Top 13 FREE WordPress Plugins

Part of the Magic of WordPress is the ability to Install Free WordPress Plugins

This is the list of the 13 plugins that I use on my site that are the most important.

1.  WordPress SEO

I honestly can’t believe this plugin is Free.  It is that awesome.  It does everything that most the Free SEO and Paid SEO plugins do. 

• Write SEO Friendly Content
• Page Analysis Tool
• Sitemap
• Robots & No Follows
• Duplicate Content
• Title, Tags, Meta
• And More

2. W3 Total Cache

Speed Kills, your blog.  Lack of speed that is.  If your site takes to long to load there is repercussions. 

• Bad User Experience
• Reduced SEO
• Higher Bounce Rate 

This plugin will help you Cache many different portions of the blog.  By Caching (or Storing for easy relaunch) your site will load much faster.

3.  Digg Digg

Every Bloggers dream is that there content will get Shared all over the internet.  In order for that to happen you need to have Social Sharing Tools on your blog.

• Place Before or After or On Side of Posts
• Share on Digg, LinkedIn, Google +1, Reddit, dDone, Twitter, TweetMeme, Topsy, Yahoo Buzz, facebook share, facebook like, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Sphinn, Google Buzz, Designbump, WebBlend, BlogEngage and Serpd.
• Email and Print
• Easy to Set Up

4.  Pretty Links Lite

I Love this plugin.  It is like having your own Bit.Ly website on your blog.  Have you ever wanted to share a link on your site, email or on Social Media… but it is super long and clumsy?  You can create shortened and customized links on your blog.

• ex:  www.JasonFox.me/ShortenedLink

5. Broken Link Checker

Have you ever clicked on a link on a blog and it did not work or gave you an ERROR message?  Not on my blog!  

• Monitors all links on your blog and alerts you if any are not working correctly

6.  Contact Form 7 or CFormsII

You need forms on your blog!  Contact Us, Subscribe Here, Get More Information, etc.  Either of these plugins make awesome forms.

• Contact Form 7 is easier to use but has less configurability
• CFormsII has more customization but is more complicated
• This being said if you want easy MailChimp or AWeber Integration into your forms, and maximum flexibility you should consider purchasing either:
• Formidable Pro
• Gravity Forms

7.  What Would Seth Godin Do?

Are you familiar with Seth Godin?  This plugin will help you give recognition to readers that frequent your site, and thanks for new readers.

• Place a custom message before or after each post
• Use cookies to determine if a reader has been to your blog before and give them an appropriate message

8.  AdRotate

You might as well make some money with your blog.  If you get a good amount targeted traffic to your blog you may be in a position to sell them some product.  With Affiliate Marketing you can sell other companies products and make a commision.  This Plugin will help you to do this.

• Super easy management of ads, groups and blocks of ads
• Get email notifications when your ads need you
• Simple stats so you can follow which ad is working the best
• Track how many a banner is clicked and show it’s Cick-Through-Ratio
• Works with Google Ads and most other referrer/ad programs
• Use shortcodes, widgets or PHP to put ads on your site

9.  TinyMCE Advanced

The WSIWYG (what you see is what you get) Text Editor in WordPress leaves a little bit to be desired.  This plugin fills in where the stock editor leaves off.

• Change Font Family and Font Size
• Easily Add Tables 
• Spell Checker
• Add Blockquote button
• Much More

  10.  Yet Another Related Posts

If your readers like the post that they are reading there is a good chance they will enjoy other posts you have written.  This plugin will show links to related posts on the post that is being read.

• YARPP calculates a “match score” for each pair of posts on your blog
• Templating: puts you in charge of how your posts are displayed
• Caching: greatly improving performance
• Related posts in RSS feeds

11.  WPTouch

A large percentage of your readers will view your blog on their smartphone or a mobile device.  It is important that your site is mobile ready.  This plugin will get your blog mobile ready.

• Viewable On iPhone, iPad, Droid, Blackberry and More

12.  Akismet

Spammers love to post their links in the comment section of your blog, don’t let them.  Akismet is the Anti-Virus of the WordPress Commenting System.  Spam in your commenting system has a couple ill effects.

• Links out to your blog hurts your SEO
• Spammy Comments Can Create A Bad User Experience, Think Viagra Ads
• Real Comments will be less likely to want to comment on a Spammy Site

13.  Google Analytics

Create a Free Google Analytics Account and they will provide a snippet of code that you can add to this plugin and you will be able to see Valuable Statistics about how people use your blog.  

• Find out how many people visit your blog
• Where they are coming from
• How long they stay to read
• What is the most popular content that you have
• And more