Do you already have your ideal blog and don’t know what’s next? You can of course have only a basic version of your blog, but after a while you lack different functionalities.  If you can’t code and thus don’t know how to improve your blog, use different plugins. There are about 50 000 WordPress plugins now. So as you won’t surely test them all.  That is why we looked through available plugins and chose the most useful ones.

How to install WordPress plugin?

There are two ways. The first one is to find a proper plugin in WordPress repository and download it. Then we go to Plugins ->Add New and click on Upload Plugin. After that we must choose a plugin in a .zip format and then we click on Install Now. The last step is to Activate Plugin. The second way is easier, but you have to know the name of the plugin. We start as before: Plugins ->Add New and then we type the name of our plugin in the field Search plugins. After that we click on Install Now and Activate Plugin.

How to configure the installed plugin?

Depending on what plugin you use you can (in most cases) configure the plugin settings. Where to find these settings? Some of the plugins you’ll find on the left as an individual category, the others you’ll find in Settings. If you can’t find the settings of a particular plugin, go to the list of all plugins and there click on settings of a particular plugin. You’ll be then automatically directed to a proper place.

The list of the most useful WordPress plugins:

Contact Form 7 – one of the most popular plugins, which you can use both on blogs and company websites. Do you need a simple contact form? Contact Form 7 is ideal for it. Remember only not to create very complicated forms. Set only these fields that you really need.

Google Analytics by Monsterinsight– you are not able to install stats on your blog? This plugin will help you. Additionally you can look through some stats directly on your blog.

Yoast SEO– another must have! Do you want to have your blog visible in the Internet and well described in Google? You must install and start using good practices on your site. Remember only about one thing. Good SEO brings results with a long-term strategy, it’s not enough to do it once.

Disable Comments – do you need to disable comments? No problem. There are also plugins for that. This one easy-to-use. It will work on company websites, where there is no need to write comments.

TinyMCE Advenced – it gives you a possibility of extended text edition in your posts or subpages. Your content will look much better now.

WP Biographia – do you want to get closer to your readers? Write something about yourself and put your photo below each post, so as people could know you better.

Disqus Comment System -if you don’t like standard comments or there is a lot of spam on your blog, it’s worth installing this plugin.  You’ll have to create an account in the system, but it shouldn’t be a problem, looking at the advantages of this plugin.

Pinterest Pin It – make pinning images from your blog easier. Thanks to that plugin, the button Pin It will be visible next to each image on your blog.

BackWPup – it is said that people divide into two groups – these who make a backup and those who will make it. If you put a lot of effort in your blog, it’s better to have a backup of your work. You’ll find many backup plugins. I recommend you this one, because it’s easy-to-use.

WordPress Related Post – show your readers similar posts at the end of your post. Thanks to that they will maybe stay longer on your blog.

PopupAlly – yes, I know… we all don’t like these popups, however they are sill effective, one of the best options. Paid version gives even more possibilities.

Share Buttons by Addthis – make sharing your content even more easier, thanks to social media buttons. This plugin has some options – you can put buttons on the left or on the right side of your website or in the content. You will surely adjust button appearance to the template.

Autoptimize – a plugin, which optimizes your website code and speeds up your website.

WP Super Cache – another plugin that speeds up your website. Unfortunately to configurate it, you’ll need help of a person who is acquainted with it.

BBQ: Block Bad Queries – if your blog is on the server, which doesn’t have a good firewall it’s worth installing this plugin. It will protect your website against malicious URL requests. All you have to do is to install it, you don’t need to configurate it.

Redirection – it’s useful when you must redirect URL or when you delete any subpage and want to be sure that your readers won’t get 404 error.

Duplicate Post – WordPress itself doesn’t allow you to duplicate posts. To do it you must copy the content manually and paste it to the new page. Thanks to that plugin, you can use Clone option, which is placed below the posts next to the Edit, Quick Edit and Trash.

Google XML Sitemaps – an easy plugin for creating a sitemap, which is needed for example during webmaster tools configuration.

NextGen Gallery – one of the most popular plugins for creating galleries in WordPress. Free version is enough. If you need to create a simple gallery I recommend you this plugin.

Broken Link Checker – a plugin, which will monitor your blog looking for broken links. Thanks to that you can delete 404 errors.

Orphans– free plugin, which removes simple signs (e. g ‘a’) from the end of the line and brings it to the next line.

Don’t focus on quantity!

We’ve presented you a lot of useful plugins, but don’t think that you must install them all. Unfortunately many plugins can slow down your blog, so install only these, which you really need. If you don’t use some of the installed plugins, uninstall them to offload your website.  Remember that nowadays more important is quality than quantity. If you know any other useful plugins, which weren’t mentioned in this post, write them in comments, we’ll check them.