Blog Help: 4 Essential Plugins For WP Bloggers

As a blogger you may or may not be aware of the 4 essential plugins you should have for your blog.

Back when I first started blogging, I did it the hard way. I tried to learn it all on my own and trust me when I say, that is a horrible way to learn to blog. The amount of time I spent frustrated trying to get my blog set up, would have many of you laughing or crying right along with me.

One of the plugins I am about to mention, no one even told me about, and because I didn’t have it on my blog… I was hacked. They call it the white screen of death. You can’t even log into your blog as an admin. You are totally locked out. Talk about a scary time for a blogger.

The worst part was even though I thought I had gotten rid of all the crap coding they installed my blog, there was sleeper coding that popped up down the road.

OMG, can I tell you how embarrassing it is to have a client call you up and tell you that your site is re-directing to porn on mobile devices! Not only did they hack my blog, they hacked my blogging course also. Paying clients were getting re-directed to a porn site when trying to login.

It was so embarrassing. Here I was a blogger, teaching blogging and the one ingredient I was missing was plugin to protect my site!

So I have to thank JustHost.com customer support and team for purging my site of all the hacker code and making my blog and blogging course safe again. Highly recommend them as a hosting site!

So that is why I am extremely passionate about these 4 essential plugins for any blogger. They can save you a lot of heart ache and frustration.

4 Essential Plugins for WP Bloggers

In order of importance, but all are needed. Here are my top 4 essential plugins for WP Bloggers.

1. Akismet – Comment spam blocker.
2. iThemes Security – Protect your blog from hackers.
3. Shareaholic – Social Share Buttons and so much more!
4. Thrive Leads – Build your email list fast!

Now these are just the basics. There are a few more that you could add but it all depends on your blog and your business.

What I love about plugins is that they allow added functions for bloggers. They are a key ingredient in the customization of your blog. They help give it personality!

I have added and removed I don’t know how many plugins over the past few years. I do believe in testing plugins. Find the right one that works for you.

An example of this is the social share plugin ‘Shareaholic’. I went through multiple share plugins in the early days. I was going to top bloggers sites to see what plugin they were using. Some I liked, tired it out, and then found a better one.

You will also find that some themes already have some amazing plugin features already added in. This keeps your blog from being bogged down with too many plugins.

I will caution this… The fewer plugins the better. Too many plugins can slow down your blog load time and even crash your blog. So keep to the essentials.

This is one of the reasons why I purchased a theme.  Typically with a paid for theme, you get a lot of the plugin features that you are looking for in the theme itself. And maybe only need 4 essential plugins that I listed.

I hope you got some value from today’s blog post. If you did, would you mind sharing it?

Also are there any plugins that you recommend. Love learning about new ones out there.

Yours in Gratitude,

Chef Katrina van Oudheusden

Committed to Helping Entrepreneurs Find Success

P.S. Stop the pain of struggling today. There’s an answer waiting on the other side, one simple system that I use to generate 10 to 15 leads a day for my business. (Unless You Already Have Too Many Leads) Click Here To Learn More