5 Plugins Every Blogger Needs
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Happy Friday lovelies! What are y’all up to this weekend? We’ve had such a rainy and busy week, all I want to do is lay on the couch and watch The Office. Soon pretty much like every other day hah. Two weeks ago I shared my first “How to Start a Blog” post with you all. After some great feedback I wanted to keep the blogging information coming for everyone! So this week I want to talk about, the top 5 plugins every Blogger needs.
When I first started using WordPress.org I was completely overwhelmed by the whole, “widget” and “plugin” thing. Like I said in the last post, I wish I would have started using Bluehost from the start. It would have made everything easier! But the upside to it all, is that I feel like I’ve learned a lot about what not to do.
You will hear the words widget and plugin on pretty much every, “how to blog” website. So to clarify the difference between the two:
WordPress Widget: is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. This is another way you are able to monetize your blog. By adding affiliate banners to your website. Also another reason you need to be self hosting your site.
WordPress Plugin: A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. Which is what we will be talking about today. Specifically the top 5 Plugins Every Blogger Needs to optimize their website.
SUMO
I just recently implemented Sumo into my website and it has been a great addition! Sumo is an email popup plugin. It is easy to navigate and took me roughly 5 mins to get set up.
One of the things I love about Sumo is the reports they send out every week to your email. This helps you to track how many visitors are seeing the pop up, who is engaging (submitting their email address) and who is ignoring the popup.
I’m still a little new to using Social Warfare, but it has been great for optimizing social media and helping to boost blog posts. For example, it allows you to add Twitter popups within your blog post. These help to optimize your social reach, allowing the reader to go ahead and tweet it to their account.
[social_warfare buttons=”Facebook,Twitter,Pinterest”][clickToTweet tweet=”Blogging can be a hot mess, but these 5 plugins make it a little less messy!” quote=”Blogging can be a hot mess, but these 5 plugins make it a little less messy!” theme=”style3″]
There is also the option to add social share buttons at the end of every post. Which I’ve found really helpful! I’m excited to explore everything Social Warfare has to offer, especially since it’s been so easy and great up to this point. You can get started optimizing your site with social warfare here!
Jetpack is truly the number one plugin that you need! It is amazing for letting you know how many visitors are coming to your site and where they are coming from. I use Jetpack for tracking the traffic coming to my blog. It’s great for pulling together monthly numbers for brands.
You can add the Jetpack widget here!
Jetpack is comprised of a few dozen separate “modules,” which you can choose to activate or deactivate as you wish. When you activate a module, you can use that feature on your blog. When you deactivate it, its code will no longer load or run on your site. Overall it’s straight forward and perfect when you are starting out in the blogging world.
AKISMET PLUGIN
Spammers (human and automated) love WordPress as much as bloggers do, so to say you need a spam blocker is an understatement. Akismet has long reigned as the best spam blocker for WordPress, and it has done a great job with my site for the past year. The plugin is free, so you might as well go add it now!
Yoast is truly a beast of a plugin and needed for optimizing your blog’s SEO content. It makes it very easy to ensure that every post you publish has hit all of the SEO points. Once installed, Yoast automatically populates at the bottom of every post you start drafting. Here’s an example of how this post looks in Yoast.
I love how straight forward Yoast makes SEO, especially for someone (like myself) who is completely in the dark when it comes to making sure SEO is set up correct.
AMAZON AFFLIATE
Amazon has an affiliate program that you can sign up now, regardless of your current following With this program comes a plugin that will populate at the top of your draft. This allows you to add any products from the Amazon website straight into the post. Here’s an example of what the plugin looks like once activated:
It’s very straight forward and great for adding shoppable images into your blog posts.
I hope all of this was helpful! I know it was a TON of information, but I wanted to make sure you all knew why each plugin is actually beneficial for your site.
Now it’s time to go drink a marg, because apparently yesterday was National Margarita Day and I completely missed out!
XOXO
Emily