Are you thinking of starting a blog on WordPress? Great Choice! You’ll immediately discover that WordPress provides all the features required to launch and expand a website. In this post, we’ll examine the top WordPress plugins for blogs, which will make the process of blogging even simpler.
But how can a WordPress blog be created that draws in new readers and keeps them interested? It makes sense if producing content consumes most of your time and attention. But you should employ a handful of the best WordPress plugins for blogs if you want your site to receive more visitors, subscribers, and possible revenue.
There are countless WordPress plugins available, both free and paid. Finding the finest plugins amidst all of the options might be intimidating. When starting a blog, you might not even know what plugins to look for.
You will first require a few key plugins to set up your WordPress blog, build a contact form, increase blog traffic, and more.
The greatest WordPress plugins (both paid and free) are listed here, so you may install them and immediately improve your blog. But let’s dive into a few details on WordPress plugins first.
What Are WordPress Plugins for Blogs?
WordPress plugins are optional pieces of software that bring wonderful capabilities to your blog without requiring any programming knowledge. Plus, a lot of them are free!
The best blog websites are made into more interesting, interactive experiences by WordPress plugins that attract new readers and keep the ones who already read them coming back.
A few years ago, you would have had to pay a programmer to create custom code to perform the same tasks as WordPress plugins. You can now create your own unique contact forms, sell goods, create better content, and do so much more by simply installing the necessary plugin!
5 Steps on Creating a WordPress Blog
First, we’ll briefly walk you through the process of launching a blog to ensure that you know it’s not at all difficult. Only five steps will be required.
Step 1: Buy Domain Name
This is your website’s www-name. There is a long list of websites where you may easily purchase a domain name. Simply Google it.
Step 2: Buy WordPress Hosting
It is an engine that stores and backs up your website’s files. A website would not exist without it. Use website creation services that offer both names and hosting to finish the first two steps simultaneously.
Numerous companies offer WordPress hosting. Another benefit of this option is that you don’t have to connect the domain to the hosting afterwards manually. However, it is not a major concern if you wish to purchase a name and host on different resources.
Step 3: Install WordPress
WordPress is not the only content management system (CMS). There are others as well. However, it is a free, trustworthy platform with detailed instructions. Of course, many templates, themes, and plugins are out there that take care of most of the work for you.
Step 4: Install Theme and Templates
Any website’s theme serves as its foundation. Templates are used in the design. Additionally, you can employ dynamic templates to enhance the site’s appearance and functionality.
Just keep reading this post to learn how themes and templates are different from one another.
Step 5: Install WordPress Plugins
WordPress plugins are one of the nicest features that the platform offers since they provide your website extra capability.
WordPress plugins are available for any task you need to complete. Your website will already have some functionality if you selected a dynamic template because it comes with a number of plugins. Even so, you could still require a few more.
Best Free and Paid WordPress Plugins for Blogs
The best WordPress blog plugins enable site owners to complete more tasks with less effort. Plugins simplify routine processes like file backup and email confirmation. More importantly, they let you accomplish business objectives like raising sales and cultivating a loyal fan base without having to write any HTML.
Depending on the objectives and purpose of your blog, you might not require all of the plugins on this list. It’s acceptable to disregard a plugin if it doesn’t fit your website or marketing plan. The best WordPress plugins that we may suggest for blogging are listed below:
JetPack by WordPress
Although more than 52,000 plugins are available, you shouldn’t download more than you need. If you do, there is a chance that your website may load poorly, and users won’t be pleased. What if there was a plugin that offered multiple functionalities in a single location?
Thank goodness there is. It’s known as Jetpack.
Even though there are over four million installations of Jetpack, many WordPress users are still unsure of what it does or how to use it to enhance their website. Consider Jetpack as your WordPress website’s all-inclusive toolbox.
It contains capabilities that may be used to create your website, monitor statistics, enhance social sharing, and shield you from threats. These essential features are all available for free as well.
With one of their straightforward and reasonably priced plans, you may also choose to include additional services like spam protection, daily backups, and SEO tools.
Yoast SEO
Everyone desires a higher search engine ranking for their website. However, SEO is quite difficult, isn’t it?
I suppose there are occasions when it does feel that way. However, using the Yoast SEO plugin makes on-page SEO tasks simple. Using this effective tool, you may choose a keyword and modify your page.
It enables you to quickly create SEO titles and descriptions for all of your website’s posts and pages. It can also add social media photos and Open Graph metadata to your articles.
Yoast SEO creates an XML sitemap for every piece of content on your website, making it simpler for search engines to crawl it. If you previously used another SEO plugin, it also makes it simple for you to import your SEO data.
Other elements for a better user experience include readability analysis, Google and social previews, and quicker load times.
WPForms
The most well-liked and rated forms plugin for WordPress users is WPForms. This drag-and-drop form builder can be used in various ways on a blog website. The most popular application of WPForms is to create contact forms, but that is just the start.
Additionally, you may make forms to collect feedback, accept money, register for events, download content, or subscribe to a list. Over 60 built-in templates are available in the WPForms free edition, while hundreds more are available in the premium versions.
The straightforward user interface, which allows for flexible customisation of form fields and layouts, is the best aspect of all versions. Advanced users can benefit from interfaces with third-party marketing systems like HubSpot and Salesforce, email providers like Sendinblue, and payment processors like Authorize.net and Stripe.
MonsterInsights
One of your main priorities should be to understand your blog’s traffic and user behaviour, and the best source of website traffic and visitor statistics is Google Analytics. Unfortunately, Google Analytics is so robust and intricate that non-experts frequently struggle to identify the required data.
The best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress, MonsterInsights, fixes those problems. The learning curve is minimised through simple interfaces, allowing you to connect Google Analytics to your blog and view site traffic information directly in your WordPress dashboard. You can easily track and view user behaviour like clicks, pages seen, and referral URLs with MonsterInsights’ lite version.
You may also leverage Google Analytics’ advanced tracking for eCommerce and form conversions, media views, keywords, top posts, and much more, depending on your needs, along with MonsterInsights Plus or Pro edition.
Akismet
Although all detest spam, it is an unfortunate fact of life. When your WordPress website launches, you may anticipate spam comments to start appearing. Even worse, many of these spam comments will appear to be genuine. However, comment spam clogs up your website and degrades the reader experience.
And if it’s not handled correctly, you risk losing readers and maybe hurting your brand.
The official anti-spam plugin from WordPress’s parent company, Automattic, is called Akismet. With over 35 million downloads, it is the most widely used plugin ever and is pre-installed on WordPress websites. To establish an account, click the Activate button on the Installed Plugins screen of the WordPress dashboard and follow the simple instructions.
OptinMonster
Do you want extra readers for your blog posts? The lifeblood of any blog site is subscribers. Thus, you need more of them. You can create high-quality pop-ups with the aid of OptinMonster that encourage users to download lead magnets, make purchases, and subscribe to your email marketing lists. Additionally, it aids in converting drop-off visitors into subscribers and buyers!
Although it provides much more, OptinMonster is typically considered a lead generation tool. It also enables you to do A/B tests, sends various offers to target markets, and redirect customers to particular web pages. The fact that OptinMonster smoothly integrates with popular email and eCommerce providers, automating your list-building and sales processes, makes it one of the finest WordPress plugins for blogs.
WP Rocket
The best WordPress caching plugin available is WP Rocket. It enables you to quickly increase the speed and functionality of your WordPress website without the need for any technical knowledge.
The suggested WordPress caching settings are automatically activated, including gzip compression, page caching, and cache pre-loading. To speed up page loads, even more, you can enable optional features like CDN support, DNS pre-fetching, minification, and lazy image loading.
Most notably, WP Rocket stores pages in the cache without waiting for a request. It automatically crawls your page and builds a cache, improving performance immediately.
In addition, Imagify, a free image optimisation tool, is available through WP Rocket to help you speed up your website even more. To enhance the configuration of your website cache setup, they also feature connectors with the Cloudflare API, Sucuri, and many more tools.
The simplest and most user-friendly caching plugin is by far WP Rocket. The only drawback is that it requires payment.
Final Thoughts
The creation and upkeep of websites involve many steps. WordPress plugins are essential whether you need to improve the user experience or optimise your site for search engines.
We advise installing one plugin at a time, configuring it correctly, and then adding the next. Your site will soon bring in more readers, add new members, and make more money!
