9 essential WordPress plugins you should install on your blog today

WordPress plugins play a crucial role in how your blog will function, and getting the most essential plugins dialed in as quickly as possible is a major step that’s designed to serve both your audience and perform well for search engines.

 

Starting a WordPress blog? You're going to want these WordPress plugins right now.

 

What is a WordPress plugin and why are they important?

The only problem with WordPress plugins, is that there are literally thousands of different plugins and blogging tools to choose from out there. To help you cut through all the noise though… these are the must-have WordPress plugins to install when you start blogging today:

 

Yoast SEO: The more people that can find your content, the better your blog will do. The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress helps you to optimize your blog post titles, descriptions, content length and other elements across your entire blog so that you can be found easier by search engines. This is by far the most established, best SEO plugin on the market, and worth installing on your blog first.

WPForms: You’ll want your readers to be able to get in touch with you easily, which I highly recommend—as it’ll encourage other bloggers who want to collaborate with you an easy opportunity to reach out. WPForms is an easy-to-use plugin that allow you to drag & drop contact forms onto any page of your blog.

Site Kit by Google (Analytics Dashboard for WordPress): This is a 100% free plugin made by Google that allows you to see all of your relevant Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google AdSense and Google PageSpeed optimization data directly inside your WordPress dashboard. Connect the plugin to your Google Analytics & Search Console accounts (you can sign up for a free Google Analytics account right here) to find out who’s coming to your site, how long they’re sticking around, and what your most popular blog posts are.

UpdraftPlus: Again, sometimes things will go wrong on your blog (and it won’t always be totally in your control). It’s always smart to have a backup plugin that’ll save all your hard work on a regular basis, and this free one stands high above the rest.

WP Rocket: Faster websites rank higher on Google and give your readers a better experience. WP Rocket is a plugin that caches your blog pages, reduces your file sizes, and does much more to ensure that your blog loads faster for everyone.

Bunny CDN: Speaking of speed, Bunny.net makes a fantastic WordPress plugin-based CDN that’ll make images and other static elements of your blog load at lightning speed, earning this plugin top marks to consider as a complement to also using WP Rocket.

Insert Headers and Footers: Sometimes to edit your blog theme, you’ll have to add code snippets to your header or footer (it’s not as scary as it sounds). However, doing it in the code of your theme can cause issues. This plugin lets you add small snippets of code easily to select locations around your blog.

Lightweight Accordion: I recommend installing the free plugin I use to make those content widgets come to life: Lightweight Accordion. In just a few clicks with this plugin, you can quickly add collapsible FAQ box functionality to your WordPress blog.

MightyShare: Automatically generate social share images in WordPress for free. Rather than having whichever boring social share image your blog uses by default, this free plugin automatically generates beautiful social images using multiple templates, fonts, color choices and robust customization. It includes support for all post types, multiple templates and new templates added monthly.

How to install a WordPress plugin (quickly) on your new blog

The fastest way to install a WordPress plugin is to find it within the plugin directory once you’re logged into your blog. To do that, follow these simple steps:

 

1. Navigate to Plugins > Add New:

 

How to Install a WordPress Plugin .

2. Search for the WordPress Plugin You Want to Install:

 

In this example, I’ve searched for the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin (which is an essential search engine optimization plugin you’ll want). If it weren’t already installed on my blog, you’d see the big “Install Now” button where it currently says “Active” here:

 

Find and Install a WordPress Plugin

3. Click Install Now on Your Plugin of Choice:

 

Once you’re ready to install the plugin you’ve searched for (or browsed the top charts to see what’s popular) on your WordPress site, click the “Install Now” button and it’ll be added to your blog. The last step will be clicking “Activate” on the plugin once it’s successfully installed.

 

Basic WordPress blogging platform settings to become familiar with now

There are many different reasons to start a blog and just as many unique blogging goals you may have in mind. Regardless, it pays to have a basic understanding of the broader aspects of how WordPress functions, so that you can control the visual appearance of your blog.

 

Let’s dig into a few of the bigger picture settings that you can find in your WordPress dashboard.

 

Permalinks (URLs)

How to optimize your WordPress permalink settings

Clean up your default site URL

How to clean up your default site URL

Set your blog homepage (customized page or latest blog posts)

How to set your blog's homepage

Set up your blog’s menu (header and footer menus)

How to set up a menu on your WordPress blog

Alright, we’ve covered the basic foundations of getting your blog’s WordPress settings dialed in. Now, let’s dig into creating a few of the main pages on your blog.

 

Create the main pages of your blog: about, contact, hire (on the WordPress blogging platform)

From the moment you start a blog, you’ll want to showcase some basic information about yourself. Who you are. Why people should listen to you. How they can get in touch with you if they have questions or want to work with you.

 

These pages are all pretty standard, but they’re also a great way to have some fun and let your readers get to know you. In fact, I use my own About page to not only introduce who I am and tell my story, but also to explain my value proposition (for potential clients looking to hire me as a freelance content marketer) and show recent achievements.

 

Here are step-by-step instructions for how to write an About Me page that does this on your blog, too:

 

How to write an About page for your blog

How to Write an About Me Page for Your Blog

You might not think much about it, but your About page can quickly become one of the most popular pages on your blog.

 

How to write your blog's about page

Use your About page to show the value you’re creating for your readers—and work hard to earn that attention.

 

How to write a Contact page for your blog

Another often overlooked page that you’ll want to include early on when you start a blog, is a simple way for people to contact you.

 

While mine goes into more depth, your Contact page can be as simple as having your email and social media accounts listed on a page.

 

How to create a contact page for your blog

Think about what types of content you want to share with your readers & the communication you want in return—then use your Contact page to set those expectations right away.

 

 

 

You read a blog because you care about what it says. Creating high quality content is what will bring you readers and help you to eventually make money blogging.

 

 

Now, if you’re unsure, or if no niche comes to mind right away, that’s OK. We can coax it out with a few questions.

 

Ask these questions to determine a smart niche to start a blog in:

What’s an interest or dream from your childhood that you find exciting?

What’s the absolute best part of your day?

Do you have any hobbies or hobbies that you want to learn?

What is a deeply held value of yours?

What’s one achievement that you’re incredibly proud of?

Right away, you should have an idea or two for a clear niche you could start blogging about. It’s ok if your niche grows, evolves and changes over time.

 

How to know if there’s a business opportunity for your blog niche (to eventually make money blogging)

If you want to make money from your blog, you’ll also want to do a bit of research to see if there is a market demand for your niche. What this means is: Are people actively searching for what you’re writing about? And can you add value and help them in a way that makes you money?

 

 

Take the blog niche that you’re thinking about and come up with 5–10 keyword phrases or blog topics within that niche that you would write about. So, if we wanted to start a blog about playing guitar you might choose keywords like “best guitar books,” “how to play guitar,” “beginner guitar chords,” “what guitar should I buy,” and so on.

 

Now, let’s do a little keyword research. Enter one of those keywords from above into your Google search. If there are tens of millions (or more) results.

 

Use  Free Keyword Research Tool

Free Keyword Research Tool (AI-Powered) SEO Keyword Research and Ideas

Try h – super tools to get dozens of research-backed ides for keywords & topics to write about on your blog today.

 

GET KEYWORD IDEAS

Do this for each of your keywords and look at the results. If all of your top keywords have a Monthly Search Volume of 5,000 – 10,000, you’ve definitely got a potentially profitable niche. If you’re too much over that, into the high hundreds of thousands of Monthly Searches, you might want to get more specific with your niche rather than competing with much larger, established websites on more popular subjects. Your goal will eventually be to learn how to rank higher on Google than all these competitors.

 

Brainstorm smart blog post ideas (using keyword research)

Even once you’ve established the niche you’ll be blogging about, you have to do smart keyword research in order to generate the right blog post ideas that’ll actually bring you readers.

 

So, what about the actual posts you’re going to write? The good news is you can honestly write whatever you want! This is your blog after all, and one of the major benefits is that it’s your platform to speak and share. But, ideas don’t always come naturally.

 

This is where I believe a simple editorial calendar is so important. It’s just a basic document to fill out that’ll give you a roadmap to always knowing what you’re writing next. It frees you up to spend more time on the fun of actually putting posts together—not banging your head against the wall trying to come up with blog post ideas.

 

5 ways to come up with clever blog post ideas

 

If I’m still left needing more ideas, I’ll turn to a few more creative tactics…

 

Seeing what other bloggers in my niche covered (and what did well).

Taking a look at my most successful posts to see what readers like most.

Doing more quote roundup posts that don’t require a ton of original thought and effort from my end.

Chatting with bloggers in my space and brainstorming fresh ideas.

Talking about specific blogging lessons I’ve recently learned (and my advice).

Reflecting on the blogging mistakes I’ve made and the tactics that work today.

By this point, I’ve usually got a fully stocked content calendar. Still need some more content inspiration? Here are 201+ winning blog post ideas.

 

Now you’re ready to write your first blog post

Once you’ve decided on the first blog post you want to write, you’ll navigate to the “Add New Post” section from your WordPress Dashboard.

 

Go to Posts > Add New which will look like this right here:

 

Write Your First Blog Post for Beginners

Next, you’ll be taken to a brand new article page that’ll look like (a totally blank canvas ??):

 

Add New Post Screen Example in WordPress Guide to Writing a New Blog Post

Write a blog post headline that encourages readers to click through

One of the reasons you’re blogging is to attract readers, right? Well, it pays dividends to put some effort into learning how to write a headline that’ll entice readers and most importantly—deliver on the promise of what your article is actually helping readers to accomplish.

 

 

Blog Title Generator Tool

Try  free H-super tool Blog Title Generator Tool to get dozens of SEO-friendly headline ideas to make your blog posts stand out today.

 

GET TITLE IDEAS

So let’s say you’ve determined that your hiking blog should start by breaking down some underrated hikes in Yosemite, compiling a list of the best hiking boots on the market, rounding up gifts for hikers in your life and talking about when to visit Yosemite during the year. Next, click into the “Add title” bar on your new post page and type in a title like…

 

How to Write a Blog Post Headline in Starting a New Blog

As a starting point to writing a strong title, learn by observing the headlines of other successful bloggers in your niche:

 

Do they often lead with numbers?

How many of their article headlines include parentheses?

Does it seem like a best practice to capitalize the first letter of every word?

Check out a few of the most recent headlines from my blog so you can get some inspiration on how you might want to structure your headlines .

 

If you’re still unsure about how to title a new post, then do a Google search for the target keyword phrase you’re going after and gather inspiration for the ways other titles are written—be sure not to directly copy other bloggers, but that’ll point you in the right direction.

 

Choose an SEO-friendly blog post URL

It’s extremely important that you customize the URL of your new post, if you hope for it to rank well in organic Google search results.

 

How to set an SEO-friendly URL for your blog posts.

Craft a compelling introduction to your new blog post

You have one or two sentences to convince readers your new post is worth their time. Here’s a sample blog post introduction I just wrote in less than two minutes for our hiking example:

 

 

The do's and don'ts of writing a blog post introduction

The easiest strategy for writing a compelling introduction is to answer the who, what, where, when and why as soon as possible. This may sound counterintuitive, but another trick is to start with your conclusion first. In the age of short attention spans, people have grown tired of wasting time on clickbait blog posts that go nowhere.

 

The quicker you can establish relevance to your reader, give them a strong reason to believe they’ll find what they’re looking for in your blog post, the more likely they’ll be to dig into your piece and share with others.

 

Optimize the design and layout of your blog post

Ultimately, what looks “good” is subjective and up to you, based on what you think your (future) readers will resonate with most. But one of the most important lessons I’ve learned through starting a blog of my own, is that design matters a lot.

 

5 rules to structuring the perfect blog post layout

These five time-tested design principles will be immensely helpful in constructing an appealing blog layout

 

Hit publish on your first blog post

Once you’ve written your first blog post (and ideally get it to the 1,000+ word range) you’re almost ready to publish!

 

Take a few minutes to double check on the Yoast SEO suggestions and ensure your blog post is SEO-friendly, which will give you the best chance of ranking well in organic search.

 

Blog SEO WordPress Plugin Yoast for Getting Your Content Optimized

After your SEO settings are dialed in, choose which “Category” this new post will fall under and tick that box. Then, you’re ready to hit publish!

 

Publish Your New Blog Post and Select Post Category Tutorial on How to Start Blogging

And boom! It’s that easy if you allow it to be ??

 

Now, if like me, you appreciate great design—before you hit publish on your first blog post, there’s one last step you could take.

 

Studies show that blog posts with images get 94% more views than those without. And when it comes to posts getting shared on social media, tweets with photos get 150% more retweets that those without one, while Facebook posts with images get 2.3X more engagement. Adding a few visual elements can almost double your amount of views and expand the shares a blog post gets.

 

Free blog photo resources

One of the easiest ways to add some visual flair to your blog posts is with beautiful images and designs. Thankfully in recent years, there are now a number of high quality content sites that offer incredible photography that’s completely free to use for your blog— use Unsplash:

 

Unsplash (for free blog images and stock photos)

Unsplash Stock Photo Website for Stunning Blog Images

Unsplash is the best online resource for completely free, user-uploaded photos for your blog. Every photo that makes it onto Unsplash is curated by their team to make sure it’s high quality content. Under the Unsplash license, you don’t even have to attribute the photographer (however, they recommend you do), which makes Unsplash the easiest option for free blog photography.

 

Other great free blog photo resources worth mentioning

Wikimedia Commons: 21+ million photos and images from throughout history that are now in the public domain and free to use.

Life of Pix: Awesome free-to-use (open-source) photos donated by an advertising agency in Montreal, Canada.

Bonus: Creating a blog content strategy

 

Content Marketing Strategy Update Existing Work

What is a blog content strategy?

Here’s how to create a basic blog content strategy today:

 

Define your blog goals: What’s your purpose for starting a blog? What do you want to achieve with your blog content? Your blog goals might change as you grow your blog, but it’s still important to know it early on.

Get to know your blog readers (and where they hang out): Your readers will determine whether or not your blog becomes successful. To write for them, you need to really understand them—which is why it helps if you’re also writing for yourself. It’s useful to some research around the audience you’re writing for. Think about the demographics and psychographics of your target audience. Demographics are the quantitative traits of your readers (age, gender, location, job title) and psychographics are the more unmeasurable traits like values, interests, attitudes and belief systems. Once you’ve written down these qualities, you can start to come up with an audience persona—a fictionalized version of your ideal reader.

Decide on your blog’s main content pillars: When it comes to deciding what you’re going to write about, it’s good to have a few guiding categories that you’ll refer back to. I like to call these content pillars, as they’re the foundation that holds up the rest of your blog. For example, if you’re starting a blog about personal finance, your pillars might be: personal finance tips, interviews with experts, industry news, paying off debt or otherwise. Each of these pillars can have hundreds of blog posts written under them. They also all work together to show that you’re a thought leader in your niche.

Map out the content you’re going to create soon after starting your blog: Shortly after launching your blog, it’s worth taking a little time to plan out your content pipeline for the coming weeks (possibly months). You never know when your first blog post might go viral. In that case, you’ll want to have at least a game plan to quickly engage the new readers you get. Even just one or two blog posts under each of your major content pillars is enough to start with, ideally in the form of evergreen content that’ll stand the test of time.

"When you start a blog, begin small and commit to growing consistently over the weeks and months to come."
 

We’ve now come a long way in this guide. You’ve gone from learning the technicalities, all the way through to publishing your first post.

 

1. Promote your blog and get readers

Blog Traffic Statistics (Google Analytics Screenshot) in Blogging Traffic Tutorial

Now that we’re heading into 2023, we can look back and see that my blog brought in 4.4 million+ readers last year alone.  What do you do once you’ve hit publish on your first blog posts? It’s time to learn how to promote your blog content.

 

Using social media to promote your blog

The obvious first place to turn when you want to find readers is social media. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok are some of the biggest networks today. Whichever platform best suits your niche and audience interests, is the right one for you. And that’s an important note. There’s no point in trying to promote your blog posts on every social media platform.

 

 

Look for the social channels that give you the best return

How to choose which social networks to promote your blog

Using YouTube to grow your blog audience

3 tools to help manage your social media promotion.

The key insight here, is that you’ll need to experiment and see which networks will perform best for you.

 

Just because you've started a blog, you're not guaranteed readers. Here's how to drive traffic.

Guest blogging on other relevant blogs and sites like

One of the best things about starting a blog is that you’re joining a community of other bloggers that love to help each other out.

 

 

The key point to all of this, is that you want to look for places where your audience is—and be present there, whether that’s other blogs, communities, or social platforms.

Forums and message boards for bloggers

Often, just throwing your ideas out into the social media void isn’t very effective.

 

Instead, being a part of targeted forums and online communities can give you a way better return on your time—if you find the right ones. Browse through relevant groups on Facebook to see if there are any vibrant communities that’d be a good starting point.

 

How to find the right forums and message boards

Now, if your search doesn’t come up with any Facebook Groups with a decent number of members (5,000+), there are other options. Look for more general groups that relate to your niche on Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit or standalone forum websites.

 

 online groups for entrepreneurs

Remember, forums and message boards aren’t just places to dump links to your blog posts. You need to provide value before you ask for anything in return. So, I recommend you start building relationships and engaging with people there first.

 

Using an email newsletter to grow your blog audience

How to Build a Blog Subscriber Email List (ConvertKit Screenshot of Email Subscribers) Example

One of the best forms of blog promotion isn’t to other audiences, but to your own (over time). Building your own email list (or email newsletter) is the most powerful way to keep existing readers engaged with the work you’re doing—and one of the things you should set up immediately.

 

Start building your email list from day one with your blog—it can be surprisingly simple. Place a signup form within your posts and across key pages of your site.  use

ConvertKit, to manage the 150,000+ email subscribers I have on my blog.

 

 

 

 Email marketing and promoting content to my own email list has by far been the biggest driver of growth and revenue for my blog, and something I can’t suggest enough amongst all the blog marketing strategies you can invest in.

 

2.Make money from your blog

 you’ll understand I know what I’m talking about when it comes to starting a blog and making serious income with it.

 

There’s a reason why making money from your blog is at the end of this guide to starting a blog. Unless you have a huge audience somewhere already, you can’t expect to make money right away—monetization should not be your #1 focus at the moment, but rather something to work towards.

 

Even still, it’s good to have an idea of which ways you’d like to make money blogging as you go into this new adventure, especially if you prioritize passive income. Some of these monetization strategies will be easier than others to implement while your readership is still growing.