WordPress is quickly becoming one of the post popular platforms for websites with bloggers and businesses a like choosing to go for the content managed system as opposed to static pages. Functionality is really important for all sites and WordPress allows you to add extra detail by downloading plugins. Our web developer Thomas loves all the latest technology, and installs plugins regularly for our website and all of our clients’ sites to ensure they have the best user experience. From years of working with WordPress, Thomas has compiled a list of the most useful plugins currently available, and what’s more, they’re free!
1. Yoast SEO
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/
Yoast has received a 5 star rating, and with over a million people who have downloaded it since its launch (including our Thomas-quite a few times) you know it’s a good plugin.
What does it do?
Yoast is there to assist your site in becoming even more SEO friendly. The plugin not only helps you to improve your content writing, with helpful tips on titles that are too long or ones don’t draw attention to the desired keyword, it also gives you a snippet preview of what your post or page will look like in Google search results. Yoast goes through and checks whether you have remembered your meta discription, put alt tags on pictures, if your keyword has been used as the focus for the page, and whether your titles are too long. The plugin works hard to increase your rankings in search results, and to also build up the click through rate from organic search results.
As well as all this, Yoast analyses your meta links and elements, XML sitemaps, RSS optimisation, breadcrumbs, htcaccess and robots, social integration, multi-site compatibility, import and export functionality and the functionality of other WordPress SEO plugins.
Although this may seem like another language, it all helps to bring more people to your site, and get you ranking higher on Google, so make sure you download it!
2. Google XML Sitemaps Plugin
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
The 7.9million WordPress users who have downloaded this plugin can’t be wrong and with a 5 star rating they probably aren’t!
What does it do?
An essential element for indexing your sites into the top search engines is your XML sitemap, as it allows search spiders to crawl your pages easily and index them effectively. The map displays the structure of your site, and allows the information to be retrieved more efficiently and is supported by all kinds of WordPress generated pages.
The plugin notifies all the major search engines each and every time you create a post about new content on your site. This, combined with the plugin from Yoast will help your site to soar up the search results.
3. Akismet
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/
Topping the list with over 11 million downloads, Askimet is clearly a plugin not to be missed.
What does it do?
Are you sick of comments that seem great and are really complementary, and then you get to the end, and see “pay day loans” shoved in. Spam. It has to be one of the most irritating side-effects of the comment box on your blog, but Akismet is the best plugin to avoid annoying spammers.
Akismet works as your middle-man moderator, checking your comments against the web server to discover which comments are allowed to come through to you, and which ones need to be spammed. All the links used in each comment, are highlighted in the body of the content to reveal hidden or misleading links that may have previously gone un-noticed. If, for whatever reason, your site is down, Akismet will automatically retry, and begin spam-busting again, as soon as your connection is back up.
On top of this you will receive regular spam and unspam reports to help with accuracy and to stop you from receiving those pesky “pay day loans” once and for all!
4. Xposure Creative Brand Marketing
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/xposure-creative-brand-marketings-plugin/stats/
Now this plugin is a definite must, and I’m not biased in any way!
What does it do?
Downloading the plugin gives you a new element to the dashboard of your WordPress site, once you login in. The plugin provides you with a helpful widget full of blog posts, about the latest marketing developments, social media changes, pr tips and SEO advice.
Giving you information about the latest social media statistics as well, and using CSS3, the plugin functions within your dashboard subtly to makes marketing morsels easy to digest!
5. Google Analytics
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/
With a 4 star rating and over 3 million downloads the Google Analytics plugin is a plugin that we insist on for every site we build.
What does it do?
This is a great plugin, if you’re a little bit nosey! It allows you to track your blog, quickly and easily with lots of metadata. The plugin is easy to install and uses the Google Analytics tracking code to give you all the information you could want about who is visiting your site and where they are going!
Using graphs to show the gradual change in your viewing figures and the pages that have been visited on your site, this plugin gives you a unique insight into what works for your web site and what doesn’t.
These are Thomas’s top 5, but he would love to hear about which ones you’ve got installed on your website, and how they work for you. Leave us a comment with the plugin below, and you never know, if its good enough, we may make it a top 6 list!
