WordPress Plugins Best 5 from a Blog Assistant’s Point of View

WordPress plugins best for business bloggers (in my opinion) are like the hot fudge sauce on the sundae of WordPress. Finding the right ones can be overwhelming for a new business blogger.

Every blogger has their favorite and with over 50,000 plugins to choose from it can be challenging to choose one let alone 10 or more.

As a blogger’s assistant, my favorites are based on managing websites for others. I’m thinking security, ease of use, and functionality.

WordPress Plugins: Best 5 for Business Bloggers

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1. iThemes Security (or WordFence)

WordPress plugins best for security is iThemes which offers you a number of ways to protect your WordPress website.

The three main vulnerabilities are weak passwords, out-of-date plugins, and out-of-date software. Blocking brute force attacks is also a key component of iThemes (and WordFence).

Blocking brute force attacks is also a key component of iThemes (and WordFence). In fact, if someone previously tried a brute force attack on other WordPress sites, iThemes adds it to a database and automatically blocks them from your site.

The number one way to stop attacks is by using secure passwords and updating them every month or after giving a contractor access to your account.

Securely share passwords with LastPass. It is encrypted when shared with your contractor. When the project is over, remember to end shared access and change your password.

WARNING: The internet is an awesome place but it is also a public place. Remember to always use a different and secure password for each site online (LastPass helps with this) AND update any plugins and software. Nothing is full-proof, but adding security into your daily, weekly, and monthly online business management schedule will help.

2. Yoast WordPress Seo

WordPress plugins best for SEO is Yoast. I like it for it’s easy to use SEO capabilities but I dislike it because it reminds me that SEO is a lot of work. A couple of my favorite features are…

• SERP snippet preview which lets me see what others see when they see my post in search
• XML sitemaps - without an additional plugin Yes!
• Social integration - add Facebook OpenGraph and Google+ sharing tags and Twitter cards
• Bulk Editor - if you’ve been blogging a while the bulk editor comes in handy

So, what do I dislike?

As much as I like getting the green light each time my page meets SEO protocol, it frustrates me because it takes a lot of time to get from orange to green. Is is just me?

Oftentimes I just like to get the post written and published. BUT, from a business standpoint, getting the SEO right for organic reach is a priority.

3. Social Warfare

WordPress plugins best for social media is Social Warfare. It is a paid plugin but well worth it especially if you plan on using Pinterest.

Although Pinterest is a great way to draw traffic to your site, having huge images can interfere with the message of your post. As a food blogger, mom blogger, or craft blogger this isn’t so much of a problem, but for business bloggers, it can be distracting.

This plugin lets you add a Pinterest image in the backend (as well as a Facebook/Twitter image) without having to add the image in the post. It also lets you prepopulate the social messages.

PLUS, it tracks your shares.

Give yourself some karma points - share this on Twitter.

4. CoSchedule

WordPress plugins best for managing your editorial and marketing calendars is CoSchedule. It easily integrates with your WordPress blog. You can plan and view all your content in one place.

This is a paid plugin but they do offer a 14-day free trial. Most people who use it upgrade - so fair warning.

I used CoSchedule back in 2013 - 2015 since then it has evolved.

I shared about Social Text Helpers previously and how they increased blog promotion productivity. I used to do these manually (Dustin Stout’s awesome post helped) but, I finally made the investment in order to have the ability to use social helpers and templates. Yay Me!

For businesses, CoSchedule is a plus as it lets you add team members (your blog or marketing assistant). You can also have your ghost writer go in (or guest bloggers) and edit or add to posts.

5. Tiny Compress Images (Tinypng)

Tiny Compress Images shrinks your images to help your site run faster. Having a fast site is a must in this mobile society. You can use the Tiny PNG compressor site instead of the plugin, but I find that having it inside the backend of WordPress saves time.

For example, You can have a 57kb blog image but if you run it through the compressor, it becomes 15kb.

With Pinterest images, blog feature images, and gifs your site can get bogged down. This makes your site load slower and on mobile devices, people just aren’t going to wait.

How about you? Share in the comments below which WordPress plugins best fit your business site.

Business is more fun when you share the journey! Download your free workbook to find out how to enlist help to manage your blog.

Today I’m blogging with Becoming Press on Writer Wednesday’s Linky for Christian Bloggers. Join Us.

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— SaraD. (@saraassistsyou) May 23, 2017