The first Wordpress plugins you should install



There are nearly 34,000 plugins to choose from. That is a lot! Considering that you will not use more than 10 it sounds like overkill. A lot of these plugins are not updated any more by their creators so the actual number that are current is difficult to estimate.

As with any website, there are a couple of things we all do and is the same for each website, we need good SEO, spam protection, access control and protection, traffic analysis and more.

The following plugins are the basic ones that should be installed even before you start writing.

Plugins for good SEO

This is a must since they help you writing content that is focused  but also understandable by Google.  Don't overthink SEO, write good unique content. There are two major players:

Yoast WordPress SEO. Easy setup and quick to understand. Simple and effective.

All in One SEO Pack by Michael Torbert of Semper Fi Web Design. Quite complex settings that I do not understand. You can enter some keywords for your site but Google has stopped looking at keywords a while ago.

Antivirus plugins to protect your Wordpress site

Spam is a big problem on WordPress sites.  Maybe it is because Wordpress is so popular and there are a lot of sites that are not updated regularly which become open to attack.   After installing these plugins you will see there is much more than just malicious software checking, they can also prevent people from countries to visit your site. Two of the most popular Antivirus plugins are.



Captcha Plugins

Captcha plugins are not antivirus, they protect unwanted bots accessing your site. Bots have the ability to attack 24/7 unlike humans, so limiting them is essential. Captcha are also often called 'human tests'. Captchas are used at your login page and comments sections.  The most popular are:



Limiting the number of login attempts

This is really important.  If bots are allowed unlimited attempts to generate your password they will at some point in time get it right.  So limiting anyone to three attempts is a good idea. There is also a limit to password recovery after which you are notified by the system and you can block that person out or block his IP address. Limiting login attempts are often part of captcha and antivirus plugins (basically security plugins).

I would recommend Limit Login Attempts. Limit rate of login attempts, including by way of cookies, for each IP. By Johan Eenfeldt for newbies.

Good old Jetpack by Wordpress.com

Jetpack is developed by Wordpress team and has many features that are nice to have. For instance, you get Wordpress.com stats. The next feature is Related Posts.  This is great if you have a lot of posts and would like to showcase your work to visitors. Related Posts is like holding a carrot in front of your visitors in order to keep them on the website. You can also add social media to your site via Jetpack so when posts are published, your subscribed social media sites are updated automatically. This can also be done through a couple of other plugins. This is a great plugin and should be loaded to all WordPress sites.

Galleries for images

All sites (I hope) have images, and we love to browse through them.  Galleries is one way to keep people on your site reducing the bounce rate significantly. Remember, the longer someone stays on your site, the greater the chance that they will click to the next link, product or article. There are gallery plugins that do the job, however, you want to be a little different than the others, that adds to the professional look of your website (especially if you are using Wordpress since they have relatively the same basic structure). The easiest to use with great custom features is WP Easy Gallery.  It has the following great features:

NEW Display galleries as default WordPress style galleries (option is on settings page)

Enhanced social sharing for images in your gallery.
Newly added class name (wp-easy-gallery) for easy thumbnail styling.
Upload unique thumbnail image for galleries and set custom dimensions.
Include multiple galleries on a page or post.
Set the 'sort order' of images in the galleries.
Uses WordPress short code for easy content integration.
Short code button for easy content insertion.
And much more...



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Merrell hiking shoes showing cracks in quality

Image
Merrell Hiking shoe's quality start cracking up I have been a supporter of Merrell shoes for quite a long time, actually about 10 years. Their comfort was amazing as well as build quality. My first pair was hiking boots and I wore them until they fell apart, I must admit that the sole wore through before the top started coming apart.  I then bought hiking or trail shoes. I think the style was Merrell Vibram, not sure but that was written on the side of the hiking shoe.  Anyway, who cares, I don't hike or go on trails.  They are mainly used in and around at home. I also don't do any gardening with them by the way. So all in all I don't have a lot of wear and tear as can be seen on the amount of rubber left on the new pair of Merrell Hiking shoes. What really disturbed me is how badly the new Merrell Hiking shoes are put together. Put it this way, my old Merrell's had 5 years of walking on them, and there is not much wrong with them other than the
Read more

Creative Cloud update failed error code 183 - My Solution

Creative Cloud update failed error code 183 The web is scattered with Creative Cloud update failed error code 183, and some people find some relief others, like me, are plagued by the problem. I even had Adobe technicians remotely access my pc twice, and they could not solve the problem. This made me think. It might not be a complete Adobe problem. It might be, and the error code 183 suggests it, a permissions problem which is Windows related.  I am not going to make a long story about the solution, but the gist is the following procedure. Uninstall all Adobe related products First uninstall Adobe products, ALL of them. This includes  Adobe Creative Cloud and ALL its associated products (Photoshop, Lightroom etc.) Uninstall Adobe reader Uninstall Adobe Air Run Adobe Creative Cloud Cleaner tool Run the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool. You can get the download link  here . Remove all Adobe related folders from your PC Once you have uninstalled everything r
Read more

Fitbit Charge HR inaccurate heart rate measurement - personal experience

Image
Fitbit Charge HR inaccurate heart rate measurement The Fitbit Charge HR claims to be a fitness device which can measure various aspects that people deem important during training.  There are two parameters that I think are important when training. (1) Your heart rate and (2) the number of steps taken.  I think these two parameters are the only really accurate measurements that can be trusted to measure your intensity and duration of an exercise. Other parameters like stairs climbed, calories and GPS are really not that important. In any case calories are derived from your build and heart rate. The main reason I purchased the Fitbit Charge HR is for its heart rate measurement. This turned out not just to be an utter disaster but also extreme frustration and disappointment. So why am I making these claims. Well let's see what my average gym routine is every second morning: I start of with 20 minutes of "arm cycling". Have a look at the machine here . I run it
Read more