WordPress is one of the most popular blogging sites today, and has been for a long time. The blogging world itself has been subject to several technological innovations, making the art of blogging even more interesting, versatile, and lucrative.
In order to better cater to their reading a viewing audience, bloggers are now looking at plugins that they can use to handle their blog.
Top 10 Most Useful WordPress Plugins
Plugins also help to create an improved experience for blog readers and visitors. Below are some WordPress plugins that have been proved the most popular among expert WordPress users:
1. W3 Total Cache
A WordPress blog or site must have a decent speed. This would not only facilitate its audience but also drive the site up in its search engine rankings.
The plugin helps to optimize a WordPress site in terms of performance, speed, and several other features. It also allows WordPress users to set up browser and page caches very easily.
Additionally, this plugin allows compressing pages, which makes for easier downloading. What’s more, it can also set up a delivery system for any static files one may have. Guides for beginners on the W3 Total Cache are available online.
If you are using a shared hosting plan, W3TotalCache is a must have plugin and believe me it is one of the Most Useful WordPress Plugins to speed up your WordPress blog.
2. Disqus
Disqus is a plugin that enhances the commenting system on WordPress. It works especially well for those websites or blogs with a high number of visitors and commenters, making them easier to handle and interact with.
This plugin is basically a third party system that doesn’t put an extra burden on the user’s server since it isn’t hosted by WordPress itself. This also means that it won’t weigh down the speed of the site.
As an added bonus, it comes with spam filters, which prevent any unwanted robots taking over the comment section. This helps to keep the whole site professional and useful.
3. WordPress SEO By Yoast
WordPress SEO is a total upgrade on the whole WordPress deal. It optimizes one’s WordPress site and helps it to reach its full potential. WordPress SEO works by adding titles, headings, and descriptions to a writer’s articles so that its SEO content would increases.
Open Graph meta data, page analysis, sitemaps, etc, are just a few more features offered by WordPress SEO. Many experts have used this plugin on their WordPress platforms.
4. WPtouch
One mark of a successful and properly working website is that it is also easily available and usable on smartphones as well as PCs and laptops. Users can use this WP plugin to create a mobile version of their sites.
This would result in the sites having features and capabilities above and beyond those of the basic themes. WPTouch also offers support for e-commerce software such as shopping carts, mobile advertising, a personal app for your site, and customization of content.
5. UPDraftPlus
Every writer or site owner needs to back up their content in some way. With the UPDraftPlus plugin, WordPress users can automatically backup their data using a schedule.
The data could be saved in the cloud, which is excellent for migration to other devices as well. Plus, the backups are in real time, meaning that one doesn’t have to worry about losing recent data.
6. WPforms
For WordPress novices, this plugin is probably the best choice for their website. It is basically a form builder that allows for a drag and drop function, making handling forms much easier and quicker than without it.
With WPForms, users can create email and newsletter subscription form for their sites; build relevant contact forms, order forms, payment forms, all in a matter of clicks.
There is a free Lite WPForms for those who don’t want to pay out just yet, and a pro version for the full advanced features.
7. TablePress
The regular version of WordPress does not have an option for inserting tables, which could be problematic for some site content creators. If one needs tables for informational purposes or just to get a point across in an easy manner, they would be better off downloading the TablePress plugin.
This software allows one to insert a table and edit it within their WordPress site. The tables created thus could be used to enhance posts, widgets, pages, and anything else within the site or blog. TablePress also allows users to export table data. No HTML or CSS language needed for tables anymore!
8. Sucuri WordPress Plugin
Sucuri is basically a security plugin. Hackers and malicious software can affect just about anything connected to the Internet now. As always, preventive measures are best, and Sucuri provides just that.
By giving users a website security scanner, malware removal service, and even real-time alerts for suspicious logins and updates, this plugin is definitely worth considering.
9. Floating Social Bar
There are several social media plugins that could be useful for WordPress sites. However, they are usually quite bloated and involve the unnecessary script, which could slow down the speed of your platform.
Hence, the plugin of the Floating Social Bar is an excellent choice for arranging and keeping your social media plugins in one place. Site owners and managers can also pick and choose which social media platform they can advertise on their site.
Since the Floating Social Bar is lightweight and optimized for speed, it won’t slow down your WordPress site.
10. Adsanity
The addition of advertisements is the main earning point of many WordPress beginners. AdSanity is a plugin focused on helping users manage their ads on their WordPress site. With this, adding new advertisements is just as easy as updating or adding a new post.
The plugin provides shortcodes and widgets so that displaying ads in posts, pages, tabs, and sidebars is not difficult at all.
Site owners can also make use of this plugin to create time-based ads, which are perfect for competitions and coupons that have a time limit. Graphs and stats for advertisement views and clicks measurement are also extremely useful tools.
Wrapping Up…
WordPress is an excellent platform for just about any kind of website. However, it does have its limits, and cannot possibly be expected to cater to individual needs. Luckily, the plugins above and much more are always there to supply even the most detailed of needs for a website owner or manager.
Do you think, above mentioned plugins are the Most Useful WordPress Plugins if you are using any other plugin, share with us and add your comments below?