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There are thousands of WordPress plugins out there. I use a number of plugins to power my blog that improves the overall site’s performance and makes it an easy place to be around. Today I’m going to share some must-have free WordPress plugins with you to enhance a visitor’s experience on the website and keep them coming back for more.
Let’s take a deep dive into these free WordPress plugins –
Table of Contents:
4. Akismet
5. WP-DB-Backup
9. Dave’s WordPress Live Search
10. Smart 404
11. W3 Total Cache
1. WP-Super Cache:
A caching plugin is really a requirement with Google’s new focus on page load speed.
WP-Super Cache enables logged-in users to disable caching, important if you’re trying to do some editing on your site minus the pages constantly caching.
It also allows mobile support and greatly speeds up page load times.
2. StatPress Reloaded:
Offers your site statistics instantly. StatPress explains exactly where your traffic is arriving from; it shows you the number of daily page views, referrers, IP addresses, user agents (bots), and much more.
A great addition to AWStats from the hosting company.
3. WordPress Database Backup:
It’s very vital that you have made an up-to-date backup of your site in the event anything goes very wrong, or your blog is hacked.
This plugin will email you backups on a regular schedule, or else you can have them saved to your server.
4. Akismet:
Akismet is a sophisticated spam blocker and is extremely helpful considering I get a lot of spam comments each day across my various sites.
It is so helpful in the fact that it comes already installed through WordPress, you just need to activate it using a free key which you can get through its plugin page and it begins cutting down on 99% of the spam comments which you get immediately.
5. WP-DB-Backup:
It’s a good idea to frequently back up your blog’s data in case the worst happens. You should also backup everything before you routinely update your version of WordPress when a newer version becomes available, as well.
If you’re looking to start your own website then use WordPress recommended web hosting i.e. Bluehost. Check out Bluehost pricing details and the latest offers that you can avail of.
WP-DB-Backup enables you to backup core/other tables in the same database to one conveniently compressed file. You can backup your blog on-demand or can schedule to have a backup file created and emailed to you regularly.
Setting up this plugin gives you a lot of peace of mind.
6. Google Sitemap Generator:
A sitemap is helpful for enabling web crawlers and on rare occasions users, as well, to more conveniently and easily navigate your site.
Google loves for sites to have a fresh sitemap and Google Sitemap Generator makes it a one-click or even an automated process for building a new one in a couple of seconds.
7. All In One SEO Pack:
The All In One SEO Pack takes care of the annoying details of remembering to optimize your site for on-site search engine optimization (SEO) and simplifies the process, saving you time.
This plugin offers a lot of options in terms of settings, and it provides a template with each new post that you make in which you can input your title, keywords, and description.
You can use tools such as Semrush that can help you to increase your organic rankings. Here’s how you can get a Semrush free trial and use the tool worth $119.95 for free.
8. Photo Dropper:
If you like adding photos to your posts, this plugin makes it super easy because it searches for photos on Flickr which falls under the creative commons license.
You simply search for a photo related to your topic and it will place the photo directly in your post with credit text and a link back to Flickr.
9. Dave’s WordPress Live Search:
This is another great plugin and enhances the search experience on the site. Like on Apple’s website, this one brings up results immediately using the power of jQuery.
Get articles and pages appear after typing the first few letters of a query.
This is fully customizable with the ability to use different styles as well as your own. This is a must-have plugin for any professional website. It works with other plugins to enhance search results.
10. Smart 404:
A very simple plugin that makes a big difference. It looks at the keywords typed in the URL when a 404 error occurs and uses it to search through pages and articles to find and redirect the page to something relevant instead of the standard 404 error page.
11. W3 Total Cache:
I’ve saved the best for last because this has got to be the best plugin for enhancing UX, and it does that by reducing page load times which is one of the most important factors to a website.
It can take a while to set up, but once this is done it can be quite effective using its advanced page caching, minifying CSS and Javascript while combining the files you want to.
It has a feature for using a CDN that greatly reduces loading times and has many other features too. This is an extremely powerful plugin and should be set up properly in order for it to work well.
Not to mention loading times affect your SEO scores too so check how it affects your PageSpeed and YSlow ratings, you’ll be surprised!
Conclusion:
As you see, these free WordPress plugins will allow you to further enhance your blog functionality and create an effective online presence.
Those are the main plugins that I am sure to install with any WordPress blog that I create. I find that my blogs are even indexed faster. I’m not sure if it’s due to the plugins but I’m sure they don’t hurt.
You can find all of the plugins mentioned above by searching for them in any of the main search engines or by searching the various WordPress plugin directories.
It is a good idea to browse through the available plugins so you can leverage the ones that best suit your unique needs. To your success!
Author Bio:
Hey,
I am Shubham Chopra, founder of Marketing Savior and an exuberant content creator with a great zest for providing insightful reviews about digital products that will help startups & SMEs penetrate into the online world easily.
