11 Must Have Wordpress Plugins for the Serious Blogger

Blogging is not easy. Things like managing a website, monitoring comments, content research, linkbuilding, posting to social networks — these are just a few of the things that bloggers have to deal with all the time.

If you’re doing all that work already as a blogger, why not make the most out of the hard work you’ve put in?

Designed for the serious blogger, this list of 11 must have Wordpress Plugins will help transform cute blogs into monster, rabbut-munching, email-subscribing machines.

1. Yoast SEO Plugin

Yoast SEO plugin is the plugin to use when optimizing your blog for SEO. This nifty plugin integrates seamlessly with Wordpress, making it an absolute cinch when trying to add or update the title and meta description on each page.

Yoast works right off the bat as soon as you install it — just edit the page you want to optimize SEO on and you’ll find the Yoast SEO box there.

In a nutshell, Yoast is great because it:

• Provides the ability to add and remove Meta titles & Descriptions per page/post
• Generates XML sitemap
• Generates breadcrumbs navigation
• Enhances your blog’s RSS feed automatically
• Sets up social media meta tags (opengraph, twitter cards, rich pins)
• Easy way to verify domain ownership for Google Webmasters

The Yoast plugin adds a lot of extra SEO functionality that you wouldn’t otherwise have.

2. Google Analytics by Yoast

Also by Yoast, their Google Analytics Plugin is a super easy way to start tracking with Google Analytics tracking. A few clicks to authorize your GA account and you’re on your way to knowing exactly how many unique visits, page views, referrals and more to your blog. Knowing why and how people are coming to your site is important and Yoast’s Google Analytics plugin does just that.

One thing to keep in mind though is that this plugin only provides basic insight into the data you collect. If you need an in-depth look into the data or the ability to filter and sort your metrics, you’ll still need to rely on the actual Google Analytics Dashboard.

In a nutshell, Google Analytics by Yoast is great because it:

• Sets up Google Analytics Tracking in less than a minute with no technical knowledge required
• Shows GA data in a dashboard within Wordpress so you don’t have to always go to GA to check

3. TinyMCE Advanced

The TinyMCE Advanced Plugin is turns your Wordpress text editor into what we call a WYSIWYG (short for “what you see is what you get”) editor. This allows you to format and style text on your page/posts. Ever feel the need to change the font size or color for one of the paragraphs in your post? Ever wanted to indent text add smileys? TinyMCE does just that.

In a nutshell, TinyMCE is great because it:

• Adds text formatting and styling tools to the Wordpress text editor, allowing you to create better customized posts

4. SumoMe

SumoMe is absolutely awesome. This plugin is the best all-in-one tool to rapidly growing your blog’s subscriber list. SumoMe makes it really easy to add sharing capabilities as well as setting up action-based subscription popups. Heatmaps and Scroll Behavior are just but another two of the many other things this plugin has to offer.

In a nutshell, SumoMe is great because it:

• Adds sharing tools
• Adds heatmap tools
• Adds subscription tools
• Adds contact forms
• GA and content analytics tracking

5. WP Smush

WP Smush plugin reduces your image file sizes without ever affecting quality. It strips away hidden and unnecessary data from the images resulting in faster page load times for you site.

Once installed, all new images will be automatically ‘smushed’ on upload but existing images won’t be. If you want to optimize existing images, you can do so using the ‘Smush in bulk’ section, located under the Media > WP Smush tab of your Wordpress Admin panel.

In a nutshell, WP Smush is great because it:

• Reduces photo and image file sizes tremendously, without little to no work on your part

6. Imsanity

Imsanity takes huge images uploads and resizes them to smaller, more manageable sizes. If you upload photos from a digital camera or a mobile phone, chances are — you’re uploading ginormous, unnecessarily large images to your site. This takes a ton of storage space and increases site loading times tremendously. Imsanity takes those huge uploads and resizes them to smaller sizes and works especially well if you use this in conjunction with the WP Smush plugin.

The only benefit to having larger-than-life images is if you’re targeting users using iMac with Retina 5k, but most people won’t have that kind of resolution. It’s up to you to decide whether or not the increased loading times are warranted depending on the type of blog you run.

In a nutshell, Imsanity is great because it:

• Resizes huge images on the fly reducing page load times and bandwidth

7. Duplicate Post

The Duplicate Post plugin does exactly what it sounds like — duplicating posts. This might surprise you, but that functionality isn’t something that comes built in to Wordpress.

This isn’t something you’ll use often but when you do find the need to, you’ll thank yourself for having installed this plugin.

In a nutshell, Duplicate Post is great because it:

• Allows you to clone existing posts quickly, saving a ton of time and manual labor

8. Default Image Settings

The Default Image Settings plugin allows you to set the default display size for images with your blog posts. This plugin is useful because you can prevent your site from loading images that’s larger than what the site design is optimized for, usually defined by the Wordpress theme you’re using.

If your site keeps automatically selecting a display size that’s either too large or too small, the Default Image Settings plugin will fix that by allowing you to select a default setting under Settings > Media.

In a nutshell, Default Image Settings is great because it:

• Allows you to set the default display setting once, and forget about it. Not having to manually change display settings for every image uploaded to your blog is a serious lifesaver

9. BJ Lazy Load

The BJ Lazy Load plugin improves site loading times by prevents images and photos outside of the viewport from loading until the user scrolls to it. Simply put, images and photos outside of what the user can see on their screen won’t be loaded until they reach that part of the page.

Lazy loading happens in the background so most users won’t even know you’re doing it, plus it can be disabled per page/post if you’d rather have it not show on select pages, making it must-have for any blogs with images.

In a nutshell, BJ Lazy Load is great because it:

• Automatically runs in the background and prevents images from loading until the user is supposed to see it, as a result, reducing bandwidth and server load

10. WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache is a caching plugin made by Wordpress, for Wordpress. Caching is the process of storing data temporarily elsewhere — in this case, this means storing your site files temporarily on your users’ browsers.

Caching is a technique used by top sites in the world — Facebook, Google, Youtube, you name it. Each of these sites use caching to their advantage because it saves server bandwidth and makes their site seem to load lightning fast.

There’s a lot to what WP Super Cache has to offer.

In a nutshell, WP Super Cache is great because it:

• Caches static files
• Has built-in CDN support
• Provides caching support to a few other popular plugins

11. Redirection

The Redirection plugin configures all your 301 redirections and checks for any 404 errors. This is super useful for anyone who wants 404 errors but might not have the technical knowledge to configure their own webservers to do so.

A 301 redirect is needed whenever someone accesses a page that doesn’t exist on your site, also known as a 404. This might be because you changed the URL of the page, or perhaps simply because the site visitor typed in an incorrect URL — either way, a redirect is needed to point the visitor to the correct page so you don’t lose valuable traffic.

In a nutshell, Redirection is great because it:

• Allows you to setup much needed 301 redirects without requiring the technical knowledge to do so.

Ending Notes

I hope you enjoyed the list of the 11 must have Wordpress plugins! If you do end up using any of them, please do share your experience in the comments below! I’d love to know.

Now that you’re on your way to turning your blog into a monster, rabbut-munching, email-subscribing machines, would you mind sharing this post? Much thanks!