12 WordPress Plugins That All Beginner Bloggers Should Install

WordPress powers millions of blogs worldwide, and the service—particularly WordPress.org—has some of the best customization options you’ll find on the web. You can choose from numerous themes to make your website look how you want it to, and you can install several plugins to enhance the site’s functionalities.

You can use WordPress plugins to make your website compliant with local regulations, stop spam, and improve your marketing campaigns. You’ll find plugins for numerous other purposes as well, and we’ll reveal a dozen of the best options today.

If your blog operates within the EU or EEA, you must comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Part of these regulations requires you to give users consent before you store cookies in their browsers.

CookieYes is a free plugin that allows you to embed a consent banner on your website. Users can alter and adjust their preferences however they want. After installing the plugin, you can sign up for a CookieYes account and set everything up on your blog.

An alternative to CookieYes is Cookiebot, which helps your site remain compliant with the GDPR. You can also use the tool to comply with the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), which has been in effect since January 2023.

You can use your Cookiebot banner in more than 40 languages, and the plugin is free for 50 subpages. If you need something more comprehensive as you grow your blog, you can opt for one of the various paid plans.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial if you want others to find your blog on Google, Bing, and so on. Yoast is one of the most effective SEO plugins, and the free version is perfect for beginner bloggers.

The Yoast SEO plugin lets you choose a focus keyword, and you’ll also receive scores for your posts. If you need to fill in some gaps, the tool will give you a list of suggestions—such as adding external links. Moreover, you’ll receive a readability score.

Learning about SEO will take time and experimentation. You can speed up the process with proactive learning, and we’ve got a full guide on how to become an SEO expert.

Website performance is just as important as high-quality content for building an audience, and Jetpack is probably the best WordPress plugin for helping in this respect. Jetpack has round-the-clock security features to keep your site safe from external threats, and you can automatically back up your blog.

Jetpack also makes it easier for you to move your blog to a new host later if you want to. You can get analytics tools, too, along with lots of other niceties. If you’re good at coding, you can use various JavaScript tips to optimize your performance.

MonsterInsights lets you monitor your web traffic more closely. You can look at your conversion rate, average order value, and which devices users are accessing your blog from.

Other metrics you can measure with MonsterInsights include how long people tend to stay on your blog and your total number of sessions. To use MonsterInsights, you’ll need to sign up for Google Analytics.

Spam comments are an unfortunate reality for online blogs, but you can minimize the risk by using anti-spam software. Akismet is one way that you can protect your blog from comments that fall into this category.

Akismet uses machine learning to determine what is spam and what isn’t, and you can integrate the service with Jetpack and other tools for your WordPress site. The basic version operates on a pay-what-you-can model, whereas more premium options have fixed pricing.

All artists, including writers, should start an online newsletter for audience engagement, selling opportunities, and various other benefits. Creative Mail is a WordPress-designed option for creating email newsletters, and the plugin is free to use.

After integrating CreativeMail, you can go to it whenever you want from your main WordPress page. You can sync blog posts and use the feature with WooCommerce, and it also integrates with Jetpack. Creative Mail has numerous stock images that you can use to grow your newsletter as well.

WordPress has moved toward the same block editing solutions that you’ll see on sites like Squarespace and Wix, but you can always revert to the previous editing version with the Classic Editor plugin. The Classic Editor lets you determine who is the default editor for each page or blog, and you’ll also get the old layout.

The Classic Editor plugin will continue to receive support and updates until at least 2024.

Removing as much friction as possible will help you stay consistent in publishing blog posts, and Elementor does that by making editing much easier. The plugin lets you drag and drop elements like you would on some of the other most popular website builders, and you can use more than 90 widgets.

Elementor has support in over 50 languages, and the tool was designed to ensure that your blog continues to perform at an optimal speed. The service has a selection of paid plans, and you can get WooCommerce integration as well.

Your blog probably won’t immediately make money, but you should think about monetization as soon as possible. Listing products you want to sell is one way to do that, and WooCommerce is an open-source plugin that gives you more control over your blog’s e-commerce aspects.

WooCommerce allows you to customize your product pages and choose your preferred payment methods. You can also sell both one-time purchases and subscriptions.

You should take every step possible to stop your website content from getting deleted. But if the worst happens, knowing that you have a backup option helps—and UpdraftPlus lets you blog with more confidence by backing up your posts.

UpdraftPlus allows you to schedule your backups, and you can anonymize personal data with the service. It has free and premium versions.

Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing platforms, and you can integrate the service with your WordPress site via MC4W. MC4W is an unofficial plugin with more than two million active installations as of May 2023, and you can easily connect your account to your site. On top of that, you can design signup forms that can help you grow your mailing list.

Mailchimp4WordPress integrates with WooCommerce, WPForms, and several other plugins. You can manage the service from your dashboard.

Install These Plugins to Give Your WordPress Blog the Best Chance of Growing

You don’t need a perfect website when you launch your blog, but you should, at the very least, have the most essential plugins to set yourself up for long-term success. It’s also smart to think ahead and set up your monetization systems early on, which can save time later.

These plugins will help you measure website performance, stick with regulatory requirements, stop spam, and much more. So, why not integrate them with your site today?