WordPress Plugins give your website extra functionality. There are a few essential plugins needed on every site.
These include the following:
• Akismet
• WordPress SEO
• Google Analytics for WordPress
• A backup Plugin (We will be reviewing backup plugins and systems separately) – a free one that can be installed is WP-DB-Backup
• Social Media Plugin (there are a number of good ones we will review) –
The initial installation of WordPress comes with two plugins. These are the Akismet plugin and the Hello Dolly plugin.
I suggest you delete the Hello Dolly plugin as I have never found a use for this plugin yet.
Here is a brief summary of the basic plugins. We will be covering these in-depth in later lessons.
Akismet
The Akismet plugin should be used to help control comment Spam. As it is included in WordPress, you simply have to click on the Activate link.
This will take you to a page where you have to enter a key you get from Akismet. It tells you to click a link to get the key. Simply follow the instructions and get your key and enter it into the plugin to get the Akismet spam control plugin working.
WordPress SEO
WordPress SEO by Yoast ( or Joost de Valk in his native language) is an incredible plugin to help you with your on-page Search Engine Optimization.
This plugin controls many things essential for good SEO on your site. One of the key things it does is help you to pick a focus keyword for each page and post, and build your post correctly around that (correct titles, urls, headings, meta-tags, etc.)
Click on Add Plugins and search for ‘WordPress SEO’. It should come up as the top plugin. Make sure it is the one by Yoast.
Simply click on the Install Now and the plugin will be installed.
After it is done, click on the Activate button.
Google Analytics for WordPress
Since we are using the excellent WordPress SEO by Yoast, I also recommend his Google Analytics Plugin. There are quite a few good plugins that help you connect Google Analytics to your WordPress site, but I do like to limit my exposure to plugin suppliers whenever possible.
Again, search ‘Google Analytics for WordPress’ and it should come up as the first one. Again, be sure that the creator is Joost De Valk (at the end of the plugin description).
Click the Install Now and this plugin will be installed.
I recommend not activating this plugin yet, until you have set up your Google Analytics account (more details in later lesson).
WP-DB-Backup
There are a number of Backup plugins. This is an area where a free plugin has not dominated.
In fact, you could possibly go without a backup plugin as you can use the built in WordPress Export function under the Tools menu. The downfall about this is that you have to remember to do it, and backup plugins have a schedule feature.
We will be going into some premium backup plugin solutions in future lessons.
For now I suggest that you download and set up WP-DB-Backup – search for that term exactly and install that plugin.
Once installed – click on the Backup link under the Tools Menu.
Here you will first see the Tables option.
As you expand your site and add in extra features and functionality, more optional tables will be included in this area, you can choose to only backup the core WordPress tables, or to include extra tables.
Below are the tables option you have and the options and Schedule features.
If your taking a one-time backup for some reason (making significant changes to your site like themes or plugins), then I would suggest choose the option to download to your computer and run the Backup Now.
The Scheduled Backup is the key feature for having a backup plugin installed. This will allow you to have backups done automatically so that your site is always protected.
Depending on how often you add content to your site I would suggest that you set the schedule to either Once Daily or Once Weekly. Put in the email address you want the backup to be sent to and click on Schedule Backup.
Social Media Plugin
I will mention two options for a social media plugin. I would suggest either use Floating Social or Socialize.
Often there is social media built into your theme, so that is another option.
We will cover social media plugins in greater detail in later lessons. But I mention it here as I believe if you are starting your website or blog, you should install a social media plugin right away to help with sharing your content.
Either of the above plugins can be easily searched and installed and configured for your site.