10 Free and Essential WordPress Plugins for 2012

With a growing list of over 20,000 plugins, it is a bit complex to figure out which plugins to use every so often! This is a quick evaluation of 12 crucial WordPress plugins that every WordPress Blog has to have. The correct news is (at the time of scripting this) they are all completely loose. The vital WordPress plugins relate to improving WordPress capability, security, SEO, and Social Marketing.

#1 – Secure-WP

Security has to be your first challenge continually. At the same time, something is publicly accessible on the net – this is why I rank Secure-WP as one of the most crucial WordPress plugins accessible. Don’t get me wrong – WordPress does an exquisite activity natively of securing your Blog, providing that you maintain the version up to date.

However, Secure-WP further bolsters that security by getting rid of oodles of data that hackers might utilize and putting off some touchy cloth from personal bills while keeping this data in the administrator’s account. Good stuff!

#2 – Spam Free WordPress

Spam is a HUGE trouble with WordPress blogs, which makes an anti-junk mail plugin one of the most critical WordPress plugins. I use Spam Free WordPress, which seems to be doing pretty nicely. Over six months, it has blocked over eight 000 spam remarks, a variety that seems to grow exponentially. Now consider having to go through 40-50 unsolicited mail comments in step with the day! One of the important reasons we use plugins is to save time, and Spam Free WordPress honestly accomplishes this!

Essential WordPress Plugins #3 – W3 Total Cache

After safety and unsolicited mail are looked after, website velocity is the next issue that involves the mind. No one needs to wait around for 30 seconds for your website to load, so web page pace is crucial. I’ll now point out more than one important WordPress plugin that helps supercharge your internet site.

The first is W3 Total Cache. This plugin is hugely popular and has downloaded almost 1.2 million instances! It helps accelerate your website by improving server overall performance, caching every issue of your website, decreasing download times, and offering obvious content transport community (CDN) integration. Quick, it makes your WordPress Blog faster!

#four – WP-Optimize

WordPress is database-driven. The more efficient the database is, the faster pages may be accessed from the database, and the quicker your website loads in your site visitors. However, a WordPress database can become polluted with unnecessary statistics (including deleted content material, junk mail remarks, vintage page revisions, and many others) through the years. This will increase the overall length of the database and the entry times to that database. The give-up result – your pages take longer to open.

WP-Optimize cleans up your database routinely and keeps it streamlined by eliminating unnecessary information continuously.

#5 – WP Database Backup

Regarding essential WordPress plugins, backing up your information is proper up there. It’s something we all go away until it’s too overdue, and then desire we hadn’t. WP Database Backup makes it easy to back up the center. The key component right here is that you are capable of up your website online with WP DB – and if you want, you can rent a freelancer to restore your websites; I could imagine who might fee in the vicinity of $25-50 – lots much less of a headache than rebuilding your web page from scratch!WordPress tables.

The one drawback to this plugin is that it’s a bit elaborate to restore if something does appear on your site. There are opportunity plugins available that are plenty more person-friendly, along with Backup Buddy, but that is unluckily not a loose plugin, priced at $75 for 2 WordPress sites.

#6 – Broken Link Checker

There’s nothing more frustrating than clicking on a link and getting the “web page no longer observed” mistakes. While that irritates the visitor, it also commonly has the effect of pushing that traveler (and potential patron) away from your website. The Broken Link Checker can screen hyperlinks for your posts, pages, remarks, blogroll, and custom fields and report broken links to you via your WordPress dashboard or email.

Essential WordPress Plugins #7 – Google XML Sitemaps

There are masses, if not lots, of search engine optimization-associated plugins. Only a handful of those I might not forget are essential WordPress plugins. The first is Google XML Sitemaps. A sitemap is a road map of your website, outlining all the character pages and how they hyperlink collectively – their structure. Google and the other most important search engines like Google and Yahoo use such sitemaps to move slowly and index your website online more efficaciously.

Google XML Sitemaps automatically creates one of these sitemaps and maintains it updated as you upload new content material. In addition, it additionally notifies all fundamental search engines whenever you make and put up new content material.

#8 – In-One Search Engine Optimization Pack

All-in-One SEO is the most popular search engine marketing plugin for WordPress blogs. It lets you optimize pages and posts by mechanically producing meta tags and enables you to maximize internet web page titles. The incredible issue about the All in One search engine marketing Pack is that it’s far fully purposeful out of the container. It requires very limited configuration, making it exquisite for those new to WordPress and search engine marketing.

#9 – Ultimate Follow Me

Perhaps my “favorite” of the critical WordPress plugins listed right here. Ultimate Follow Me is a WordPress sidebar widget that links to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other Social media systems. It also includes Google +1, which is normally regarded as an outstanding way to increase your search engine rankings.

I have demoed quite some of these Social advertising plugins. While they all do quite a lot of the identical elements, Ultimate Follow Me usually makes social media icons a touch “prettier”. There are numerous sizes to pick from, and they appear splendid in the sidebar – your traffic is positive, so do not miss them!

#10 – Shareaholic

Another of the critical WordPress plugins I can’t do without! The plugin automatically creates a suitable social advertising bar at the bottom of your posts. People can like your publication on Facebook, Tweet it to their Twitter account, or share it on many social bookmarking websites.

At the time of penning this, Shareaholic helps eighty-five sites! It additionally comes in 3 flavors: classic bookmarks, attractive bookmarks, and sassy bookmarks. Once you’ve determined which social websites to use, Shareaholic automatically posts the hyperlinks to the bottom of every page or post – although you can override the plugin on an in-keeping-with-page basis so it would not display.