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If you haven’t already started a blog, you can find my tutorial on how to start a blog with WordPress to make money here.
In this blog post, I will be showing you my favorite plugins, extensions, and tools that you should absolutely have on your WordPress blogs. I am pretty familiar with WordPress blog plugins since I started playing around with the platform 10 years ago.
My must have WordPress plugins that I install on all my sites usually involve SEO, security, and integrations with other platforms so you’ll want to get these installed first before starting to blog that way you can get it all out-of-the-way and never have to worry about it.
You’ll need to sign in to your blog’s backend. You can usually sign in using the address ‘yourdomainname.com/wp-admin’. Fill in ‘yourdomainname.com’ with your site domain. Once you are in there, find plugins on the left sidebar. You’ll then need to click ‘Add New’ to install the WordPress blog plugins. Just type in the name of the plugins to find them, click install, and then activate.
First off, let’s install all things SEO and analytics on to your blog. My must have WordPress plugins for this is All in One SEO Pack. All in One SEO Pack let’s you optimize your blog post for Google. This plugin also takes care of everything related to seo (search engine optimization) including submitting sitemaps to Google and installing your Google Analytics code.
Speaking of Google Analytics, you need to get an account here. Google Analytics lets you track how your site is performing and where your traffic sources are coming from. It’s one of the most important tool for bloggers and marketers.
The next plugin you should install is Jetpack. Jetpack gives you the stats of your WordPress blog and shows you your top referrals, to performing pages and articles, etc. It also sends out an email to you if your site is down. Askimet is also under Jetpack and it fights spam on your site.
Since we are talking about spam already, I might as well tell you that you must have Wordfence Security installed. It’s an anti-virus, firewall, and malware scanner. It alerts when your site is vulnerable which is why this is one of the best WordPress plugin for blogs.
WP-DBManager is another must have WordPress plugin. It manages your WordPress database and does automatic backups of your blog. You can also get it sent to you via email as often as you would like. I like receiving my back up once a week. You can also optimize and repair the database.
Active Campaign is an email-marketing platform, which you will need to sign up for. It is important to start collecting emails right away when you start any business, not just a blog. You can sign up for free 14 days of Active Campaign here and then install the plugin on your website to integrate your forms.
MailMunch Grow Your Email List allows you to have pop-up forms so that more of your readers can subscribe to your email. This form integrates with plenty of email marketing platform including Active Campaign.
PixelYourSite allows you to install your Facebook Pixel. A Facebook Pixel tracks who has been on your site. Ever get those annoying Facebook ads from sites you’ve been to like Amazon? It allows you to target your audience that has been on your blog with your offer. I highly suggest installing this right away so you can advertise to your audience in the future. You’ll need a Facebook Page to get one of these.
AddToAny Share Buttons lets you have buttons on your site that easily shares your content to social media.
Contact Form 7 is a simple contact form that let’s your readers easily contact you. It’s great for your contact page.
GDPR Cookie Consent is a pop-up that lets anyone on your site know how the data is used. This is needed to comply with the European GDPR law.
Just a heads up – if you ever install a plugin and don’t use it, make sure to delete it from your plugins because hackers and viruses usually make their way into your site via plugins. Also make sure that your plugins are always up to date for this very reason.
Now wasn’t that super easy? You can find your installed plugins and extensions along your left sidebar. Some plugins and extensions will install as a new button on your sidebar, while others will be a sub button under settings. Now the most important part, time to spread your message to the world and start profiting for your expertise!
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