The Ultimate List of Must-Have WordPress Plugins #MyBlogU

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Today at #MyBlogU we continue building our crowd-sourced blogging reference guide.

If you want to get featured in these chapters as well as during the chat, please provide your blogging tip here: Next time we are discussing how to connect to your niche peers and influencers by promoting your promoters! That’s a great tactic to start building up your contacts!

Or alliteratively – become a better blogger and Blow $1000! #myblogu

— Phil Turner (@EP_pturner) April 9, 2015

Today we are listing must-have WordPress plugins in an effort to create the ultimate (yet non-overwhelming) resource for bloggers.

Now to our ultimate plugin list…

A few notes:

• Stay away from installing too many plugins and depending on any. Plugins may slow down your site. In many sections below you need to pick ONE plugin (while keeping the alternatives in mind). Pick the one you like based on screenshots, reviews, your own experience: Sometimes the choice depends on personal perspective; therefore I kept a few to give you options
• I left some (popular) plugins out because this list is meant to be no-clutter newbie-friendly (yet, quite comprehensive). For example, many would list caching plugins as must-haves BUT they may be a trouble to install and, frankly, from personal experience, they don’t make such big of a difference. Choosing a good hosting is much more important than caching anything. I also left Google Analytics plugins out: You can view your site stats at Google analytics site. My rule is, if I can do without a plugin, I will!

(Please do let us know in the comments if any of the plugins are buggy, non-supported and need to be replaced. Also please do suggest your favorite plugins!)

So today's chat will be a tough lesson on cognitive dissonance: you'll have to choose THE plugin. 😀 #wordpress #myblogu

— Roxana Nasoi (@roxanasoi) April 9, 2015

Honorable mention: MyBlogU official plugin

Since its our official plugin (and hard work!) we’ll list it first: MyBlogU WordPress plugin helps you create EPIC content and increase your content engagement!

Basic Blog Management Plugins

(“Basic” in a sense of “my blog would be broken without these”)

• Askimet (paid): To avoid spam clutter

@myblogu Is the paid Akismet even better than the free one Ann? #myblogu

— Phil Turner (@EP_pturner) April 9, 2015

@EP_pturner My understanding is that they are the same product, but paid Akismet is for larger, profitable/high traffic blogs #myblogu

— WordPressionist (@WPressionist) April 9, 2015

@EP_pturner yeah it's the same but my blogs usually need a paid one because of the high amount of spam :/ #myblogu

— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) April 9, 2015

• Contact Form 7: Let your readers keep in touch with you! Plus Really Simple Captcha to fight spam.
  • Another good option here: Fast Secure Contact Form. It’s great for the Contact page and highly customizable, so messages go directly to your inbox. It blocks all spammers, and has no templates.
• Backup Buddy (paid): To save backups of your blog regularly. Updraft Plus (free) is another good option here!

Video Thumbnails will automatically call the thumbnail from Youtube, Vimeo and Vine, and make it your featured image. #myblogu

— Andrew James (@AJUTAH) April 9, 2015

SEO plugins

WordPress doesn’t need too much SEO work but it’s nice to have some control over your title and meta tags!

• Broken Link Checker: Links get old and outdated! Use this plugin to keep track and fix for SEO and user experience
• Google Sitemap Generator: For Google and Bing to discover your pages easier
• WP SEO by Yoast: A great on-site SEO plugin to control your post titles, use Twitter cards, etc with great documentation for newbies
  • Another good option here: Add Meta Tags: The basic of basics for meta tags, open graph, twitter cards, schema.org, Dublin core and more microdata formats

Old Content Promotion Plugins

Blog posts get old too fast: they go down the archives, off the home page, and no one reads them any more. Therefore always make sure to install one of these “Related articles” plugins that include older articles on a similar topic below your blog post content.

(Pick one!)

• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP): This is the oldest one. It may slow your site down. The big benefit is that “related posts” links can be indexed by search engines
• Shareaholic WordPress Plugin: Search engines won’t be able to crawl related posts with this one, but on the plus side, it’s super fast and adds social media sharing buttons too!

Many of the related posts plugins have a monetizing option too for those who are interested! #WordPress #myblogu

— WordPressionist (@WPressionist) April 9, 2015

Lead generation plugins

Creating sign-up forms to build your email list is a must from day one! These plugins will make it easier!

• Sumome: This is both the social sharing AND the email list building plugin. They also have some other really cool features like heat maps etc.

Social Media Plugins

Let people follow you on social media and encourage them to share your content with their friends: These plugins will do both!

• Social Media Widget: To let your readers follow you everywhere!
  • Another option: About.me Widget: This one lets you create a cool-looking “About me” widget that includes social media follow buttons
  • Yet another option: AddThis Smart Layers: Adds Social media follow, like and share buttons along with previews for desktops, tablets and phones
• Click to Tweet: In-text plugin that allows you to tweet with just a click away. The author can introduce a short text in the text editor that launches a tweet with a link to the article. This kills off the boring headline-type of Tweets and adds personality.
  • Another option here: Tweet this

Social media sharing plugins to let your readers share your content on social media (Pick one!)

• WP Socializer or
• WPSocialite or
• Digg Digg or
• Floating Social Media bar plugin or
• Social Warfare (paid but it’s reported to up social media shares significantly! Plus it has “Tweet quote” functionality, so it combines two plugins in one!)

Monetization Plugins

• Adsense Plugin: This does everything – decides what ad sizes, positions etc without any other input

A6: Use Ad Injection to rotate banners/images that link to your offers. http://t.co/Xm0DayHTMQ Works in sidebar and/or content. #myblogu

— Andrew James (@AJUTAH) April 9, 2015

let’s thank our MyBlogU contributors who have been crowd-sourcing today’s list: David Leonhardt @amabaie, Gary Dek @startablog123, Freddie Chatt @freddiechatt, Don Sturgill @DonSturgill, Roxana Nasoi @roxanasoi, Krista Wiltbank @kristawiltbank, Maria Hoath Peagler @SM_OnlineClass, Phil Turner @EP_pturner, Abacus Marketing @AbacusCreative, Anton Eliasson @AntonEliasson, Abdul Rehman @passionblogging, Marisa Sanfilippo @MarisaASan, Philip Kleudgen @restacover, Shauna Mackenzie @MsShaunaMack, Jona Friedri @ohwhollyvegan, Ashley Faulkes @madlemmingz, Michael Shaw @towermarketing, Matt Gates @OneTruConscious

Please nominate your plugins to be included in this list in the comments!

If you want to get featured in these chapters as well as during the chat, please provide your blogging tip here