Optimise Your CMS With These WordPress Essentials

If you want a WordPress site that is quick, user-friendly, secure and loved by the search engines, then choose these 10 best plugins to install.

27% of all websites on the Internet are powered by WordPress, according to the Ultimate List of WordPress Statistics. This equates to almost 16 million websites which range from personal blogs and small businesses, all the way up to large companies such as TIME, CNN and Spotify. WordPress is an incredibly versatile and robust platform, but at its heart, it is a simple foundation on which to design a fantastically dynamic site. Plugins are mini coded programs that enhance the functionality of a WordPress site and provide a better user experience.

Here are 10 of the best WordPress plugins to install on your site.

1. All In One SEO Pack

The best SEO Consultants and WordPress Designers install search engine optimisation plugins on a CMS website in order to help your site or page rank well in Google. You simply enter the keywords and metatag information for each post or page that you publish.

2. Google Analytics

Webmasters need to keep tabs on the amount and type of traffic that their site is attracting. Google Analytics provides highly in-depth information about bounce rates, social media referrals, and your most popular pages. Use this plugin to easily insert the Analytics tracking code into your footer file.

3. W3 Total Cache

If you want to reduce your page load speed, which will help to improve your rankings with Google, then this caching plugin can reduce the load time to under 1 second.

4. Broken Link Checker

Run this plugin every few months so that it doesn’t slow down your site. With occasional use, it is brilliant at scanning for broken links on your website. Once it has identified the problem URLs, simply weed them out and improve both your user experience and your reputation with Google.

5. Anti-Spam

If you don’t want your posts and pages to be flooded with trashy spam comments, then it is essential that you install a quality plug-in like Anti-Spam.

6. Pretty Link Lite

If you plan on promoting affiliate schemes on your website, then you may be familiar with the unattractive affiliate codes that are provided. Pretty Link Lite will hide these codes both from your site visitors and more importantly from the search engines.

7. Defender

Unfortunately, from the moment your website is up and running, you will be vulnerable to hacking attempts. A plugin such as Defender regularly scans your site looking for weaknesses and if any are found, you can fix them with a single click. It pays to protect your site.

8. Google XML Sitemaps

Sitemaps allow the search engines to understand the structure of your website so that it can efficiently index all of your content. By creating a Google XML Sitemap, the web crawlers will inform all the major search engines each and every time you add a post or make other amendments.

9. WP Smush Pro

Adding attractive images to your site is a great way to engage the attention of your site visitors. However, pictures tend to slow your site speed down enormously, which frustrates users. An image compression plugin like WP Smush Pro can optimise your images without losing their quality.

10. Snapshot

In the event that you’re hacked or have a system failure, taking a backup of your backup files is crucial to recovering your site. Snapshot can save your backup files to locations such as Dropbox, your PC, Amazon S3 or Google Drive.

Many of the best WordPress plugins are completely free, so don’t feel pressured into purchasing expensive gadgets for your site unless you have previously trialled a free version.