WordPress Plugins: Which One to Choose
Plugins are important elements of setting up your blog parameters, the selection, and installation of which is the topic of the article today. Everyone who has just learned about plugins should not be deprived of information, and therefore we will tell you what plugins are in essence.
What Is a Plugin?
The plugin is a package of additional software installations created for the blog and expanded the list of its functions in particular. They are also extensions of an existing set. What will be included in this “package of additional software installations” is up to each user and their taste. In other words, this is an opportunity to personalize your blog, make it unique, and also provide some convenience for those who will visit your page and read your posts. After all, by creating a blog, you get a page layout for use. Each blogger is free to fill this layout with the functions one needs in addition to the standard parameters.
The WordPress platform has provided such an incredible number of various WordPress themes and plugins for its users that it is impossible and unnecessary to describe all of them without exception. Our goal is to tell you about the most necessary, most popular, and most used plugins. From 10 to 15 is the standard set for the average blogger. This amount is more than enough for the most uncontrollable fantasy.
Top Required Plugins
Let’s start listing the main and most needed plugins:
- WordPress Database Backup. A kind of “insurance” for your blog. The plugin will be a real lifeline if the entire database of your blog suddenly disappears or gets damaged. This plugin restores it without difficulty and effort to the last point in the discussions and comments on each post.
- All in One SEO Pack. An extremely useful plugin, especially for those who create a blog to promote it. Fortunately or unfortunately, not everyone is familiar with the methods by which the blog is promoted. That’s what this plugin was created for. A smart install will take on the task of promoting your page, making life easier for you.
- Google XML Sitemaps. This plugin establishes a connection between its owner and the outside world, i.e., promotes your page and makes it more popular. It happens in the following way. The faster your blog is indexed by search engines, the more often it will offer readers its address. This plugin simplifies the work of robots by providing them with something like a unique “sitemap”.
- Akismet. This plugin is indispensable for the “victims” of spam in the comments to their posts. All you need is to register on the WordPress platform site and get an API key that activates the Akismet plugin.
- Simple Tags. Surely, more than once you have met a kind of cloud of tags and labels. It is convenient if you need to quickly find a post in the blog archive by keywords. The cloud itself makes it easier to navigate. The Simple Tags plugin creates the same tag cloud and optimizes all the actions necessary to work with it. Smart Simple Tags, among other things, establish links between posts.
- Subscribe to comments. Leaving a comment on a particular post, almost everyone is interested in whether any of the other users or the author answered their statement. The plugin works in such a way that as soon as your statement has been commented on, an email is automatically sent to you notifying you of the received response.
- Page Navi. The function of this plugin is to install navigation, which is indispensable for any blogger. The navigation code is set in the index.php file – and the plugin works on your blog.
- PostView. The plugin is very convenient in action for both the author and readers. The homepage will display the most-read posts and keep a count of the total number of your posts.
- Related Posts. The role of this plugin is difficult to underestimate. For each entry, it selects and highlights several related posts at the end. And this is the best way to promote your blog!
We would also like to mention Full text feed – another plugin that allows you to display the full feed of published posts, whether the “more” tag is used or not. However, WordPress version 2.5 and later have this setting in automatic functions.
All you need to install a plugin is to download its files and point them to /public_html/wp-content/plugins/yourwordpress. Finding the “Modules” menu section in the site admin panel, activate the plugin. Your plugin is installed and ready to go. Some plugins, such as Page Navi, require certain codes in the theme files. But here, too, there are no difficulties, since all the necessary actions are described in the most detailed way in the description that is given for each plugin.
