Well, now that you are well acquainted with basic WordPress settings we can have a deeper drive and install all the necessary plugins needed for WordPress site. Plugins make up for an integral part of any Wordpress website. Without the plugin, WordPress site will work as a normal blogger.com blog. There are tons of Wordpress plugins available in the Wordpress market and it overwhelms users to choose among millions of plugins. So we have selected some of the best plugins for you to get started with your WordPress site. Let's proceed with the guide by teaching how to install a WordPress plugin first.
How to install a plugin in Wordpress
Go to plugins and click on add new. Now you will see a list of plugins. Install the plugin you want. Now go to all plugins and activate it. Some plugins require additional settings after activation while others just run on activation.
Which are the best plugins for Wordpress blog?
1) Nextscripts: SNAP
It is a social media auto posting plugin that automatically shares your posts on all the social media available. I only set it up for automatically posting it on three major social sites that are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Once the plugin is activated then you will have to sign in with all your social media accounts in the plugin where you need the post to be shared. It has a detailed guide for adding accounts for every social media. You can check the guide and configure it yourself.
2) Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO plugin is the best SEO plugin for WordPress. It takes care of all the SEO related matters of the website like canonical URLs, breadcrumbs and snippet previews. It has been the original WordPress plugin since 2008 and has been downloaded by millions of WordPress users worldwide. I have made a separate tutorial for setting up the Yoast plugin as it is a little complicated to set up Yoast.
3) Jetpack for Wordpress
Jetpack for WordPress is an awesome all in one plugin from the creators of WordPress itself. It is an all in one tool which enables stats for your site, provides security for your site, notifies you when the site is down, also helps in search engine settings and the list is endless. You can read the description for all is features. Setting up Jetpack is quite easy and it gets fully activated in no time.
4) Akismet
Akismet is an antispam plugin which moderates comment for spam comments and automatically removes them. They have a global database of spams and prevent spammers from publishing malicious content on your website. To set up Akismet you have to make an account and get an API key which will activate Akismet on your site.
5) W3 total cache
W3 total cache is a site caching plugin which speeds up your site by caching it and improves the performance of your site. All you have to do is activate it and forget it.
6) WP smush
It comes from the provider of the W3 total cache plugin. It compresses the images used on the size and reduces the size of the image into half without reducing the quality of the image. All you have to do is activate it and forget it.
7) Google XML sitemaps
The name says it all. It automatically updates the sitemap once a post is published and notifies all the search engines about the update. Here too just activate and forget.
8) AMP
This is the official AMP plugin for WordPress. It will make all your posts AMP supported. AMP posts are good for SEO as they increase the speed of the site and decrease the loading time of your site.
This are the necessary WordPress plugins needed for any site. For more customization, you can use the contact form 7 and other plugins.
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