Yoast SEO
When it comes to SEO, there’s no better plugin than Yoast SEO. Perfect for beginners, it also has some pretty advanced SEO functionality for those who know what they are doing. Essentially, it gives you the blueprint to implement some of the best SEO guidelines.
Taking SEO seriously is a great way to get your blog started off on the right foot.
Akismet
Hands down the best spam plugin for WordPress. If left unmanaged, spam can literally kill your blog. There’s no worse feeling than logging into your WordPress dashboard and seeing thousands of spam comments.
Akismet lets you build a thriving community for your blog, while keeping the bad guys in check.
Gravity Forms
Whether you’re looking to build the perfect contact form or order page, Gravity forms has it all. We use Gravity Forms on all our sites. They make it easy for you and your site to stand out from the crowd.
Check out our tutorial here.
Optin Monster
If you want to build a successful blog, you have to have a way to capture leads. Optin Monster makes it easy for you to collect email addresses from people who visit your site. There are a wide range of email capture forms, and they are super simple to setup. Best of all, it works with a variety of different email list providers like Convertkit.
Trust on this. Optin Monster works. See our Optin Monster tutorial here.
Sucuri
Sucuri is the best in the business when it comes to making sure your site stays free of nasty viruses and the periodic hack. We’ve had several sites of ours hacked and Sucuri got them back up and running in no time.
Thirsty Affiliates
Making money through affiliate programs is one of the best ways to generate income for your blog quickly. Whether you’re linking to a book on Amazon or another amazing online tool, Thirsty Affiliates make it easy to set and track various affiliate links.
Once you start using Thristy Affiliates you’ll wonder how you got by before it.
WP Editorial Calendar
Maintaining a consistent publishing schedule on your blog is what separates the amateurs from the pros. WD Editorial Calendar makes it easy to see your content from a birds eye view.
Share A Draft
Share A Draft allows you to share your WordPress drafts with your team, making it easy for your entire team to stay up to date with your content. It’s a must have if you intend on building a team of writers for your site.
Backup Buddy
Backing up your WordPress site is a must. There’s no worse feeling than losing a ton of your work due to a computer malfunction or your severs going down. Backup Buddy makes backing up your WordPress site pain free and gives you peace of mind. Trust us on this, you don’t want to “wish” you had it.
Table of Contents
1. Askimet
Anyone who’s been blogging for over a week will tell you that you need to install some kind of anti-spam plugin. As soon as your blog goes live, you’ll be bombarded with pitches for fake handbags and magic pills. It’s a nightmare.
Askimet takes care of those comments, allowing you to focus on the ones left by your readers. Simply install Askimet, activate it using, and forget that spam even exists.
Download: Askimet
2. LeadPages
If you’re at all serious about making money from your blog or website, LeadPages is a must. It’s the simplest and best way there is to create mobile responsive landing pages without hiring a designer or messing around with code.
And whether it’s a webinar registration page or a regular sales page that you’re putting together, with LeadPages you can collect and analyze your conversion data to find out which pages convert best. I’ve created my highest ever converting landing pages with LeadPages, so I know how much of a difference it can make to your income.
Download: LeadPages
3. ThirstyAffiliates
If you do affiliate marketing, you’ll know how ugly affiliate links can be. And how frustrating it can be to have to go back through all your old content trying to locate now broken links and replace them with working ones.
This is where ThirstyAffiliates comes in. ThirstyAffiliates gives you a central location from which to manage your affiliate links, it turns long and ugly links into short and easy-to-remember ones, and it adds a handy affiliate button into your WordPress text editor, so that you can quickly insert affiliate links as you type.
Download: ThirstyAffiliates
4. Genesis Simple Share
There are a ridiculous number of social media sharing plugins out there and sifting through them to pick the best one is a nightmare. Luckily I’m here to tell you that Genesis Simple Share is the one you want.
Once you’ve downloaded and installed this plugin, simply select the social media platforms you want to enable, rearrange them, and customize the appearance from the display options provided. That’s it and you’re good to go.
Download: Genesis Simple Share
5. OptinMonster
Again, if you’re at all serious about blogging (and by that I mean you’re not just blogging about your cat and what you had for lunch today), this plugin is a must for you. OptinMonster converts visitors into subscribers and customers by capturing their email addresses with well-designed opt-in forms that are optimized for the highest conversion rates.
Download: OptinMonster
6. BackupBuddy
Until you’ve lost all of your most recent updates either because you tinkered with your databases or your site was hacked, you will not understand how valuable this plugin is. Having BackupBuddy installed gives you the peace of mind that goes with knowing that your online assets are safe, no matter what happens.
Download it: BackupBuddy
7. Yoast SEO
If you want your blog, website, or posts to rank in Google, you need to make use of and target the appropriate keywords. With Yoast SEO installed, targeting those keywords is a matter of simply plugging in a few details each time you write a new post.
Download: Yoast SEO
Searching for the right plugins can be a headache, but with these seven WordPress plugins, you can be sure that you’re getting exactly what you need. These plugins are the best WordPress plugins around and I recommend each of them personally.
