from your links. For affiliate marketing, sponsored work and SEO purposes you will be using internal and outbound links in your posts so this plugin is a must have.
FMTC Affiliate Disclosure
You need to disclose when you’re using affiliates as not to deceive your readers. However, rather than having to remember to write it at the start of every blog post, you can use the FMTC Affiliate Disclosure plugin. Only needing to be set up once, after that you won’t have to think about it again.
GDPR Cookie Consent Banner
It’s your job as a website owner to ensure that your site complies with data privacy regulations. GDPR Cookie Consent Banner helps with exactly that and makes the process really simple. I remember when I started Simply Cash Hacks making sure it complied with data privacy regulations was one of the most daunting aspects of building my website. However, once I installed this plugin all I needed to do was modify the settings for a cookie consent banner and cookie policy to be live.
Jetpack
Not only does the Jetpack plugin provide you with statistics for your blog, including top post and top searches. But importantly provides you with security protection for your blog. You’ll find on your dashboard with the plugin installed that you can see how many malicious login attempts have been blocked and how many spam comments have been blocked as well. My favourite aspect of using Jetpack is when my website is down i’m emailed a notification. I’m then emailed a notification when my website is back up and running.
Google Analyticator
Google Analyticator is definitely one of the most important wordpress plugins that you’ll use. Bringing Google Analytics to your wordpress dashboard for you to easily view how your site is progressing. Even if you manage a wordpress website that isn’t a blog, this will still be a plugin that you’ll want to have to view your traffic and where your traffic is coming from.
One Signal Push Notifications
This is a brilliant free plugin that allows you to build push notifications for your website. You’ll have full control of how your push notifications will look, which is ideal for keeping your branding scheme displaying across your blog.
Really Simple SSL
Really Simple SSL is a must have tool as this is what will help you to turn your blog and any wordpress based website that you desire into being an authentic website with a secure and encrypted connection. You know that padlock that shows beside the website address. This plugin will allow you to easily turn the free SSL certificate that host platforms often throw in when you purchase your domain into that trusty padlock. This will also be essential if you decide in the future to add a shop to your blog. As you will be taking sensitive information such as card payment details.
SumoMe
The SumoMe plugin helps you to grow your email list by enabling timed popups on your site. You can schedule emails to your subscribers and incorporate your ecommerce if you have an ecommerce set up on your blog to sell anything. You’ll also be able to see the ROI (Return on Investment) from each subscriber and sale that you generate. I will do a blog post in the future about generating a passive income through adding a ecommerce section to your blog.
Ads.txt Manager
When the time comes to add Google Adsense to your blog to make a profit from adverts. Ads.txt Manager will allow you to easily manage, create and validate your Ads.txt information that you will be given by Google Adsense to monetise your blog.
That’s it!
So there you have a list of the best wordpress plugins to help bloggers both new and experienced to the blogging business.
Blogging is just one way to make money, for more click here.