I have tried and tested a fair share of plugins during my blogging journey, but these 13 free WordPress plugins have stuck since the beginning.
So, what is a plugin? A plugin is an extension that adds extra features to your website. See them as apps for your site.
These must-have plugins are perfect for bloggers and are free. Need I say more? Most plugins include a pro plan; however, I find the free versions efficient.
This post might contain affiliate links i.e. I will get a small commission if you purchase an item through them. Your support means the world to me ♥.
13 Essential Free WordPress Plugins For Bloggers
1. Yoast SEO
You’ve probably heard the term ‘search engine optimization’ (SEO) floating around. A good SEO strategy is essential for a successful blog.
SEO is primarily scored by how you use keywords efficiently for it to rank on Google, Pinterest, or any other search engine (even Instagram).
Yoast SEO is the #1 SEO plugin and one of my favorite free WordPress plugins. It improves your chances of ranking by guiding you to meet certain requirements, such as:
- Keyword distribution and volume
- Key phrase position in the title
- Meta description optimization
- Alt text descriptions
- And so much more
All in all, Yoast SEO is number one on this list for a reason. It might just be the most important plugin for a successful blog.
2. MonsterInsights
Everyone needs a plugin to track traffic to their website. It is the only way to gauge what is doing well and what isn’t. MonsterInsights connects your WordPress site to Google Analytics.
The free version of this plugin includes insights to:
- 9 Metrics – sessions, page views, total users, page views/user, session duration, bounce rate, new users, engagement rates, and sessions per user.
- All-time stats – total page views, total sessions, number of posts, number of pages, and number of comments.
- The most popular days and times your readers are active.
- New vs. returning visitors, as well as device breakdowns
- Your top 10 countries
- Top 10 referrals, i.e., where your traffic is coming from.
- And top posts/pages
3. Jetpack
Jetpack is an all-encompassing plugin. I primarily use this plugin for its security and website speed features.
The security features (I use) include:
- Account protection – Protect your site with advanced password detection and profile management protection.
- Brute force protection – Prevents bots and hackers from logging in to your website.
Performance and speed are crucial for running a successful blog. Pages that take over 3 seconds to load have a 4x higher bounce rate. Shocking, right? I highly recommend you install this plugin’s add-on, Jetpack Boost, for better user experience.
The performance and speed features (I use) include:
- Enabling the site accelerator speeds up image and static file load times.
- Optimizing the critical CSS – Every time you adjust your HTML structure, you need to regenerate the CSS.
- Clearing the cache – Jetpack can do this, however, my hosting provider already provides page caching, so I just use Bluehost.
I have the following enabled additionally (and yes, I don’t know all the meanings of these things lol):
- Defer non-essential JavaScript
- Concatenate JS
- Concatenate CSS, and
- Image CDN
Jetpack also generates XML sitemaps. Now, don’t freak out. I was a year into blogging before I knew this was a thing! Sitemaps are files that search engines, like Google, use to index your website, i.e., approving it to show in a Google search. Copy and paste these XML sitemaps into your Google Search Console to start indexing your posts. Let me know if you want a quick tutorial!
Jetpack Social allows you to automatically share posts to social networks and add like buttons to posts. And there are so many more features I didn’t even cover here.
4. EWWW Image Optimizer
Talk about small and powerful! This simple plugin does the most basic thing, but improves your sight immensely.
EWWW Image Optimizer helps you make your site faster, improving your bounce rate. It crunches all the images you upload to your site for better loading speed. The best of all? It does this automatically every time.
5. Health Check & Troubleshooting
This plugin does regular checks and rates your site’s health. It breaks it down to critical issues and recommended improvements.
I don’t use this plugin often, however, it is good to check on your site’s health frequently. As you can see below, my site could use attention with 3 critical issues. Guess what I’m doing this weekend?
6. Broken Link Checker
Ain’t no one got time to navigate through 1000s of links on their website regularly! So, I give you the Broken Link Checker free WordPress plugin.
You can set how often this plugin checks for broken links; mine checks every 72 hours. Afterwards, you will receive an email with broken links that need attention. This will save you time and contribute to the user experience.
7. Updraft
Updraft is the most popular plugin for scheduled backups. Backup your website to Dropbox, Google Drive, and more. So, if something goes wrong on your site? Restore it in 3 clicks!
My website is scheduled to be backed up weekly, and I manually back it up before interfering with my blog’s interface, i.e., when I get the urge to redesign my blog lol.
8. Elementor
Elementor is a user-friendly WordPress website builder with a drag-and-drop functionality. Build a professional-looking website without the struggle. I use Elementor with every single blog post and it is another one of my favorite free WordPress plugins. The widgets include:
- Headings and text editors
- Images, carousels, and galleries
- Videos
- Buttons
- Testimonials and ratings
- Shortcodes and HTML blocks
- Progress bars, counters, and toggles
- And so much more
Okay, so you want more widgets to play with? There are add-on plugins you can install for Elementor:
- Essential Addons For Elementor, and
- Unlimited Elements For Elementor
9. Newsletter Sign Up Form
This is your sign to start a newsletter, if you haven’t already. There are a bunch of free options out there, like MailChimp and MailerLite.
Install a plugin for the email provider you use. Link your email provider to the plugin via your API key and then simply copy and paste the shortcode into the widget at the end of every blog post.
10. Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is a plugin that allows you to create, well, a contact form (as you can see under my ‘Work With Me’ page). It makes it easy for anyone to reach out to you without having to go through the whole email process.
I also have the Contact Form 7 Connector addon installed. Essentially, it connects your form with your email provider (MailChimp, MailerLite, and Zapier services).
11. Top 10
Top 10 is just a fun plugin I discovered recently. I simply add the shortcode to my blog post, and it showcases my most popular posts at that given time. You can see it below.
It is a simple, free WordPress plugin that is great for bloggers because it extends session durations and pages viewed per user.
12. Smash Balloon
Smash Balloon is a free WordPress plugin that allows you to share your Instagram feed on your posts. It updates in real time as long as you’ve pasted the shortcode into your article. Drive traffic to your Instagram with a few clicks.
This is how it will look:
13. Social Warfare
Get more social shares and traffic with the best WordPress social sharing plugin. You know those share buttons at the top of this post? Yup, that is Social Warfare.
You can choose which top social networks to display, including:
- X
- Mix
You also have full control over where and how you want to place these buttons, for instance:
- Above post content
- Below post content
- Both above and below
- Manual placement, or
- Floating share buttons
Conclusion
That wraps the 13 free WordPress plugins every blogger must have! Let me know what other blogging content you’ll be interested in!
Go check out my blog post checklist for beginners and my ultimate Pinterest strategy to up your blogging game!
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Have a great day wherever you are in the world!
Love, Steph ♥
