Do you have a WordPress blog on your company website? If not, you should (read this article on why your business needs a blog).
If you do have a blog, here are some must-have WordPress plugins to help optimize, promote, and protect your blog posts:
Akismet
One drawback to blogging is the inundation of spam comments you’ll get on your posts. It doesn’t seem to matter how popular your WordPress blog is, or what the subject of the article is about – spam comments are inevitable on every blog.
Thankfully there’s a cure. The Akismet plugin works some serious magic in automatically filtering out spam. Once you install it, your site will be as protected as it can possibly be against unsolicited comments
Yoast SEO
If you have a WordPress site, you absolutely need to install the Yoast SEO plugin. It simplifies the SEO process for the non-tech savvy WordPress user and shows you exactly what to do to optimize each page and post of your WordPress site. Yoast allows you to customize your title tags, meta descriptions, and more based on your chosen keywords.
Yoast SEO plugin
Disqus Comment System
There are a few different plugins out there that replace the limited WordPress comment system. Disqus is one of the better ones. It hosts and powers all of your blog comments and displays them in a clean, easy-to-read format.
Once someone signs up for a Disqus account, they can use it to comment on any blog that utilizes Disqus comments. This saves them from having to type in their name, email, and website before commenting on a post, making it more likely that they will take the time to leave a comment. So if your goal is to score more comments on your blog posts, installing the Disqus plugin is an excellent way to make that happen.
Revive Old Post
This WordPress plugin is a must if you share your blog posts across your business’s social media accounts. Using Revive Old Post, you can set your older articles to post to Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. You choose the frequency and number of posts to share (for example, 3 posts per week), and the plugin will automatically pick a random old post to share based on your preferences. It’s an easy way to drive more traffic to your website and draw attention to older articles that your newer followers may not have seen before without you having to schedule social media updates yourself.
Revive Old Post WordPress plugin
WP Smush
The WP Smush plugin automatically reduces the file size of all images you upload, which will make your website load faster, improve its SEO, and reduce user bounce rate. Fear not: its image compression does not reduce the quailty of your images.
WPtouch Mobile Plugin
Most WordPress blog themes these days claim to be “responsive” and mobile-friendly However, sometimes if you modify your theme files with custom code, it can mess with the responsiveness and make your website appear some degree of broken when viewed on a mobile.
If your website looks great on a desktop but not quite right on mobile, try installing the WPtouch Mobile Plugin. When activated, it will strip most of the styling from the mobile version of your site and display it in a clean, simple format that doesn’t look broken.
W3 Total Cache
If your website is running slow or is using up a lot of resources on your server, the W3 Total Cache plugin may be what you need to fix it. This plugin caches certain elements of your website based on your preferences and can greatly improve your site’s performance as well as the user experience.