5 Plugins To Improve Your WordPress Website

Part of what makes WordPress so incredible is the ability to simply install plugins which act to enable greater functionality as well as improve the appearance of your website. WordPress now has over 30,000 unique plugins, allowing users to execute their greatest imaginations when branding themselves online.

The trouble for most is not having enough familiarity with how plugins operate to sift through such a massive inventory. Luckily, we’ve created a list of five plugins that have been shown to help users of all industries so you can start getting the most from your WordPress website.

 

1. Yoast SEO

Formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast, this plug-in is one of the best available for guiding you through the process of optimizing your website to appear in the search engines. Some of the key features include:

• Post Titles and Meta Descriptions: Every time you search in Google, you’ll see the title of a web-page and a description underneath. With the ‘Snippet Editor’ you get to edit this section manually to have complete control over the SERPs appearance for your website.
• Visual Feedback: Yoast lets you know when your copy is ready to post from an SEO standpoint.
• Set Focus Keywords: Yoast lets you know if you’re using your focus keywords too much, too little, or if you’ve used them before.

 

2. Google Fonts

You may have noticed while creating your first blog posts that WordPress only houses a very limited amount of fonts to choose from. Well, with this free plugin, the font resource is one of the most exciting developments in typography in a very long time.

Not only does this plugin add the necessary Google code for you, it also gives you the ability to assign the Google fonts to specific CSS elements of your website. The Google Directory has hundreds of font families to choose from, which is an excellent way to add a touch of personalization to your blog.

 

3. Akismet

Have you ever gotten a comment on one of your WordPress blog posts that at first glance seemed genuine, but may actually be spam? While these comments are mostly dirty tactics used by Internet spammers trying to get you to use their service, or visit their site, sometimes these comments can link to malicious downloads, or at the least be a large waste of your time.

Askimet is an anti-spam service that analyzes masses of data and prevents these comments from being posted on your blog.

 

4. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the most powerful tools on the web for monitoring nearly all of the traffic related data on your website. With the free WordPress plugin, you’ll quickly be able to run reports on where your visitors are coming from as you work to build a target audience.

 

5. W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache improves the user experience on your site by reducing download times, increasing server performance, and by providing transparent content delivery network (CDN) integration. Other benefits include:

• 10x improvement in overall site performance.
• Improved conversion rates will up your rank on Google.
• Reduced page load time, which allows visitors to view more pages, and spend more time on your site.
• The ability to sustain high traffic.

Have you used any of these plugins? How was your experience with them? Let us know in the comments!