Welcome to Part 3 of my How to start a profitable blog series.
So, you’ve chosen your blog theme, but you’ve come to realize your theme can’t do everything you need it to do.
This is where plugins will save your blogging life!
First and foremost…
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What is a plugin?
A plugin is simply a piece of code or software that gives your blog more functionality and additional features.
Think of a plugin like an add-on for a browser or an app for a smartphone.
Now, if you’ve ever visited a blog for any length of time, you’ve run into plugins. You know those social share buttons you see all the time on blog posts? That’s one common example of a plugin. Basically, plugins will deliver what your theme lacks.
Plugins can be free or paid. If you’re on a blogging budget, don’t worry. Many of the free plugins do exactly what you need and work as good as some paid plugins. Later in this post, I will recommend both free and paid plugins that will make your blogging journey so much smoother and save you lots of time.
In this section, I’m going to show you how to choose the best WordPress plugins for blogs and my personal recommendations for the plugins you should use for blogging success.
After starting the Luster Lexicon, it took me months of trial-and-error to find the right plugins. This section will save you so much time and headache it’s not even funny.
How to choose the best WordPress plugins for blogs
To choose the best WordPress plugins for blogs, I’ve highlighted four key points for your consideration.
- Only choose plugins that have a feature(s) your theme lacks. You don’t want to download a caching plugin if that’s already included in your theme. Doing so will add unnecessary bloat and lag to your blog.
- Similarly, to the point I made above, don’t download plugins that have the same feature(s) as another plugin you’re already using. For example, if you have a security plugin that limits the logins to the admin dashboard as one of its features, you don’t want to download the Limit Login Attempts plugin in addition.
- Look for plugins that have a large number of downloads and are rated 4-stars minimum. I also recommend reading some of the reviews that users have left and googling plugin + your theme to see if there are any problems. On the flipside, avoid low-rated plugins with a small number of downloads. These plugins are more susceptible to being exploited by hackers, slowing your blog down, and being poorly coded.
- Before you go nuts and start downloading plugins, know that less is more. Plugins are a wonderful thing to have on your blog. However, the more plugins you have, the more likely it is that they will slow down your blog or open you up to hacking. Think of plugins like drinking water. Getting the right amount of water is incredibly nourishing, but too much can harm and even kill you. Only download the plugins that are an absolute must for you and nothing more.
The best free WordPress plugins for bloggers
With all that being said, I recommend using the following free plugins. They all have great utility, clean code, and shouldn’t noticeably slow down your website. You can find these by going to Plugins -> Add New on your WordPress dashboard’s left-hand sidebar. Then, input the name of each in the search bar. If you need a little more guidance on installing a plugin to your blog, I’ve included a quick tutorial in the next section. Anyway, onto the plugins!
Yoast SEO – Improve your blog’s SEO as Yoast gives you easy-to-follow recommendations for your posts. Additionally, Yoast SEO will create a sitemap for you so Google and other search engines know how to rank and crawl your blog.
UpdraftPlus – Backing up your website on a regular basis is extremely important. If something goes wrong like a bad update or a hack, you can revert your blog back to a previous time. UpdraftPlus lets you back up or restore your blog to a previous time with the click of a button.
Really Simple SSL – Really Simple SSL installs your free SSL certificate for you in one click. This plugin completely lives up to its name!
Antispam Bee – This plugin will automatically prevent most comment spam from posting on your website. All you have to do is keep it activated.
Optional free plugins that can improve your theme functionality and user experience
Sassy Social Share – As the name implies, this free plugin gives you customizable social media share buttons on your website. You can add the buttons to posts and pages and even have them float as a user scrolls.
Easy Table of Contents – Easy Table of Contents lets you insert a table of contents directly into your blog posts and pages. The table of contents is automatically generated based on your header tags.
Hellobar – An easy-to-use, plugin that collects e-mail address from your visitors. They have a premium version which is really useful, but the free version works pretty well too.
Contact Form 7 – This useful plugin lets you create submission forms that can be inserted into the posts and pages of your blog. One of the best types of forms to create is a contact form. Instead of sending you an e-mail from an e-mail client, your visitors can fill out a contact form with their name, e-mail, and message that is sent directly to your e-mail inbox.
Tiny MCE Advanced – The Tiny MCE Advanced plugin gives you more text editing options, including fonts, sizes, and more for when you’re writing your blog posts.
Classic Editor – Recently, WordPress updated to a brand new interface for writing posts and pages called Gutenburg. Many people, including myself, prefer the old interface. The Classic Editor plugin reverts Gutenburg back to the old interface and is compatible with most plugins that worked with the old interface.
Remember, the fewer plugins you have the better. Only use plugins that you need and delete the ones you don’t use.
How to install a WordPress Plugin
First things first, login to your WordPress admin dashboard.
On the left-hand sidebar, Locate the “Plugins” tab and click it. You should now see “Add New.” Click Add New.
You should now be at the Add Plugins homepage. At the top, you will see a header with options such as Search Results, Featured, Popular Recommend, Favorites, and a search bar to the right. Go ahead and type in the name of one of the plugins I recommended into the search bar.
The plugin should auto-populate below the header as the first option on the left side. Click the install now button that is located in the plugin’s box.
After it has finished installing, click activate and you’re done!
Can’t find your newly installed plugin?
Read on to learn how to find WordPress plugins!
How to find your installed plugins on WordPress
Now that you have installed your first plugin, you may be wondering how to access it.
Well, that depends on the plugin you installed. They will all be located on the left-hand sidebar of the WordPress admin dashboard either as a standalone option or under the Settings tab. From there, you can configure each plugin to your liking.
To see a list of your installed plugins, click “Installed Plugins” located under the Plugins tab on the left-hand sidebar. You will now be taken to the Plugins page which displays all of your active and inactive plugins. From this page, you can activate plugins and also delete them.
Alright! So that’s about all there is to plugins. You’re now one step closer to having your blog set up for profitability and success! In the next part of my how to start a profitable blog series, we will go over how to customize WordPress for success.
Click here to be taken to the next part of the series.
