How are you able to impress your visitors when they land on your blog site, so that they stay on and become regular readers?
With over a million new blogs being published every single say, the competition for gaining readership is extremely challenging. And still, having a blog with a large group of followers isn’t as difficult as it might seem.
Providing interesting, engaging and original content should always be the number one priority of any blogger. It’s the absolute best way to gain popularity and subscribers.
In a close second, comes the appearance and navigation of your site. There are a number of WordPress plugins that can help you optimize your site for search engines, for organic visitors to the site, and for your own ease of use.
Here are the top 10 WordPress plugins for bloggers starting up their first blog.
1. All-in-one SEO Pack
The All-in-one SEO pack plugin is probably the number one “must have” plugin for any blogger. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) deals directly with how well your site’s pages and blog posts rank on popular search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing. It functions by giving each page and blog post a unique SEO title and corresponding Meta tags. You’re even able to enter in your own Meta tags for each blog post. Although it comes preconfigured to work perfectly for SEO purposes, you’re also able to customize any of its settings as you see fit.
2. Akismet
Akismet is one of those few lucky plugins that are so good, they actually come included with every single new WordPress installation. It’s a comment spam filter that’s great for blocking those crazy Russian pr0n links or the insane $20 dollar iPad giveaways. With Akismet you also don’t have to annoy your comment readers by making them enter those illegible CAPTCHA, “Are you human?” challenge-response tests.
3. Google XML Sitemaps
Search engines make heavy use of a Sitemap when cataloging the contents of your site for their search algorithms. Google XML Sitemaps takes care of creating a new sitemap automatically and submits a new sitemap every time you update the site with a new page or blog post. All you have to do is install it, and Google XML Sitemaps takes care of the rest.
4. Contact Form 7
Great for creating those handy “Contact Us” forms on your blog site, Contact Form 7 is the most commonly used plugin for its category. It’s completely customizable and incredibly simple to set up. You’re also given the freedom to make as many forms and send them as many users as you’d like.
5. W3 Total Cache
W3 Total Cache is an awesome plugin that deals directly with the overall performance of your site. It’s made to drastically decrease the loading time of your pages and posts. It speeds up the load time by caching your entire website and gives your visitors the temporary internet files, instead of making the traditional calls to the database.
6. Subscribe to Comments
This handy little plugin puts a basic checkbox under your “submit comment” button that gives your commenters the option to receive an email alerting them whenever someone responds to their comments or makes a comment on the post in general. Great for generating debates in the comment sections that can increase page views and the popularity of your posts.
7. WordPress Database Backups
The worst scenario imaginable for a blogger is to turn on their computer one morning only to discover that their server has crashed and erased or corrupted your entire blog site right along with it. The WordPress Database Backups plugin can be used to download backups of your entire database manually, or it can just email you a copy automatically during certain time intervals that you can customize yourself.
8. Theme Switch and Preview
You should always work on the appearance of your blog to keep it fresh and deliver the best possible look for your visitors. The problem with working on it though is having your readers see the “under construction” pages that look unprofessional and lose their attention immediately. With Theme Switch and Preview you can edit your themes and see a preview of your work while your readers still browse through the old version.
9. WordPress Related Posts
One of the greatest ways to increase readership of your various blog posts is to work on the interlinking of your site. The WordPress Related Posts plugin places a selection of related posts at the bottom of each individual post. Visitors interesting in reading more about a particular topic would finish your post and then immediately move on to the next interesting one.
10. WP Touch
Don’t forget about mobile internet users! The WP Touch plugin optimizes your blog site for the mobile platform. This means that it will adjust to automatically fit and look good on Androids, iPhones, iPads, iPods and other mobile devices.
About Vincent Clarke
Twitter: ernestnancy55gmail.com
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Hi Vincent,
You certainly have a wealth of knowledge in regard to SEO tools… I wonder if you can answer my question in regard to pinging? I recently purchased the 10 dollar Zillow website.. and can you believe it has a full blown IDX…pretty good buy but you have minimal access to the back end and one of the things I cannot check is the Settings -> Write section which lists the sites that are getting pinged. So I cannot tell if they are pinging google or anyone on each post. Is there a way to tell if the ping goes out… I did do an export of the posts to a text file and they all have a big fat Zero in the ping meta tag… not sure if that means anything. Maybe I will export one of my known sites and see what the ping meta says when I know for a fact it has been done.. any thoughts? Thanks.
Tom
Twitter: AppleMobileLeas
says:
I have to say, I am a fan of the SEO pack. It’s almost necessary in today’s world. These all look like excellent suggestions. Can’t wait to give them a try. Thanks for sharing.
Twitter: ZealousWeb
says:
Hi there. These plugins are great tools for high ranking. Every website should install them in the website to make it more user friendly. Thanks
Twitter: mastamilmovies
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what is purpose of theme switch post yar??
Twitter: Blogonza
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I think Theme Switch and Preview plugin is not essential for bloggers.
Ivan recently posted..Theme Installation Guide For WordPress Blog
Twitter: cefozyt
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Nice Post Dear
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Twitter: epicmagazinet
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Great list that is ;)
Well, for beginners you would be suggesting WP Super Cache and not W3 Totla Cache, as it in one advance plugin.
Thanks :)
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Twitter: SEO
says:
This is pretty selection of plug-ins. From my own experience, I can say that I use 75% of these plug-ins on my weblogs, with achievement. The SEO pack is a useful gizmo for on search engine optimization, while the Data source Back-up is excellent to secure from hosting server accidents.
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Twitter: HomeTreadmill
says:
Hi vincent, what about ping? with original ping system from WordPress, every little edit or post would ping automatically.. many blogger say that might make our blog get banned because ping more than once within a short time. I use ping-optimizer to avoid the possibility my blog got banned…
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Twitter: collegeocontent
says:
isn’t the SEOpressor WordPress plug-in the same thing as all-in-one Seo plug-in?
Twitter: socialcubix
says:
Recently i got information about WordPress, I am think to start my blog n WordPress, Really this article will help me a lot, I am impressed
Thanks
Twitter: blognames
says:
SEO by Yoast is better than all in one seo. It has better function.
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Just what I was looking for. I’m learning to make your own website. Thank you Vincent!
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Thanks for this nice collection of plug-ins. Its very hard to find a great plugins like this, whenever I visit another site I could not see as good as this. Great post! – Sally from SMBSEO AUS
Sally recently posted..Is More Always Better?
I am already using 6 of the plugins and find them very useful….will check out the rest that you mentioned in the post.
Hey Vincent
Thanks for sharing all these plugins. I have used a few of these for my Word press blog and I am a great fan of these. Would also like to give a try t others as well. WordPress is a great CMS for bloggers.
I’ve been using like 7 plugins from the list, but i was still missing one to optimize my blog for mobile devices. i decided to use WP Touch and it works great. Thank you Vincent!
Twitter: rapidleech2day
says:
I really appreciate your post
thanks
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Vincent,Good Collection of plugins.I havnt used a couple of them will start using them soon.
Twitter: LocalOpenings
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Yep, agree with all of them however All-In-One SEO, I tend to go for SEO by yoast when I start a new Blog or direct somebody towards an SEO plugin.
Twitter: felipeveiga
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Can’t see when you wrote this post, but I would change the All in one SEO for the WordPress SEO from yoast and add Jetpack to the list, the wordpress do it all plugin. And also change wordpress related to the Facebook related, much faster and more relevant to that user.
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Twitter: teamafro
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I run a Drupal website but getting ready to start one in WordPress. This is an excellent article and will help jumpstart the effort. Thanks a lot!
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Twitter: _VHClarke
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I’m glad you enjoyed it, best of luck with your WordPress site!
I personally find plugins 1, 2, 3, 9, and 10 quite helpful and efficient in making my websites functional and easy to use.
Twitter: _VHClarke
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Thanks for reading and sharing your own personal favorites!
Twitter: life_pro_tips
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I love this list, mostly because I already have 8 of these plugins already haha. My favorite on the list is the W3 Total Cache. I’ve decreased the latency of my website by almost have by the server only having to provide static pages and do tiny amounts of server-side rendering. There’s one plugin I don’t have and it’s WP Touch. I hope opening myself up to mobile users I can convert more users.
Twitter: _VHClarke
says:
I’m glad you enjoyed it Josh, although you sound like you’re already a WP pro! I definitely recommend checking out WP Touch though, especially if you aren’t yet using any plugins to optimize for mobile. Your visitors will definitely notice the difference!
Twitter: quality_technic
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it’s just for wordpress?
do you have plug in for bloger.com?
thanks..
Twitter: _VHClarke
says:
Hi there. I’m afraid all of these tips are just for WordPress. Some of these plugins, or a variation of them, might be available for Blogger but, in general, Blogger has far less plugins, and therefore capability, than WordPress. I’m recommend looking into switching ;)
Twitter: AppliedVisual
says:
Thanks for the info about the Theme Switch and Preview plugin. Another amazing plugin I’ve been using for the last 2 months is XCloner. It allows you to backup and restore a site with ease. I ran across this plugin when I had to show a client the difference in running a WP instal on a Windows server vs a Linux server. I used XCloner to clone the site on the Windows server then restored it to the Linux server using a dummy url. The page speed was night and day so it was easy and it helped me to justify the switch to Linux.
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Twitter: _VHClarke
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Thanks for the tip Reico! I’ve never used XCloner but it sounds like something I definitely want to check out!
Twitter: AppliedVisual
says:
No Problem Vincent,
I also wanted to add the P3 Plugin Performance Profiler plugin. I saw Josh’s comment up top and W3 Total Cache and site performance. The P3 plugin allows you to run load test on the backend to zero in on the files, plugins and scripts that slow your site down. Per your advice, I’ll take another look into WP Touch. Thanks again.
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To that list I’ll add a plugin called Duplicator. I use it to clone my live site to my laptop to test changes. It’s free, but still in beta.
Twitter: issuesEthical
says:
I use about 7 of these plugins, the AIO Seo is probably the best. i do not see commentluv- this is the best commenting system in my opinion.
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Twitter: _VHClarke
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I like Comment Luv as well, but I didn’t have space for it in my list :)
How can I use the WordPress plugins to my WordPress blog?
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Twitter: _VHClarke
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When you’re in your dashboard, go to the Plugins tab in the navigation menu on the side. You can search through all of the available plugins and see how they are rated. If there’s one you like simply click install and presto!
Twitter: Janis167
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I don’t know why, but I like Yoast seo better than AIO SEO :) Great list nevetheless!
Twitter: _VHClarke
says:
Thanks for the comment! I actually really like Yoast as well, it’s a great plugin. I just preferred to recommend AIO SEO for beginners.
This is pretty impressive collection of plugins. From my own experience, I can say that I use 75% of these plugins on my blogs, with great results. The SEO pack is a great tool for on optimization, while the Database Backup is great to protect from server crashes.
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Twitter: _VHClarke
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Thanks for reading and sharing your comment Julian!
Twitter: fokuskita
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thanks for information..
i’m from Indonesian
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Twitter: _VHClarke
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Thanks Fokus, I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Twitter: fokuskita
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do you want to link exchange with me?
if you want, I’ll put your link on my blog
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I think this is a great help especially for me that I am a newbies in blogging sites. Thanks for your wonderful thoughts.
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Twitter: _VHClarke
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Thanks for reading Lewis!