14 WordPress Plugins for Beginners- Blogging 101

WordPress Plugins are often the main reason many bloggers choose to use WordPress. Plugins, as previously discussed, are additional tools and/or settings you can add to your WordPress site. With plugins it can often seem as though the options for your blog are unlimited. However, keep in mind that the more plugins you run on your site, the slower your site may take to load.

Premium Plugins are plugins that cost you. However, most plugins are free and many of times when I find a premium plugin I can search the web for a free alternative.

The following the plugins I most commonly use when I create blogs for my clients:

Askimet- WordPress comes preloaded with it but you need to register your account in order to use it. This will block a good amount of spam from your comments.

Shareaholic- I love this plugin as it adds the social sharing buttons below.

CommentLuv- This plugin encourages other bloggers to comment on your posts because they are rewarded with things like a link to their most recent post. The links created are Do-Follow which in short means it helps build their site’s rankings with search engines.

Bulletproof Security- There are so many hackers and spammers around the web. I use BPS Security to help ensure my site does not get stolen and turned into a spam factory.

nrelate- This plugin adds related articles to the  bottom of each post. This gives your readers more of what they want and keeps them hanging around a little longer.

Facebook Like Thumbnail- When sharing your posts on social media sites- every WordPress theme may be coded differently as to what image to use. The Facebook Like Thumbnail gives you some control over how it chooses the image and allows you to choose a default image.

Google XML Sitemaps- This helps Google’s bots through your website so your new posts will be in the search engines as soon as possible.

Page Links To- This comes in handy for many themes that do not already have the option to create links from the navigation menu that go to other websites.

Image Widget- This allows you to place images in sidebars without needing to know coding. This simplifies life.

Pinterest Pin  It Button For Images- I love love love this plugin. After installed, when a mouse is hovered over an image on your site a Pin It Button appears- encouraging Pinterest users to share with their followers.

Send email only on Reply to My Comment- This gives anyone who comments on your site the option to be notified if anyone responds to their comment.

WordPress SEO- This helps walk you through Search Engine Optimizing your site.

WP Hide Post- Sometimes you will want to make a post that you do not want to be shown on your front page or possibly in your RSS feed. This plugin allows you to control where each post is visible.

 

There are hundreds of additional plugins that are very valuable and helpful.

Are you a blogger that uses other plugins? Please share with us!

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