Plugins make WordPress great. They let you build and bend and twist your site into just what you want it to be.
But your site might be very different from my site, of course. And we will naturally choose different plugins. You may need a shopping cart. I may need a YouTube gallery. You might want an events calendar, whereas I might want slick-looking pricing tables.
No matter how different our sites, however, there are still some things that most all WordPress sites have in common. Unless you happen to be one of the exceptions, your site will most probably need good SEO, rock solid security, easy-to-use social sharing buttons, bullet-proof spam protection, and a dependable backup solution.
We’re going to run through some of most popular plugins for each of these areas. And while you can find premium plugins to do these things, all of the plugins below are free.
1. SEO Plugins
WordPress SEO – This is perhaps one of the most popular free SEO plugins on the market today, and for good reason. It does a lot. Some think maybe too much. It can get a little overwhelming. (More on a simpler solution later.)
Here’s a quick look at the features for WordPress SEO. Keep in mind that each of these is but a large category with a number of details to dig into.
- Control Titles and Meta Tags
- Integrate Social Data
- Generate XML Sitemaps
- Gain More Control Over Permalinks
- Control Internal Links
- Add Content to Your RSS Feed
All In One SEO Pack – This plugin was perhaps the biggest boy on the block until WordPress SEO came onto the scene. This plugin will help you to cover the basics of SEO, but it’s not quite as involved as WordPress SEO. For that reason, some prefer it.
Sitemaps
Google Sitemap Generator – Sitemaps are specially generated files that help the search engines find all the pages on your site better. Essentially, it’s a list of links to the pages on your, but it’s not made for humans. The WordPress SEO plugin above actually incorporates a sitemap function, but if you don’t use that, or you have problems with that function (sitemaps can sometimes get hung up and not generate as they’re supposed to), then this is another option for you.
Cache Plugins for Speed
We’re going to halfway cheat a little bit here and include these two caching plugins in the SEO section. These plugins will help speed up your site. Caching plugins typically do that by creating static files of pages on your site. They then deliver those pages to your visitor instead of making a lot of database calls every time a new visitor visits a page.
Of course a faster site is good for your visitors. But it’s also good for SEO. Search engines know that fast sites are good for visitors, and so they include speed as one of the factors they judge your site by.
Both of these plugins have been around for a while, and they both have their fans.
2. Security Plugins
Photo Credit: Fristle on Flickr
Making sure you have absolute maximum security for your site is a very big and very complicated topic. The technical details involved can be mind-numbing. That said, if you take normal precautions, such as ALWAYS updating your WordPress core when a new version comes out and ONLY using plugins and themes from trusted sources, then that’s usually enough.
But it’s not always enough. And so the least you should do is install a plugin that will warn you if you have malware on your site. Otherwise, some malware will simply run in the background, sucking your site’s authority, visitors, or both away from you undetected.
These two malware alert plugins are some of the most popular:
3. Social Sharing
The web today has become even webbier due to the popularity of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, G+, and countless others. In addition to being a great place to interface with current and potential fans, how your site fares on social media sites also plays into the SEO score search engines give your site.
In short: social media matters for a number of reasons.
The plugins below will help you to encourage the sharing of and the interaction with your content out on the social web.
- Sociable
- Share Buttons by Lockerz
- Share This
And a different type of plugin: Add Link to Facebook isn’t a set of social buttons. Rather, it automatically adds links in your Facebook account when you publish a new post.
4. Spam Protection
Photo Credit: freezelight on Flickr
Anyone who has run a website with comments knows the need for anti-spam plugins. WordPress, of course, comes with the anti-spam Akismet plugin already installed by default. The problem with Akismet is that it’s not free if you have a commercial site.
If you’re in business, as most Flippa users are, then this plugin is a no-go (unless you want to pay for it). Fortunately, there are some other good free options we’ll list below.
(Note: With anti-spam plugins, you may need to sign up for a free service and enter a special “Key” they give you. This service is what houses their spam data and algorithms .)
5. Backups
Nobody thinks they need a backup … until they need it. It could happen to you. The best thing to do is to not get caught out. These options can help you
BackWPUp – This is a good solution if you want to back your site up to a online storage solutions such as Dropbox, Amazon S3, etc.
BackupToDropbox – This plugin is made specifically for automatic backing up to Dropbox.
BackUpWordpress – This is a good solution for those who need simplicity. Backups are stored on your server
And so that’s it. One or two of the cases above may not pertain to your situation (say you don’t allow comments, for example), but these five types of plugins can help most sites. If you don’t have all these areas covered, now’s a good time to fill those gaps.