In this post, I am giving the list of 10 must-have WordPress plugins which completes your blog, and every blogger should use. These plugins are free, compatible with WordPress Version 4.9.8 and provide all the tools and features required you to write good blog posts, increase performance, SEO and security of your blog. Below is the list:
List of 10 Must Have WordPress Free Plugins (2018)
1. Jetpack by WordPress.com
Jetpack provides a lot of features like themes for almost every niche, customization tools, analytics, social media integration and tools for security and performance of your WordPress blog.
2. Share Buttons by AddThis.com
I tried many share buttons for my blog, but I found myself comfortable by using AddThis buttons for its simplicity, easy to integrate without making any harmful effect on the performance of my blog. Also, AddThis is having the feature to add share buttons to AMP pages.
3. Smush (For Image Optimization)
Smush reduces the size of images to improve performance and your blog SEO. Whenever you upload a picture to the media library, it will automatically optimize that image.
4. Yoast SEO
Yoast for WordPress is all-in-one best SEO plugin for your blog's search engine optimization. Install it and configure it and rest it will take care.
5. AMP for WordPress
If you want to convert your blog pages to AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), then use this plugin. It is recommended to use AMP pages for your blog to get good ranking on Google search for mobile. You can check this post I have written to how to create AMP pages for mobile using this plugin.
6. Glue for Yoast SEO & AMP
Now if you are using AMP plugin to make Accelerated pages for mobile, then you should use this plugin to change the look and feel of your AMP pages. The plugin has the feature to add Google Analytic code in JSON format so that you can track AMP page views too.
7. Header and Footer Scripts
A simple plugin which lets you add third-party Javascript code in the header and in the footer of your WordPress blog. For example, Google Analytics and Google Adsense code.
8. Insert Post Adverts
Also, very easy to use to add Google Adsense or any other third-party ads in your blog posts using this plugin.
9. Redirection
If you migrated your blog to WordPress from any other source and you are getting 404 errors (page not found) due to lost URLs then use the Redirection plugin to create the permanent redirection (301). You can check this post to how to create redirection using this plugin.
10. Sucuri Security
Last but not the least Sucuri is the essential and great plugin to protect your blog from malware, and hack. I really trust this plugin and recommend to use.
