7 free WordPress plug-ins that will save you time and stress
You’ve finally taken the plunge and opted for your own WordPress.org website. Great! To save you time and stress, install these free WordPress plug-ins. I use Divi Elegant Themes and these plug-ins have been working well for me.
Important: If you’re not sure what you’re doing (i.e. you’re not an experienced web developer), don’t change any of the standard settings and get an expert to adjust them.
Plug-in No. 1: BackWPup.
Don’t forget to back-up your website regularly. Install and activate the BAckWPup plug-in and follow the inbuilt beginner’s video to create daily and weekly back-ups of your site. Essential if the worst should happen!
Plug-in No. 2: Antispam Bee.
This neat little plug-in will help protect your blog comments section from nasty spammers. (Alternatively, you could just not have a comments section, which I have recently decided to opt for.)
Find a good overview of how to install and use this plug-in on the WPBeginner.com website. It’s easy!
Plug-in No. 3: LiteSpeed Cache.
If your website is loading slowly (check that here), ensure you install and activate a plug-in that speeds up things. LiteSpeed Cache is a good one that already does a fair job straight out of the box.
As mentioned above, don’t change the standard settings with this one unless you know what you’re doing – you could crash your theme / website otherwise!
You’ve written brilliant blog posts and would like to encourage readers to share these on their social media channels?
Great. Now you just need to install and activate this nifty plug-in and choose the options you’d like to go for.
Tip: avoid pop-up banners as they can annoy visitors to your website.
Plug-in No. 5: Yoast SEO (or RankMath).
Yoast SEO is an easy-to-use plug-in that will help you optimise your web pages for certain SEO (search engine optimisation) keywords.
I have heard good things about RankMath and will explore this further (watch this space for future blog posts on this).
Plug-in No. 6: Wordfence Security.
Make sure you have a good security plug-in that protects you against hacking attempts and bots. The free version of Wordfence Security is doing a great job. Only change the settings if you know what you’re doing.
For extra safety, switch on 2-step verification for your admin account.
Plug-in No. 7: Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights.
Last, but not least: an excellent plug-in that will give you all the visitor information you need for your website.
If you use this, ensure you have an up to date cookie policy and cookie banner as you are collecting website visitors’ data.
Check out my blog post on that before you continue!
