Do you know WordPress is a great and popular CMS that lots of the internet’s top websites are based on it?
Yes in the recently published report on WordPress, it was revealed that 60% of active domains created in the U.S. are running WordPress.
If your website is powered by WordPress you may be thinking about which plugin to install and which to leave.
I have five years of experience in WordPress development and has helped hundreds of client launch WordPress based website, it is my daily job to help them decide which plugins to use and which to avoid.
Also, I always discourage installing so many plugins on a single website.
Why do I advise that to keep plugins count to the minimum (SEVEN or TEN in maximum)? Because when you add a plugin to your website, it introduces a third-party code that can affect your website’s speed (page loading time) SEO, and website security so it is always recommended to keep them to a minimum to avoid such risks.
Every business website to succeed online in today’s competitive world, want to
- great content,
- a secure website,
- fast loading pages,
- and properly optimized pages for SEO.
Yes, WordPress cannot write content for you. It can help you with other important aspects to make your website speedy, and secure and have SEO optimized pages.
I recommend following four types of plugins to cover four important factors of websites’ witch is
- Page Speed,
- Site SEO,
- Site Security,
- and ZERO Spam content or comments
1. Anti-Spam plugin
You can use any good anti-spam plugin however I recommend WordPress’s official plugin for this purpose called Akismet it is already installed on every WordPress website. You just need to activate it.
2. Security plugin
There are many security plugins but Wordfence. Wordfence stops all hacking attacks like SQL injections, malware, and much more.
Sucuri Security plugin keeps you informed if some hacker or virus changes any of your WordPress files so you can look into that and see if your site is attacked or hacked.
3. Cache plugin
It is a must to have fast loading pages and avoid high server load at your hosting. To serve successfully all your visitors without overloading your server, which can take your site down or make it very slow, you need to have a cache system in place.
The cache plugin can help you in this regard to keep your sites fast.
Two popular cache plugins are
- W3Total Cache (W3TC) &
- WP Super Cache.
I have used both at different sites both are awesome and have their working style and cache approaches.
I recommend testing both on some test blog and see which one you like and use that on your websites onward to make them speedy with caching capabilities.
4. SEO Plugin
WordPress is already very much optimized for SEO. However, a good SEO plugin can guide you through the process to keep your content properly optimized.
Three popular SEO plugins are
- AIOS (All-in-one SEO) plugin,
- Platinum SEO, and
- WordPress SEO.
I have used all three in the past and my (currently) favorite is ‘WordPress SEO’ by Yoast.
Yoast is a top SEO guy who knows his stuff and keeps his SEO plugin up to date and simple to follow even for beginners.
That’s it for this tutorial. Again I warn you to resist the temptation of installing too many cool plugins. Always be very concerned about your WordPress website’s SPEED, SEO and Security. And use only the necessary plugin which does not make your site slower or weaken its security.
After having the above four types of WordPress plugins on your site, your site is way ahead of 90% of sites out there which are slow to load, unsecured(easy to hack), and filled with hundreds of spam comments.
Conclusion
In conclusion, by having these four plugins in place you make sure your site is secure, and speedy and take care of all spammed comments which are some of the fundamental factors for a website to succeed online.
