In my recent post about How to Start a Blog I spoke about the benefits of using WordPress plugins. And today I want to run through 15 of the best WordPress plugins for bloggers.

First, it helps to understand what plugins are. Put simply, they are various apps you can add to your WordPress dashboard. They help you to personalise your site as well as improve overall site functionality.

**This post may contain affiliate links. The services I share are the services I personally use and honestly recommend to anyone. No extra costs are incurred for you; the referral commission simply contributes to bringing you valuable content. 

Now, let’s get into the best WordPress plugins for bloggers.

1. Jetpack

This is my all time favourite plugin and one of the main reasons why I was so adamant about finding a way to get a WordPress blog linked to my Wix site.

One of the keys to a successful blogging business is knowing where your traffic is coming from. And this is by far the best analytics tool I’ve come across. It breaks your visits down into days, weeks, or months. And shows you exactly where your clicks have come from.

So this way you can tell if a specific post is doing particularly well. Or find out which of your traffic sources is best.

Get Jetpack here.

2. Yoast SEO

If you want people to find your blog, nothing beats ranking on Google and other search engines. And the best way to do that is to ensure your blog is Search Engine Optimised (commonly referred to as SEO).

This is the other reason why I didn’t love the Wix blog. It has an ok SEO tool for setting up your website to get ranked. But when it comes to every individual blog post there is no help. And you’re paying $15 a month for their tool which has nothing on Yoast.

Yoast SEO tool analyses every single blog post for readability & SEO. And it gives you tips on how to improve your score, so before you even hit publish you can make sure every post has the best chance of showing up in search engines. Plus it’s free.

Get Yoast SEO here.

3. GDPR Cookie Consent

With the changes to data protection and privacy laws in the EU last year it’s important to make sure your blog is compliant. This plugin easily adds the Cookies consent conditions to your site.

Get GDPR Cookie Consent here.

4. Akismet Anti-Spam

Like anything online, you’re going to come across spam. And you could either manually go through and delete every single malicious spammy comment you get.

Or you could install Akismet and let this plugin do all the work for you. It automatically reviews comments and blocks or deletes any that look like spam. Saving you time and protecting your site.

Get Akismet here.

5. Social Icons Widget

This is a great widget that allows you to add icons that link to all your favourite social media profiles.

One of the biggest ways to build a stronger brand is to create a loyal following and the best way to do that is to have people that follow you in multiple places.

This makes it easy for people to follow you on all your other platforms, turning them into loyal fans.

Get Social Icons Widget here.

6. jQuery Pin It Button for Images

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve probably heard Pinterest is a blogger’s best friend. Not only is it a search engine, but it’s a massive source of traffic for any blogger if used right.

This was another reason why I didn’t love the Wix blog. They have no way of adding rich pins. You want to be able to easily share your pinnable images directly to Pinterest with all your captions. This isn’t possible on Wix.

But the jQuery pin it button on WordPress makes it easy for your images to be pinnable for yourself and anyone else who visits your blog.

Get jQuery here.

7. Official Facebook Pixel

You may not want to run Facebook ads straight away. But as your business grows there will come a time when Facebook ads become a very lucrative part of your business strategy.

And you’ll kick yourself if you haven’t been collecting your audience data over the years leading up to that point. You don’t need to be running ads yet, but it’s still highly worthwhile to set up a Facebook page and put your Facebook pixel into your blog so you can track your visitor data right from the get go.

And this plugin makes it super simple to do.

Get Official Facebook Pixel here.

8. Instagram Feed

Instagram basically goes hand in hand with any blog these days. And this great Instagram Feed plugin does exactly what the name suggests.

It allows you to add your Instagram feed as a widget. Readers can see your Instagram photos and easily follow you without even having to leave your blog.

Get Instagram Feed here.

9. ARVE Advanced Responsive Video Embedder

This awesome tool easily embeds videos from Youtube, Vimeo or HTML5 into your blog posts.

And it’s responsive which means it automatically sets them to the right dimension and optimises them for mobile/desktop etc.

This is great if you’re consistently including video content such as training videos, tutorials, vlogs etc. in your blogs.

Get ARVE Embedder here.

10. Broken Link Checker

Broken links can cause a site to rank poorly and get you blacklisted in search engines.

As the name suggests, Broken Link Checker regularly checks your site for broken links and notifies you if it comes across any issues so you can promptly resolve these.

Get Broken Link Checker here.

11. Smush

If you’re a creative, lifestyle blogger, entrepreneur, travel blogger or fall in any number of other niches. Chances are you upload a lot of images within your blog posts.

This is great to give people more reason to repin your blogs. Plus it adds depth and personality to your posts.

But, a lot of images can also cause your site to run slow. Which is never good for ranking with search engines.

So Smush is a great plugin to help you avoid that as it auto adjusts all your images to reduce the size without reducing quality.

Get Smush here.

12. Autoptimize

As mentioned above, performance of your site is extremely important when it comes to SEO.

Autoptimize is another plugin that helps you ensure your site is working optimally.

Get Autoptimize here.

13. Sumo Me

If you’re using your blog for business you definitely want to save this one. It creates customised banners that link directly to your email list.

It integrates with many of the top email marketing platforms making it super simple to grow your list.

Get Sumo Me here.

14. Clickfunnels

If you’re a little more advanced in your marketing strategy you may already be using Clickfunnels. Rather than just having basic optin forms asking people to subscribe to your email list.

Clickfunnels allows you to create much more in depth lead magnets, sales funnels and more. The benefit of adding the Clickfunnels plugin to your site is that it then enables you to link all your funnels to your main domain instead of having to make up other domains to use in your Clickfunnels account.

Get Clickfunnels here.

Then follow these instructions to set up the Clickfunnels plugin.

15. VaultPress

The internet is a wonderful place, but it can also be a scary place. Hackers and other nasty people may try to get access to your account for no good reason.

So it’s always best to play it safe and keep backups of all your data. VaultPress is a great plugin that does this for you automatically.

Get VaultPress here.

So, there you have it. 15 of the best WordPress plugins for bloggers.

Now, how do you go about installing these plugins?

You could download them from any of the individual sites and then upload them to your blog.

Or you can simply go to your Dashboard – scroll to Plugins – click Add New and search for any of the ones you want. Then simply click Install, then Activate. Soooo simple!

As much as plugins are great when they’re working well. If they stop working then they can cause major issues to the functionality of your site. And you don’t want that.

So I recommend regularly checking your plugins to make sure they’re up to date. Also, de-activate and delete out any you’re no longer using.

This is super easy to do from the Installed Plugins section of your Dashboard.

And that’s it, everything you need to know about WordPress plugins for bloggers. Are you using any of these? Do you have any other ones you would recommend?

Don’t have a blog yet? Read my How to Start a Blog post to get yours up and running today.

Happy Blogging!

Jade xo

P.S. If you like what you’ve read feel free to like, comment, or share. Your time reading my posts is greatly appreciated.