Welcome to Part 8 of 2-week-long blog series for newbie bloggers – “Blog Your Heart Away”
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As I said in my earlier post 8 Mistakes That A Newbie Blogger Make And How To Fix Them, you are having only less freedom to tweak your blog. If your blog is self-hosted, then you can have complete control over your blog’s design, speed, and additional features.
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WordPress plugins are one such additional features. They are available in two options as free and paid. But what are plugins? What are its benefits?
In this post, I discuss about WordPress plugins and 10+ Most Essential Free WordPress Plugins For Beginner Bloggers. Also, list out the plugin installation checklist.
Blog Your Heart Away Blog Series Part 8: 10+ Most Essential Free WordPress Plugins For Beginner Bloggers
What Are WordPress Plugins
From WordPress,
WordPress Plugins are PHP scripts that extend the functionality of WordPress. They enhance the features of WordPress or add entirely new features to your site. Plugins are often developed by volunteers and are usually free to the public. Plugins are available via the WordPress Plugin Directory.
WordPress Plugins Installation Checklist
Though plugins are more powerful in their functions, you must be aware of some essential tips. So here’s your Plugin Installation Checklist.
Plugin Installation Checklist
- Install only the most needed plugins as they may affect your site speed.
- Before installing any plugins, read the instructions, and reviews thoroughly.
- Install only plugins that are compatible with your blog theme.
- Install only plugins that are updated recently.
- Have all the plugins updated properly to avoid any security threats.
- Have only a minimum of plugins. Say 10 to 15 plugins are recommended.
- Install only one plugin for one specific function.
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10+ Most Essential Free WordPress Plugins For Beginner Bloggers
All the plugins listed in this post are the most essential, tested, and verified plugins to use in your blog without any second thought as I personally use all of them.
Akismet Antispam
Plugin Name: Akismet Spam Protection
Description
Akismet checks your comments and contact form submissions and prevents your blog from malicious comments. Keeps your blog free from the bot and irrelevant comments.
Major features in Akismet include:
- Automatically checks all comments and filters out the ones that look like spam.
- URLs are shown in the comment body to reveal hidden or misleading links.
- Moderators can see the number of approved comments for each user.
- A discard feature that outright blocks the worst spam, saving you disk space and speeding up your site.
Classic Editor
Plugin Name: Classic Editor
Description
Classic Editor is an official plugin maintained by the WordPress team that restores the previous (“classic”) WordPress editor. The best alternate to WordPress new block editor “Gutenberg”.
At a glance, the Classic Editor plugin has the following features:
- Administrators can select the default editor for all users.
- Administrators can allow users to change their default editor.
- When allowed, the users can choose which editor to use for each post.
- Each post opens in the last editor used regardless of who edited it last. This is important for maintaining a consistent experience when editing content.
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Contact Form 7
Plugin Name: Contact Form 7
Description
Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering, and so on. Helps your readers to contact you.
Duplicate Page
Plugin Name: Duplicate Page
Description
Duplicates Posts, Pages, and Custom Posts easily using a single click. You can duplicate your pages, posts, and custom post with just one click and it will save as your selected options (draft, private, public, pending).
Jetpack By WordPress
Plugin Name: Jetpack By WordPress
Description
Jetpack provides the freedom to build your own successful blog. It’s actually one service packed with powerful tools to help you reach your goals. The highlighted features are:
- Keep your site secure
- Make it fast
- Grow your audience
Shareaholic
Plugin Name: Shareaholic
Description
Shareaholic is the world’s leading suite of Audience Growth & Engagement tools. It allows you to add Award-Winning Social Share Buttons, Related Posts, Content Analytics, Ad Monetization, and more to your blog.
This plugin makes it easy for any website — big or small — to engage and grow their traffic, market their content, gain insight, and monetize their audience. And its all done in a single dashboard.
Pin This For Later Read

Wordfence Security
Plugin Name: Wordfence Security
Description
Wordfence Security is the most popular WordPress Firewall and Security Plugin. It includes an endpoint firewall and malware scanner that protects WordPress. Wordfence is the most comprehensive WordPress security solution available.
W3 Total Cache
Plugin Name: W3 Total Cache
Description
W3 Total Cache improves the SEO and user experience of your site by increasing website performance and reducing load times by leveraging features like content delivery network (CDN) integration and the latest best practices. Basically, it clears the cache memory for loading your blog faster.
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WP GDPR Compliance
Plugin Name: WP GDPR Compliance
Description
WP GDPR Compliance plugin assists website and webshop owners to comply with European privacy regulations known as GDPR. It adds consents and gives your readers full control. Needed if your readers are from European countries.
WP-Optimize
Plugin Name: WP-Optimize
Description:
WP-Optimize is a revolutionary, all-in-one WordPress performance plugin that cleans your database, compresses your images, and caches your site.
Its cache feature is built around the world’s fastest caching engine. This simple, popular and highly effective tool has everything you need to keep your website fast and thoroughly optimized! Helps in image optimization.
Yoast SEO For WordPress
Plugin Name: Yoast SEO For WordPress
Description:
Yoast SEO Plugin optimizes keywords, keyphrases and synonyms, related keywords, and all word forms.
In Yoast SEO you can enter the keyword or keyphrase you’d like your post or page to rank for in the search results. The plugin then runs a check on your content to check whether you’re using the keywords often enough – but not too often – and in the right spots. It’s the #1 plugin for SEO.
Summary
Hope this comprehensive list of essential WordPress Plugins reduces your burden of searching and testing. You can well go ahead and install these plugins in your blog without any mess or problem.
What plugins do you use on your blog? Which plugins are your most favorite ones? Do share it with me.
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Info Source: wordPress.org
Don’t miss to read my next post “Blog Your Heart Away Part 9: Ready To Use Stock Photos For Beginner Bloggers
Feel free to help your friends to read this blog series!
Read the previous posts in BYHA series:
- Blog Your Heart Away (BYHA)
- How To Start A Blog For Free In 5 Easy Steps
- How To Structure A Perfect Blog Post
- Essential Action Steps To Take Before And After Publishing A Blog Post
- Top 9 Types Of Blog Posts That Go Viral
Pin Image Courtesy: Pexels & Canva
Another master blog post, your blog posts are always helpful and insightful! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing such a useful information