There are literally thousands of different plugins out there that do all sorts of things so I thought it may be useful to list my top 10 WordPress plugins. Any blogger will know plugins are essential to help them get what they want out of their blog. . When setting up your site for the first time there are a few must have plugins & a few extras that will just help make blogging easier for you & user friendly for your visitors too!
My Top 10 WordPress Plugins
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Jetpack by WordPress.com
Jetpack connects your blog with wordpress.com it has ton of useful features such as showing Stats, providing security & spam protection, automatic plugin updater, as well as boosting image loading speeds. That’s just the free version too!
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Yoast SEO
Most bloggers have heard of SEO and how important it is when writing posts, Yoast helps you by analysing what you write and giving tips to improve your writing & use of keywords to boost your posts and make them easily searchable.
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Word Fence Security
Another security app which provides an anti-virus, firewall & malware scans to help keep your blog protected. It also allows you to view real time traffic and hack attempts.
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Akismet Anti-spam
Another security feature to prevent spam comments getting through to your blog, it catches anything it considers to be spam and allows you to review it and either approve or delete the comments.
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Google Analytics Dashboard for WP
Google Analytics gives Real-Time Statistics on your WordPress Dashboard by automatically tracking the code in every page of your website.
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Cookie Bar
You must display a cookie warning on your site to let your visitors know that your website uses cookies. Cookie bar makes it nice & easy!
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CommentLuv
This plugin lets your visitors link up their most recent post by selecting CommentLuv when commenting. This helps increase comments & community spirit. It makes it much easier for me when someone comments to return the favour!
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Broken Link Checker
This plugin is extremely helpful, it detects any broken links and images and notifies you via the dashboard so you can either update or delete them.
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Addtoany Share Buttons
This app allows you to add as many different social media share buttons as you like to display on your blog to help you visitors share your content on pretty much any platform! There are over 100 different social share buttons available with share counts which are also integrated with Google Analytics to track shares.
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No-Bot Registration
After recently being hacked by bots I was told about this plugin which helps prevent bots getting through. It works by blacklisting emails and presenting people with a security question when registering or posting a comment.
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Share drafts publicly
Ok I lied.. but I had to add in this last plugin as it has been so helpful for me! If you want a second opinion on your post or you are working with a company who wants to see your post before it goes live this plugin allows you to share a private link to your draft!
What are your top 10 WordPress plugins? Have I missed any you think are important when starting up a blog?