What is a WordPress plugin, you ask?
WordPress plugins are simply small pieces of software that can be added to a WordPress website.
They are used to extend functionality of your site or blog, or to simply add new features.
I covered how to build a blog with WordPress in last week’s gazette and promised to talk about plugins today. So here goes…
WordPress plugins take literally seconds to install and usually just a few minutes to configure. They are written in PHP programming so they integrate seamlessly with WordPress.
And they can do all sorts of cool things.
There are free plugins, and there are premium plugins available for a nominal fee.
You can find plugins at the WordPress Plugin Directory, and also within your WordPress admin area itself. (My favorite method.)
But rather than send you on a wild goose chase for the best WordPress plugins for Internet marketers, I’ll share all my favorites here today. I personally use all of these plugins and they help me save time, make money and even give me peace of mind.
If you see one you want to try, just click the link.
And if you don’t see a link, just search for and download the latest version at the WordPress Plugin directory, or inside your own WordPress admin area. (Just click Plugins–>Add New. Then you can use the search bar at the top of the plugins page.)
OK, on with the list…
#1 WordFence Security
This peace of mind plugin is an anti-virus, firewall and malware scan plugin rolled into one. It is probably my favorite plugin of all time. It keeps my WordPress sites safe from hackers and even alerts me to whenever I need to update any other plugin.
#2 WPForms Lite
I’ve used a lot of contact form plugins to build simple “contact us” pages at my sites, including Contact Form 7. But this beginner-friendly WordPress contact form plugin is my new favorite. The Drag & Drop form builder interface is so easy to use, and the included video can help you create your WordPress contact forms literally in one minute flat.
#3 WP Fastest Cache
I stumbled upon this slick plugin when I started building blogs for clients. One of the sites was loading slowly so I hired a fiverr gig to fix the problem. After she was done the site load time went from 4 seconds to about 1 second! So I went in and saw what she did. She installed WP Fastest Cache. Since then I’ve been adding it to all my blogs and my clients’ blogs. Remember, Google loves fast sites so this plugin can help your ranking!
#4 One-Click Video Site Builder
This is another plugin I add to all my clients’ blogs. It creates monetized video posts with one click. It can even schedule future posts. It’s my favorite way to add videos to my website, with affiliate links or ads right below every video — all automatically.
#5 Slim Stat Analytics
This little plugin gives you lots of traffic stats without any setup work. Just add the plugin and activate it and it starts capturing and displaying your traffic info right at your dashboard.
#6 Yoast SEO
I’ve been using Yoast more and more lately and my search engine ranking is steadily improving. This is an all-in-one SEO solution for WordPress that includes on-page content analysis, XML sitemaps and much more. It lets me easily check each post to make sure it is optimized well for Google and other search engines, and even makes simple recommendations for me to follow.
#7 FotoPress
This is one of my favorite plugins of all time. It finds you free images online, lets you add them to posts, and is even a complete Image Editor plugin that works right inside your WordPress admin area. (I used it to quickly find the image at the top of today’s post.)
#8 Ultimate Social Media (Social Media and Share Icons)
Easy to use social media plugin which adds social media icons to your website with tons of customization features! There are lots of plugins like this but this one is one of the highest rated by WordPress users ever.
#9 Facebook Auto Publish
This free plugin publishes your new posts automatically from your blog to your Facebook page, so you don’t have to remember to do it manually.
#10 Thrive Content Builder
This plugin builds you beautiful, modern sales pages, opt-in pages and more. It comes with a giant collection of pre-built templates that you load with a few clicks and customize with your own product info. This plugin was largely responsible for generating five figures in sales for my latest product funnel. (See this page for an example of what you can build with Thrive content builder.)
#11 Kalin’s PDF Creation Station
This plugin lets you create PDF documents from any combination of pages and posts. I used this plugin to create this PDF product containing two years worth of blog posts. If you’ve ever wanted to create a product from your blog, this is a simple way to do it.
#12 WP StealthNote
I love this little plugin. It shows a message window that allows you to connect with your visitors and boost your conversion rate. I use it for my little popup window at the bottom of all my pages, to urge my visitors to leave a comment.
#13 Duplicator Pro
Another peace of mind plugin, this is my go-to plugin for creating backups of my blogs. They offer a free version called Duplicator but I prefer the Pro version as it lets me schedule my backups to run on auto-pilot. It also automatically transfers a copy of my WordPress files and database to my Amazon s3 account. You can also use this plugin to duplicate and move a site from one location to another quickly.
#14 OneSignal Push Notifications
Integrates the awesome (and free!) OneSignal platform for pushing your posts out via browser or smartphone notifications.
#15 Associate Goliath
I use this plugin for some of my Amazon affiliate marketing sites. It lets my add product reviews automatically, including review videos and Amazon customer reviews.
#16 Auto Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
This free plugin enables you to quickly and easily have a Terms of Service page and Privacy Policy page with just a few clicks.
#17 ScrapeBreaker
This plugin protects your website content from both frames and server-side scraping techniques. If either happens, visitors will be redirected to the original content. Basically, it keeps you safe from content thieves.
That wraps up today’s post. If you have a favorite plugin that you use at your WordPress site or blog, I’d love to hear about it. Just comment below!
I see that there are “only”(!) 49,457 of these… So there are almost 50,000 things that you can do on a website? That’s mind-blowing! Sure am glad that you told us which the best 17 are. Otherwise… And thank you SO MUCH for that directory — so valuable! Joseph.
Thanks for the comment Joe. And these are just 17 really good ones, there are certainly plenty of other great plugins I’ve never even heard of. Just try to stick with plugins that get updated regularly and have good reviews from other users.
Don’t have a website or blog yet, and am a newbie with a lot of information “cluttering” my brain. Thanks for having a comment pop-up because some websites have NO WAY to tell them there is something wrong or that we NEED to contact them, email etc. Also wanted to mention some of us are not content thieves but just want to print or save stuff we read to our computer hard drive to be able to read and use it as a reference again.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with saving or printing info from sites for your personal use, in fact most website owners actually encourage that. By scrapers I was referring to programs that scrape content then post it as their own, or copy entire sites and add them to their own domains.
Sir,
I will be always thankful to the team for this training is given to me and soon I will send my blogs.
with regards,
R.Umamaheshwaran
Great info on directory, thanks for sharing 🙂 Might I add that I see there’s no mention of any comment system plugin – you don’t think it’s relevant for internet marketers, or..? I would gladly recommend you the one I use – GraphComment, which has very smart moderation system and helps me fight trolls 🙂 Found it on Odieusement Belles and instantly had to try it 🙂
Thanks or adding that, I usually just go with Akismet but I’ll check that out too, I do get a lot of comment spam.
Thanks Jim 🙂 very useful posts for WordPress newbies as there are a lot of plug-ins and it is a bit confusing 🙂 I like the anti content scrapers .. been wondering about that 😀
Hey Jim, your blog is very nice and being very informative for me, thanks for sharing this blog.