Top ten WordPress plugins for your blog in 2019

Pharmacist Money, Reviews

In this blogpost, I’m continuing my how-to series on WordPress. Specifically on optimizations via WordPress plugins. Interested in starting a blog just like this one? Read more about it here.

My Top 10 free plugins for WordPress in 2019

  1. WP Super Cache

    This plugin does exactly what its name says. It speeds up the loading of your posts by bypassing running database heavy PHP scripts.

  2. Jetpack

    Update 5/3/19: I discovered that the Jetpack plugin from WordPress will automatically post to your social media accounts. Blog2Social is only useful if you have the premium edition.

    Social media is a big part of everything we do. Promoting your new posts to your preferred social media account can gain you much-needed traffic, especially if Google is not directing people your way.

  3. Yoast SEO

    SEO or search engine optimization is as important as ever. Yoast SEO adds a module in your posts template with suggestions to improve your search engine ranking.

  4. Email subscribers & newsletter

    This plugin adds the functionality of newsletter broadcasts. I’ve been experimenting with this and my newsletter is finally up and running.

  5. Contact form 7

    Easily add a contact us functionality to your blog. You can use the forms creator to suit your other needs. I simply used it to give visitors a way to contact me.

  6. Flamingo

    I used a different plugin for my contact form but for some reason, messages are not being sent to my email. Flamingo is a companion plugin to contact form 7. It backs up messages for you in your WordPress dashboard in case your messages did not get to your preferred email address.

  7. Smush

    This plugin will automatically compresses images to make your posts load faster. It also will create thumbnails of your images for your enjoyment.

  8. Updraft Plus-backup and restore

    With this plugin installed, you can create automatic backups of your posts, images, and databases in case something goes awry. I’ve chosen to have the back-ups saved in Google Drive but there are other alternatives you can choose from.

  9. Akismet Anti-spam

    This plugin will help you protect against malicious attempts to attack your website and via repeated logins or sending spam messages.

  10. WP Popular Posts

    This plugin will allow you can add a widget to your side bar or footer of your theme to drive more traffic to your other posts!

It’s probably best to go with as few plugins as possible due to the fact that too many plugins can slow down your website. Find out which ones are most useful for you and stick with them. Also, some of these plugins are free and may not be maintained or updated to the latest WP version and may not work properly.