13 Free & Must Have WordPress Plugins For New Bloggers To Install Today!

Are you confused about which WordPress plugin to install on your blog? Therefore I created this list of must have wordpress plugins for beginners so you can easily enhance the features of your website. 

Plugins are an important part of a WordPress site. They add extra functionality. 

However, not every plugin out there is suitable for your blog. Hence, finding the essential plugins for your website becomes a task.

In this post, you will find the list of WordPress plugins for your blog, where to find them, how to install them, and some common FAQs.

I wanted to highlight that these are all free WordPress plugins that you can install on your blog easily. 

However, some of them have premium versions if you want to then you can have them.

One more thing is that I use all of them on my blog and they are working great for me.

SAVE THIS PIN PLEASE. 

Let’s first cover some basics. It is a little intro about wordpress plugins skip to the list if you already know about them.

If you don’t have a blog yet, I use and recommend Bluehost for beginners. Or you can check out my 3 step guide to starting a WordPress blog.

This post may contain some affiliate links that is I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you that I would use to maintain this blog. Thanks for understanding.

WordPress For Beginners: Everything About Plugins

1- What Are Website Plugins?

Plugins are mini software programs designed to perform specific tasks. Plugins add more functionality to a WordPress site. 

There are many types of WordPress plugins that you can find in the WordPress plugin store.

You can find all of the basic plugins for wordpress in the list below. 

2- How To Use WordPress Plugins?

To use a plugin on your site you will have to install them on your WordPress dashboard. 

• Install – 
  1. In the sidebar of the WordPress dashboard, you can see the plugins option. 
  2. Click on add new. 
  3. To the top right side, there is a search bar. Type in the name and the plugin (if present) will appear. 
  4. There is a small install button, click on it and after a few seconds when the plugin is installed you have to activate the plugin by clicking on the same button.
• Delete – 
  1. Click on the Plugins option.
  2.  Click on the Installed plugins options you will be taken to the screen where all of the installed plugins are displayed. 
  3. From the list, find out the plugin you want to delete. You will see a deactivate option in red color. 
  4. Click on it and after some time you will see the delete option. Click on it and the plugin is deleted. 
• Update – 
  1. You should regularly update plugins and keep them to their latest version. 
  2. Set auto-update option by going to the installed plugins window. Click on Enable Auto Updates.

Now that you know the basics of WordPress plugins here’s a list of the best and free WordPress plugins for beginners.

13 Must-Have WordPress Plugins For Bloggers

1- Yoast SEO WordPress Plugin

Yoast SEO is one of the best WordPress plugins for SEO. It ensures that your blog posts are Google as well as reader-friendly. 

Yoast SEO plugin uses two parameters to analyze the quality of your blog posts. 

• SEO – To make sure your post follows best SEO practices so that it appears on search results. 
• Readability – To make sure that your readers are not bored when reading your blog posts. 

It has bullet points for each factor in red, orange, and green colors. 

The more green dots the better your posts. However, don’t obsess over making all the dots green. 

Check out the Yoast SEO plugin here.

Here’s a Yoast SEO tutorial to set up the plugin on your WordPress dashboard.

Yoast SEO is a premium plugin however, the free version is awesome and I use it for writing my blog posts.

2- WP-Optimize

WP-Optimize is the best WordPress cache plugin. 

As you use WordPress for anything, for example, add a new page or update an old post, new files are added (called cache) that take up your disk space and need to be cleared regularly.

That’s when a caching plugin can become handy. 

WP-Optimize makes the process super easy. It has many functions such as 

• Gzip Compression, 
• Database Optimizer, 
• Plugin Optimizer,
• Image Optimizer (paid feature)
• and etc. 

I’ve tried several caching plugins for my blog but I moved to WP-Optimize after listening to a friend’s advice on YouTube.

It has helped me improve my site speed. 

Check out the WP-Optimize Plugin here. 

However, some other caching plugins are

• WP Fastest Cache
• WP Total Cache
• WP-Cache

3- AntiSpam Bee Plugin

When you have started your site it gets a lot of spam comments that are unnecessary and try to fill up your site space. 

These scammers may also try to steal your details therefore it is important to filter these comments regularly. 

Sometimes, many bloggers post irrelevant comments on others’ sites to get links. 

This is spamming and you should never do it. However, there’s a good way to get quality links using blog comments. 

AntiSpam Bee makes sure that your site stays away from spam by blocking and deleting such comments. 

Check out the AntiSpam Bee here. 

Another great option is Akismet, which is one of the most popular WordPress plugins.

4- WordFence Security Plugin

As your blog grows and becomes popular you will want to monetize it to earn money. 

In such cases, many hackers will try to hack your login details and change them to steal your income. 

Therefore, WordPress security is very important. 

WordFence Security is one of the essential plugins for WordPress security. As you will never want anyone to destroy the blog that you nourished for so long.

Whenever it notices any suspicious activity it sends an email about it. 

Some other features are 

• Limited login attempts. 
• WordPress protection. 
• And more. 

Check out the WordFence Security Plugin here.

5- Updraft Plus Plugin

Whenever a server goes down (or for any other reason) the risk of losing your website data increases. 

Therefore, taking regular backups is necessary so that if something happens you can always restore things to normal. 

UpdraftPlus is a free backup plugin for WordPress. It has a premium version but free is also good for beginners. 

With the free version, you can save up to two backups. 

Check out the UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup plugin here.

6- Contact Form 7 Plugin

You need a WordPress plugin for a contact form. 

To make contact easy for your readers you will want to create a contact page on your blog. 

With the free Contact Form 7 plugin, you can do it easily. 

Initially, I used WP forms, which is also a good plugin, however, it is not free. 

That is one of the reasons why I switched to Contact Form 7. I was getting all the same features for free. 

Plus, the Contact Form 7 setup is super easy. 

Check out the Contact Form 7 plugin here.

7- ShortPixel – Free Image Optimizer

If you don’t know it yet, images are one of the biggest factors to cause a delay in site load. 

But using images is important for SEO and keeping your readers engaged. 

To solve this issue, we follow image optimization for SEO. 

ShortPixel is a free image size reducer (up to 200 credits in a month) that decreases the size of the uploaded images. 

I love this plugin because I can compress as many images as I want. No limitations. 

Some other good image compression plugins that I have used before

• Resmush.it
• Smush Compressor 
• TinyJPG

Check out the ReSmushit plugin here.

8- Site Kit By Google

Site Kit By Google is a WordPress plugin for Google Analytics. 

It displays an analytics report, and search console on your WordPress dashboard. 

I have also used Monster Insights. 

Monster Insights show only Analytics reports and you will have to upgrade the premium version to access its other features. 

However, Site Kit shows Google Analytics, Adsense report, Search Console and Page Speed Insights, etc in a dashboard. 

Check out the Site Kit By Google here.

9- Elementor Plugin

Elementor is one of the most popular page builder plugins. 

This plugin is best for blog designing for free because it requires no coding knowledge. 

Elementor is an ultimate drag and drop plugin that makes the designing part so easy and quick. Plus it has so many premade templates that are professionally designed.

I have created a few landing pages using Elementor and I love it. 

It is one of the best blog design plugins for WordPress. 

Check out the Elementor Plugin here.

10- Redirection WordPress Plugin

If you change the URL of one of your blog posts it can break your site and show 404 errors. 

This is a bad user experience. The first thing is to never change any of the published page’s URLs. 

And if you have done it then the best thing is to install a redirect WordPress plugin. 

After doing so you can set a redirect from the old URL (broken) to the new URL (working). 

This way whenever a user clicks on a page with the updated URL he is automatically redirected to the new URL.

It can save you from a lot of trouble.

Check out the Redirection plugin here.

11- Insert Headers And Footers

To add extra features to your blog (such as the Pinterest pin it button) you will need to add code in the headers and footers of your site code. 

However, for us who don’t know how to add codes, it can be difficult. 

In such a case, this plugin can be very helpful. 

After installing it, you can add as many codes as you want on the header and footer section of the plugin, and the code is automatically added to the site code. 

Check out the Insert Headers And Footers plugin here.

12- Grow By MediaVine 

To make your posts shareable on social media you should add a social media plugin. 

Grow By MediaVine is a great free plugin that adds social sharing options on your blog posts that can be shared with a click. 

You can also customize it to match your brand colors. 

Check out the Grow By MediaVine here. 

Another amazing plugin is Social Warfare.

13- Better Click To Tweet Plugin

To add small click to tweet boxes to your blog posts you can install this plugin. 

As you can see one at the beginning of my blog and one you will see in the conclusion section. 

I have recently started using it and I like it. 

Check out the Better Click To Tweet Plugin here.

So these were the best WordPress plugins for blogs of beginners.

Here are some common FAQs. 

Some FAQs On WordPress Plugins

Conclusion: Must Have WordPress Plugins For Bloggers

So this was my list of best plugins for a wordpress blog.

I hope you have some good options to try on your blog. And yes, you can also try new plugins there are so many amazing ones out there. 

But, you should always double-check before installing it. 

Many WordPress themes have plugins that you will be required to install. Therefore, selecting a WordPress theme becomes an important part of plugin selection.

If you have any questions that you like to be answered please let me know in the comments section. 

I hope you found this post helpful. Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Or why not subscribe to my newsletter and get blogging and writing tips straight to your inbox every week?

Do you have any other recommendations? Let me know so that I can add it to my list!