By Eva Williams 20 days ago, Apps and Software
WordPress plugins are handy tools for improving the functionality of your blog. You can use them to fix vulnerabilities, get detailed stats about site traffic, automatically back up your site, etc. The FixThePhoto team has created detailed reviews of the best WordPress plugins for blogs available today to help you build a new site, drive more clients, and develop your business.
In this article, we have reviewed a variety of plugins that can be also used with other popular website builders. Here, you will find the best plugins for improving the functionality of your blog. You can use them to transform the design of your website and enhance the user experience.
Verdict: Using this WordPress blog plugin, you can create search engine optimized content and quickly improve the search engine ranking of your website. Yoast SEO allows you to perform advanced search engine optimization that will help you make your website meet all the search algorithms’ requirements. It will allow you to drive more clients by creating posts that can be easily shared on social media networks.
This plugin has an extensive set of search engine optimization features that will help you take the top positions in search results. You will get access to advanced XML site maps, website breadcrumbs, canonical URLs, meta tags, optimized keywords, social media integrations, and more. While it has a free version, its functionality is quite limited. To upgrade, you can purchase an annual Premium subscription for $99 excluding VAT.
Verdict: AffiliateBooster was created for those who need to add various elements to their blogs to improve the conversion rate. It’s one of the best WordPress plugins for blogs as it allows you to improve your CTR and boost sales. You can use it to add various blocks to your platforms, such as Pros and Cons, notifications, calls to action, and various buttons.
Using these block templates, you can optimize the process of website building and customize your pages to your liking. With the help of AffiliateBooster Blocks, you can streamline your workflow and build web pages more quickly without any coding skills. You can either use a free version or pay from $29.50/per year for a Pro subscription.
Verdict: WPMU DEV Pro Plugins allow you to use advanced security options, optimize your content and manage web operations more effectively. They are suitable for admins who want to facilitate site management. Using the Hub, you can track recent updates, analyze uptime, etc.
Another advantage of these plugins is that you can contact a reliable customer support team that will answer all your questions regarding their use. These plugins have great value for the money. Over 968,187 creative professionals, agencies, and web developers used them to develop their WordPress-based sites.
Verdict: Easy Affiliate has everything you need for adding an affiliate program to your WordPress blog. Whether you are a novice or professional, you can use this plugin to assign an affiliate manager, increase the recognition of your brand, and drive more leads.
Its capabilities are very extensive. You can customize the application process for new affiliates, set up individual bids for affiliates by applying various rules, give affiliates access to customizable dashboards, create promotional assets for affiliates to use, as well as integrate your affiliate system with common eCommerce plugins and well-known email marketing services, etc. In terms of cost, there are plans to suit every wallet. Try starting with affiliates by choosing the super economical basic plan with no affiliate limits.
Verdict: POWR was founded as a cutting-edge collection of web-based plug-ins in San Francisco in 2014. In these few years, they have already promoted over 8 million startups and new brands. They achieve such amazing success with an exclusive set of plugins with the help of which getting more conversions, attracting visitors and new subscribers, collecting information, and supporting your customers becomes a breeze.
Getting started with this library is very simple – just a couple of clicks and plugins suitable for all platforms for creating websites and all devices are already at your disposal. The cost of use starts from $4.99/mo.
Verdict: I have to say, FooPlugins has entirely bowled me over. Their entire range of WordPress plugins is good—recently added FooGallery, FooBar, and FooBox to my site and it was nothing short of stunning. The gallery layouts are beautiful, responsive, and retina-ready, just adding visually appealing experience to my site visitors.
Its themes and templates are special in that they are conducive to my customization of the notifications, galleries, and lightboxes. This allows me to obtain a personal touch for my site. Plus, these plugins are so easy to set up due to the intuitive nature they have—really such a blessing for someone like me who is not exactly an expert in coding. Direct access to the Media Library by FooGallery and FooBox eliminates the need for duplicating images, streamlining the content management process.
Verdict: Jetpack is one of the most convenient plugins for managing WordPress blogs. It was created by Automattic for those who need to use detailed site stats to develop their businesses online. Using this WordPress BlogSpot plugin, you can track your website traffic and find new ways of driving more visitors to your blog. If you're going to create a blog about financial or/and statistical news, we recommend to add wpDataTables WordPress table plugins.
This plugin is popular among many WordPress developers as it can be used for filtering spam, scanning your site for malware, and protecting it from brute-force attacks. It has advanced security features for protecting your platform. While its stripped-down version is free, you can get access to more advanced features by paying $3.50 a month for the premium plan.
Verdict: MonsterInsights has been downloaded and installed more than 3 million times, which makes it the most widely used Google Analytics plugin for WordPress-based blogs. It allows you to get timely reports with the stats you really need. You can use the Lite version without paying anything. The Premium version costs from $399/year.
What makes it stand out among other similar plugins is that it supports all pro-level Google Analytics tracking tools. There is no need to outsource this task to third-party developers since the plugin is quite intuitive as templates that you can download at PIXINVENT. MonsterInsights allows you to use a convenient dashboard that allows you to see all the available analytics reports in one place. You can further customize the reports to see only the data that you need. It will allow you to understand what solutions are the most effective.
Verdict: JetFormBuilder employs the WordPress native blocks editor, usually referred to as Gutenberg, for designing forms. It’s worth noting that all created forms can be exported via shortcodes to any required page-building editor.
JetFormBuilder’s source code is GPL-compatible and as such is entirely suitable for public usage. All additional services (like plugin updates, customer support, and so on) are a part of the Pro subscription and require regular payments to be used.
This service lets you pick between the Free and Paid versions. The Free version can be employed for as many websites as you need and provides access to basic updates and support on WordPress.org. Meanwhile, the Pro plan splits into a single site and Unlimited sites, and its prices start at $39.
Verdict: HT Mega plugin is an excellent resource for WordPress website owners looking to maximize their site's potential. This Elementor add-ons plugin enables users to quickly create menus, pages, and content with ease. The HT Mega plugin includes 107+ Elementor widgets, 782 Blocks for easy drag & drop design interface plus 91 pre-built template designs for personalization that will take your site to its peak potential in minutes!
Additionally, HT Mega provides 3 impressive portfolio layouts, captivating blog layouts, support for over 800 Google fonts, animated headings, and integration with Google Maps API Key for maps. With HT Mega, you can improve the appearance and features of your website effortlessly and create a website that precisely matches your brand and vision.
With this plugin, you get to choose between the Free and Paid versions. The Free version offers basic updates and support through WordPress. The Pro plan has an annual and lifetime option, with prices starting at $59.
Verdict: If your platform has a long load time, you might lose potential clients. To fix this, you might need to use dedicated caching plugins. WP Rocket creates cached copies of different pages of your platform, which allows you to avoid overloading the server. The preloaded cache allows search engines to index your blog more quickly. You can also select high-speed hosting for WordPress recommended by HostPapa to improve the page load time of your website.
Unlike other WordPress plugins for blogs, it allows you to make the size of static files smaller and improve the site code. It makes it easier to load pictures, which allows it to improve the page load speed even further. Unfortunately, there is no free version available, but you can purchase an annual subscription that costs from $49 to $249. The price depends on the number of websites that you have.
Verdict: Even after protecting your website with advanced security plugins, you might still need to take care of some vulnerabilities. For instance, your blog might get attacked by hackers or crash because of a malware attack. In this case, you can benefit from using UpdraftPlus as it allows you to back up your files.
Thanks to its integration with such cloud services as Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and iCloud, you can back up your site to make all the posts available from anywhere. The plugin allows you to set up scheduled automatic backups to save copies of your articles on various platforms. You can download the Lite version without paying a dime. It’s available in the WordPress repository. The premium license for 2 websites costs from $70.
Verdict: SeedProd is a great WordPress blog plugin for those who need to create a visually appealing landing page. With it, you can design a great landing page with little to no effort. For instance, you can create sales, webinars, and coming soon pages. You can either use a limited free version or select one of 4 Premium plans. They cost from $39.50 per year.
While a homepage usually contains a lot of information about your blog, a landing page is more suitable for posting information about various events. For instance, you can create a landing page to promote your webinar and get more visitors. Since there are no unnecessary details on such pages, your potential participants are more likely to sign up. You can use SeedProd to create a landing page for any event you need. It will allow you to expand your user base by driving more people to subscribe and improve your sales.
Verdict: iThemes Security Pro is a must-have WordPress plugin for your professional toolset. It allows you to use more than 30 ways for protecting your WordPress website. You will sleep better knowing that this plugin can deal with any malware attack on your site. No matter whether you use advanced WordPress themes or discounted ones that you got via the UpdraftPlus coupon code, you can be sure this plugin will analyze them very accurately.
Another advantage is that it includes an in-built brute-force protection option, mechanisms preventing the Error 404, extended settings for blocking users, file checking tools for tracking unauthorized changes, backup options, and many more. iThemes Security has free and paid versions. If you have some money, pick the Pro version as it costs from $80 per year and comes with a set of handy features.
Verdict: Pretty Links is a perfect option for every blogger who wants to monetize their content. With it, you can manage your affiliate links with little to no effort. You can use it to shorten them or add your domain name to all the URLs.
While there is a free version available, its functionality is quite limited. To get access to the Pro version, you need to pay $49 per year for one site. When using it, you can select keywords for linking and select a target URL. It will allow you to find more options for monetizing your blog. If the price is too high for you, but you need efficient tools for making a profit with your content, head to the The Blog Starter and learn about cost-efficient methods to do it.
Verdict: Ajax Search Lite is a convenient live search solution for WordPress-based sites. You can use it to add a search bar to your platform and make it easier for your visitors to find any information they need. It allows you to filter search results by using a range of categories. Thanks to the integration with Google, this blog posts WordPress plugin allows you to select from suggested keywords and use autocomplete options. Besides, you can use it in conjunction with professional plugins like those listed at Line25 to fulfill several tasks at once.
The plugin is supported by mobile devices and gets updated regularly. You can use it as an alternative to the WordPress search bar that is available by default. Ajax Search Lite is based on a more advanced search engine and has a better design. It’s perfectly suitable for improving user experience as it allows you to work with custom posts and fields. Use it to improve the searchability of your website.
Verdict: PushEngage is a perfect option for those who need to send well-written push notifications to users after they close the page of your website. It was created to help users drive more traffic to their platforms as well as improve engagement rate and sales. This solution is suitable for driving people to return to your platform. You can use it to create personalized messages targeted to the needs of your audience. Users will see them in their browsers or receive them as notifications on their smartphones even if they are already visiting another platform.
This plugin makes it easy to notify users about new blog posts. You can use it to send reminders about products added to a shopping cart and let your clients know about discounts, etc. Thanks to these notifications, you can stay in touch with your clients all the time. Besides, you can use the available free plan to send up to 120 notifications to 2500 subscribers every month. If you have more clients, you can pay $25 per month to remove the restrictions.
Verdict: You can use it to access a variety of WordPress photography themes and plugins for other industries you write about. After selecting any theme, you can make it more unique by customizing it to your liking. Because of this CSS Hero is considered to be one of the best plugins for WordPress-based blogs available today.
Using this plugin, you can edit any theme and quickly change the way your blog looks. All the edits can be done in a few clicks. There is no need to have any coding skills or spend hours customizing different parameters. Unfortunately, there is no free version available. You can use this plugin after paying from $29 per year for the Pro version.