Which plugins do you need on a new WordPress website? These are exciting times for you. You have just created a new WordPress website or blog. However, the task at hand is not yet complete. There are many more things that need to be done, not least of which is the installation of plugins on your website. All WordPress websites need to have plugins.
In its basic form, WordPress can be thought of as plain. You need plugins to give it the feel and functionality you want. Unfortunately, plugins also tend to be cumbersome. They can slow down your website, which tends to have detrimental effects on your SEO.
It’s tempting to install everything, but that can quickly become cumbersome. What you need to do is to keep the number of plugins as small as is possible. In this article, we have come up with a list of must-have WordPress plugins to give your website the boost that it needs.
Tips for Buying a Domain
If you’re looking to buy domain, you should keep a few things in mind. Here are some tips to help you choose the right domain for your needs:
- Decide what kind of website you want to create. This will help you narrow down your choices of domains.
- Choose a domain that is short and easy to remember. People are more likely to visit your website if they can easily remember your domain name.
- Make sure the domain is available. You can check availability by doing a search on Google or another search engine.
- Once you’ve found an available domain, register it as soon as possible. Domains tend to be snapped up quickly, so don’t wait too long after Domain registration; the next step is to get a good web host for the domain. Managed WordPress hosting is a good option if you have little experience with website maintenance.
Plugins for a New WordPress Domain:
Yoast
Yoast is probably the first plugin you must install on your WordPress website. This is one of the best SEO plugins that is essential for those who are serious about growing their sites. It’s a tool that we have on all our websites. Note that there are many Yoast alternatives out there.
Most of them will do just fine. You are looking for the best SEO Plugins while creating content for your website. The assumption here is that you are going to be creating a lot of content.
But why is SEO important? Search engines are the tools that drive traffic across the internet. What you need to do, as a webmaster or a website owner, it to ensure that your content gets discovered by the people that matter the most.
As such, you need to be well aware of Search Engine Optimization as you create your content. That’s where Yoast comes into play. It’s a tool that enables you to refine your content to be as SEO-friendly as possible. That way, your content will be found by your target audience. Yoast guides you in the following ways;
- It tells you if your content has less or more than the required keywords. Too many and you could be penalized by search engines. Too few search engines will have a difficult time finding your content.
- Yoast guides you in relation to having keywords in your heading and subheadings.
- It also tells you whether or not you have included enough backlinks and internal links in the article that you are creating.
Redirection
Redirection is another plugin that’s a must for all WordPress websites. It’s always important to keep things clean on your site. Redirection allows you to manage 301 redirections and keep track of 404 errors.
But how does Redirection work? Let’s say you have changed the URL on a post or page. A URL change is regarded as a completely new article to Google and other search engines. That could end up costing you in terms of ranking.
The redirection plugin helps by automatically redirecting people from the old URL to the new URL. That way, if you had backlinks pointing to the old link, you won’t have any issues.
The plugin also comes in handy if you change your website’s permalink structure. You can set things up so that all hits on URLs bearing the old structure will be redirected to pages bearing the new structure. So, this is an essential plugin for all WordPress websites.
Broken Link Checker
This is another plugin that we usually set up the moment we create a website for ourselves or our clients. Likewise, you should also know how to create your own business website or blog on WordPress. This way, you can manage and scale your blog and small business professionally.
The great thing is that the broken link checker plugin is lightweight and easy to use. Once you have installed it, it will notify you whenever it detects broken links. You can then decide whether to remove them or to find replacements.
Classic Widgets
When it was initially introduced, a lot of people had problems with the Gutenberg editor. Part of it had to do with taste. If you were used to the old feel, it was inevitable that you were going to have issues with the new look.
The Gutenberg extends to the Widget area. While we have gotten used to the rest of the Gutenberg feel, we still have issues with having blocks in the Widgets area. If you fall into this category, the good news is that you can use the Classic editor widgets to get back to the Classic Widgets area.
Summary
This article gave you four essential plugins for all WordPress websites. We noted that plugins are there to give your site greater functionality. However, they can be costly if you install too many of them. That’s because they tend to slow down websites. With these essential WordPress plugins, you should be good to go.
Plugins have the potential to make or break your site. However, performance is not solely down to plugins. There are a lot of other factors that come into play. As an example, your WebHost’s performance is an important consideration. Web hosts come in all shapes and sizes.
