Okay, so you’ve set up your blog on WordPress. Now what? I know it’s tempting to start writing, but there are some plugins you should consider installing for security, appearance, social media, ads, and so on. Here are the ones I downloaded when I started this blog:

Akismet

Akismet is one of the best plugins to avoid spam in your comments. I have yet to read about a blog that doesn’t use it.

Jetpack by WordPress.com

While Jetpack is more of a suite of plugins rather than a single plugin, it comes standard with any WordPress.com blog. You should definitely activate it, as it is something no WordPress blogger should be without. In it, you’ll find things like a search box, a mobile theme optimizer, Jetpack comments, custom CSS, extra sidebar widgets, shortcodes, WordPress.com stats, and even a WordPress shortlink generator. And that’s just to name a few!

WordPress Related Posts by Zemanta

Related Posts by Zemanta is a plugin that will help reduce your bounce rates by linking your other blog posts at the end of the post. It has a customizable design for your related posts, anywhere from plain text links to Pinterest-inspired pictures with titles. You can also edit which posts you’d like to show. Nifty!

WordPress SEO by Yoast

If you’re new to the world of SEO (search engine optimization) WordPress SEO will help you navigate the oftentimes confusing waters of making your blog posts SEO friendly. It has a handy walk-through tutorial that I found very useful. And once you’ve been doing this for awhile, you’ll enjoy the more advanced features it offers. There is a paid version of this plugin, but the free one has been all that I needed.

All in One WP Security & Firewall

Guard your blog against malicious attacks with All in One WP Security & Firewall. I have tried many, and it is by far the easiest security suite to use, and I have yet to have anyone be able to mess with my blog…besides me, haha. It also does not slow down your page load speed, which is becoming more and more crucial to Google’s ranking of your website/blog. It also seems to work well with other plugins, which some security plugins do not.

Google XML Sitemap

Help search engines find your blog! Google XML Sitemap will automatically generate a sitemap page that will allow for faster indexing of your blog, which in turn helps drive traffic to your website.

Simple Social Icons

See those little icons under the “Socialize with Me” portion of the sidebar? They are generated by Simple Social Icons. If your blog’s theme doesn’t have them built in, this plugin is a very easy way to generate social icons to connect to your Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. pages. in any sidebar of your choosing.

WP Super Cache

Unless you have a managed WordPress blog, like I do, you’ll need a caching plugin to help your blog’s pages load faster. WP Super Cache generates static HTML files of your blog’s pages, which makes for faster page load times. In turn, your readers will not be kept waiting for endless scripts on your web page to load every time they visit your blog. And Google loves websites/blog with fast loading times! Do yourself a favor and get this plugin.

Contact Form 7

If you’d like to set up a contact page for people to be able to send you email without broadcasting your email for spammers to get to, Contact Form 7 is a very simple, widely used plugin that will generate a contact form for you to put on your Contact Me page.

UpdraftPlus Backup and Restoration

Again, if you have a managed WordPress blog, this is a plugin that you don’t need. However, if you don’t have a managed WordPress blog, then this is another must-have plugin. It will automatically back up your blog, send the backup files to an offsite storage location of your choice (I used email on my old blog, but you can also use Dropbox and Google Drive), and help you restore your blog, should anything ever happen to it.

So, there you have it, my top 10 WordPress plugins for beginners! Of course, there are many other plugins to choose from, and eventually you will need more than these depending on the nature and subject of your blog. I’ll make another post about some of my other favorite plugins in the future, so stay tuned!

If you have any plugins you’d like to recommend, please do so in the Comments!

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