6 Best WordPress Plugins For Beginner Bloggers

Great plugins are essential to a successful blog! And if you’re a brand new beginner blogger, it can be really overwhelming trying to figure out exactly everything you need in every section of the monster we call WordPress. That’s why I created this complete guide of the 6 best WordPress plugins for beginner bloggers!

If you’re BRAND brand new, you may be thinking… what is a plugin?!?! Don’t worry! All the terminology and techy stuff will come with time, and in the meantime, I’ll tell you what you need.

Even if you don’t know how to work or optimize all the plugins after installing them, you’re starting off on the right foot just by having them!

 

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But, What Is A Plugin?

A plugin is basically an “add-on” to your WordPress site that adds a function or feature that you didn’t have before. They are part of what makes blogging so great and customizable, especially for newbies!

You can install plugins from the “Plugins” tab on the left menu, under “Appearance”.

So, without further ado, let’s get into the complete list of the 6 best WordPress plugins for beginner bloggers!

 

#6. GS Plugin

GS Plugin is a great feature! Through GS Plugin, you’re able to showcase a snippet of your Pinterest Pins on your site. Here’s an example of what it looks like in action from my other website, Lifestyle Kate.

 

#5. Insert Headers and Footers

Now, this plugin literally SAVED me when I was a beginner. I’m not joking, I actually don’t know what I would have done without it.

I would be in my peak of frustration, trying to learn how to do something on my site that I had never done before, and the final thing that would throw me over the edge would be the line in every post that said (so simply, might I add): “Paste this code into your header“.

Like, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? WHERE IS MY HEADER? I’M NEW HERE, REMEMBER!!

It helped me claim my website on Pinterest, set up Google Analytics and so much more.

So anyhow… this plugin is worth it. You may not know why now, but trust me- install and activate it.

 

#4. Rel NoFollow

Rel Nofollow is a plugin you want to install once you start posting paid content, affiliate links, banner ads, etc. Basically, anything that is a “commercial” link should be no-followed.

In short, Google doesn’t like paid links. If you care at all about SEO (search engine optimization, otherwise known as how to rank in Google), you should use this tool! It will help you from the start as you learn which links should be followed vs no-followed.

What you don’t want is 100% followed links. Google tends to think of that fishy!

 

#3. Broken Link Checker

This is especially important once you start monetizing your blog through affiliate marketing! One of the most popular affiliate marketing programs is Amazon.

You can link to any product through your affiliate dashboard, and once someone clicks your link, if they make a purchase within 24 hours then you make a commission.

Now, once you get heavy into blogging and you have TONS of posts with affiliate links, it’s impossible to keep track of them to make sure they all still work. This plugin does that for you!

I get emails every time a link becomes “broken” and as quickly as that, I’m able to go on and fix it, meaning I don’t miss any opportunities to make money from that link!

 

#2. Antispam Bee

Having an antispam plugin is absolutely crucial. It gets very annoying very quickly trying to go through comments when only a small percentage of them are genuine!

It is SO fun replying to comments that people leave on your site, and having antispam will block comments that are… you guessed it: SPAM!

There are amazing ones you can pay for, but Antispam Bee gets the job done at a low cost of free.

 

#1. Yoast SEO

As we briefly mentioned earlier, SEO, or search engine optimization, is what helps you get your site ranked on Google. This is important because you want people who are searching for topics within your niche on Google to find your site with ease!

The more posts you can get ranking on Google, the more page views you get, AND as a result, the more money you get for blogging!

Yoast SEO analyzes your post as you’re working on it and offers suggestions on how to improve the SEO. There is a free and paid version, and even the free version is incredibly helpful for a beginner blogger just dipping their toes into the ocean of SEO “how-to’s”.

Of all the plugins to have, this one is without a doubt the best WordPress plugins!