Whether you have a new blog or have been at it for a while, there are numerous options for making your blog do specific things.   These options are known as WordPress plugins.  They are like apps for your blog.

Whether you want your blog to be found by search engines or to make your content more shareable when selecting a WordPress plugins they should have these three things:

1. They do what they say they do, and they’re easy to use.
2. They’re lightweight –  meaning they don’t take up lots of resources on your servers and slow down your website.
3. They “play nice” with other plugins…so they’re less likely to cause a conflict and mess things up on your blog.

Which Plugins Should You Use?

Below are some of our free favorites:

Wordfence (free+)

My favorite basic security plugin, Wordfence adds an extra layer of protection by locking out people who try to hack their way into your website, even blocking IP addresses of bots trying to access your site. You can customize email alerts to be sent to you if anything suspicious is going on, and they offer a premium version that gives you access to support if you need it.

Anti-spam (free) or Akismet (free)

These WordPress plugins do just what it says: they stop regular spam comments in their tracks.  Anti-spam is preferred by some to Akismet, which is the standard one that comes with WordPress when you first start a blog.  But both do basically the same thing.

Yoast SEO (free)

(Also known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) is one of the most popular WordPress plugins. It allows you to optimize your WordPress site for search engines.

Yoast SEO not only helps you add meta tags, it optimizes your site as a whole.   You will find it easy to implements and very user-friendly for beginning bloggers.

WP Optimize (free)

WP-Optimize keeps your blog running smoothly by optimizing your database tables, getting rid of old post revisions, and cleaning unapproved comments and other things you’ve thrown in the trash. It helps your site run faster by not letting extra data build up and sit on your site.

Google Analytics Dashboard (free)

Sure, you can open up Google Analytics every time you want to look at your stats, but if you’re just after some basic information like page views and which posts are getting the most visits, Google Analytics Dashboard puts those stats right inside your WordPress dashboard. It’s certainly not necessary, but definitely convenient.

Insert Headers and Footers (free)

While managing your WordPress sites, you may sometimes need to add code snippets to your WordPress site’s header or footer. This means you will have to edit the theme files which could get messy and break up your WordPress theme. Insert Headers and Footer allows you to easily add code snippets to your WordPress site without editing your theme files.

There are many more great plugins you may want to use, but these are the free ones you most likely need to run your B2B business blog.

Learn More