WordPress Plugins I Couldn’t Live Without

As part of my Over To You theme, I was asked by Yvonne from Double the Monkey Business which WordPress plugins I couldn’t live without.

The short answer is I actually use very few plugins, but here are the ones I do use that are invaluable to me:

WordPress Plugins I Couldn’t Live Without One: Askimet

Askimet deals with comments. It sorts spam comments and stops them from posting on your blog. You can view the spam comments and manually approve any that aren’t spam. You also need to manually approve commenters once. Once that’s done, comments from those people auto-approve.

I do find that some of the comments it puts in my spam folder aren’t spam – sometimes I find one in there from people who have commented loads, so if you use this plugin, make sure to regularly check your spam folder.

WordPress Plugins I Couldn’t Live Without Two: SumoMe

I love SumoMe. I used it when I was blogging on Blogger and I was so happy when I found I could use it here too. It has so many amazing features:

• Share bars that you can customize and display in various places
• Heat maps which show you where abouts on your posts people are clicking
• A basic version of Google Analytics if you just want the main information and don’t want to go through all the rigmarole on the site
• It also offers various pop-ups, which obviously I don’t use because they annoy me so much
• Email lists and subscription boxes

And loads more features I can’t remember.

WordPress Plugins I Couldn’t Live Without Three: WordPress Related Posts

This is actually a new one for me, I’ve only been using it for the last week or so, and already it has made a big difference to my bounce rate. It basically displays a list of thumbnails for posts that have the same or similar tags. I was a bit sceptical, but I’m so pleased to have given it a go.

Often, people get to the end of a post and that’s it. This feature puts some new posts which might interest in them in front of them. Not only does this increase views, but it really helps with your bounce rate if people click through to other posts.

Other WordPress Plugins I Use

I do use some others, but I don’t think they are exactly ones I couldn’t live without:

Backup: Touch wood, I’ve never needed to use this, but it is piece of mind knowing that the blog is automatically backed up.

Easy Post View Counter: This displays the hits on each post on your main “posts” screen for a quick glance at which posts are doing well.

EU Cookie Law: Actually, this probably is invaluable, as it ensures your blog is within the law, but there isn’t a whole lot to say about it. It allows a customizable cookies statement to be displayed.

Hit Counter Max: This is more of a widget as it allows site hits to be displayed on your side bar. I’ve read various opinion on this. Some say you should have one, others say you shouldn’t. Personally, I say do whatever you want, it’s your blog. I personally use it because I think it helps brands decide whether or not they want to work with you.

JetPack by wordpress.com: This plugin advertises itself as a way to bring the power of wordpress.com to your self hosted blog. I’ll be honest, I don’t get what all the fuss is about. The only time I use this is to see how many subscribers I have, and that is maybe once every six months. Everyone recommends it though, so maybe I’m missing something.

Yoast SEO: I do sometimes use this. It is much quicker to let the plugin count how many times you use a keyword and work the percentage out than it is to do it manually. If you already know how to optimize your posts, it won’t tell you anything new. If you’re just starting out optimizing though, I would highly recommend it. It really is fab for telling you what you need to do to make your post more visible on search engines.

Thanks for the question Yvonne 🙂

Which WordPress plugins can’t you live without? What am I missing with Jetpack? Let me know in the comments 🙂

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