12+ plugins that will help you optimize your blog

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my whole disclosure here.

In the previous section of the course, we talked about the importance of having a great theme and a well-designed site.

Today we will do more in-depth about the technical aspects of blogging and I’m going to share with you a list of very helpful plugins.

An important thing about plugins

It’s something that I’ve learned the hard way and I think that every blogger needs to know.

Plugins can be security vulnerabilities for your site. So never keep plugins that you don’t use installed on your site. They are only bringing you unnecessary risks.

Before installing any new plugins from the below list, I strongly recommend you to make an audit of the ones you already have.

Deactivate and delete all the plugins that you don’t use. And update the ones you use to make sure that they are working properly.

Recommended plugins and how they can help you

I’ll share here all the plugins that I use on my blog and how they help me. Most of them are totally free so you can install them on your blog right away if you find them useful.

If you never installed plugins on your own, it is very easy to get started. To install a new plugin, just search for it using the search box (like shown in the below screenshot) and then activate it. Also, in some cases, if you have a downloaded plugin, you can add it to your site using the “Upload Plugin” button at the top of the page.

Security plugins

These plugins are must-haves for keeping your blog safe.

1. Askimet Anti-Spam – This plugin will protect your site against unauthorized login attempts and spam comments. (free)

2. Anti-Malware Security & Brute Force Firewall – This plugin allows you to run a complete scan to automatically remove known security threats and backdoor scripts from your blog. (free – you can also upgrade to a paid premium version)

3. Wordfence Security – This plugin includes a set of tools that will keep your site safe. It blocks complex and brute force attacks and prevents many other security issues. (free)

Tracking plugins

4. Google Analytics Dashboard for WP – This plugin allows you to track your site using the Google Analytics. You will be able to see your stats in real-time directly on your blog. (free)

Tip: Don’t install more than one tracking plugin for your Google Analytics data. This can lead to a wrong reporting and can affect your statistics. If you see a very big difference between the Jetpack stats and the Google Analytics stats, there is probably a technical issue on your blog that must be solved.

SEO plugins

5. Yoast SEO – This is a must-have if you want to implement an SEO strategy on your blog. It helps you optimize every post and gives you improvement ideas to help you improve SEO. (free – you can also upgrade to a paid premium version but I don’t find this necessary)

6. Google XML Sitemaps – I found out about this plugin when I took a great SEO course and I immediately installed it on my blog. This plugin helps you improve SEO for your blog. Basically, it allows search engines (like Google) to better index your site. (free)

Social media plugins

7. Social Warfare – This is the best plugin that I’ve ever used for social media. The plugin is built by a group of social media experts and they did a great job!

The Social Warfare plugin allows you to add great-looking social media buttons to your posts. Also, I love the floating share buttons functionality and the popular posts widget.

And you can add social media buttons anywhere in your posts, as you can see below. 🙂

Or you can add those nice Click to tweet boxes to your post if you want to promote your content on Twitter. You can see an example below.

Check out this list of great WordPress plugins for bloggers. Most of them are free!Click To Tweet

These are all included in the free version but the paid premium version comes with even more awesome features. It also allows you to recover your social media share counts if you ever need to change your permalinks settings.

You can check out all the features included in this plugin here. (free – you can also upgrade to a paid premium version with many additional features)

8. Pinterest Pin It Button On Image Hover And Post – This plugin allows you to add a Pin It button to your images or posts. This helps your readers share your content on Pinterest in an easier way. (free)

9. Milo Tree – This plugin is connected to the Milo Tree app and allows you to create a popup window that invites readers to follow you on social media or subscribe to your email list.

Here is an example of how the popup window looks for Pinterest. You can create similar windows for Facebook, Instagram, or subscription forms.

It’s a paid app but in my opinion, it’s worth investing in it if you want to grow your social media following or email list. You can start a free trial to see how it works using this link. (paid)

photo credit: Candy Box Images / Canva.com

Other plugins

10. Pretty Links – This plugin allows you to shorten links using your domain name (instead of using goo.gl or bit.ly links). It also provides you a tracking report that shows you how the link performed.

This plugin is great for monitoring different campaigns and for creating easy-to-remember links for your affiliate links. (free – you can also upgrade to a paid premium version that has many additional features)

11. Jetpack – This is a very popular plugin that has several features including traffic reporting tools, SEO tools, security and backup services, and more.

I had some issues on my blog at some point due to this plugin so I deleted it for a while. Now I have it again on my blog but I only use a few of its functionalities. (free – you can also upgrade to a paid premium version)

12. WP Fastest Cache – This plugin helps you optimize your site’s speed. (free)

Plugins that are connected to other products that I use

Besides the plugins mentioned above, I use other plugins that are connected to different products that I bought for my blog. I will mention them here just to offer you a comprehensive look at all the plugins that I use right now.

You will not need these plugins unless you decide to purchase the products that are connected to them.

• Genesis plugins – I use several plugins that are connected to my Genesis theme. One of the reasons why I love this theme is that I can use all these great plugins! If you have a Genesis theme and you want to find out more about these plugins please let me know.
• Thrive Leads and Thrive Architect – These 2 plugins are connected to the Thrive products that I use. They allow me to create landing pages, subscription forms, top bars, and different other customizations included in my posts.
• Plugins connected to my email provider – Right now I use Active Campaigns for managing my email lists. So I use their plugin too. Before I used Mailchimp for my email lists and I bought a premium plugin that allowed me to create different forms and bars to integrate into my blog.

This article is part of the Smart Blogging Toolkit course. If you want to join the course you can sign up here (it’s free for a limited time).

---

>> Save these ideas for later by pinning the below image

photo credit preview photo: Rawpixel.com / shutterstock.com