If you have gotten to the point in your WordPress adventure to be exploring plugins than things must be going good so far. Plugins are a WordPress users’ best friend and can simplify many of the processes.  

Using plugins will allow you to better serve your visitors and analyze traffic patterns. They can also help you build your email lists and flush away spam comments to your website. Really, the possibilities are endless when using plugins. 

If you cannot tell already, we are very excited about plugins and love trying all different ones. To save you the time of testing thousands of options, we have narrowed down some specific plug in categories that you should consider.  

Email Plugins 

The number one thing that every blogger talks about is growing their email list. An email list to a blogger is like a tree that grows cash. The more subscribers you get, the bigger the tree and the larger the harvest.  

Having an email list of dedicated subscribers means that you have direct access to sending these people messages and influencing their purchasing decisions.  

Blogs with niche categories like “Backyard chicken coupes” know that the people subscribing to their email interested in the very narrow topic of raising chickens in the back yard.  

This is a dream come true for brands that service this category.  

Imagine if you are a company that produces chicken coupes for small yards. You do not want to use mainstream media to get your message out because it will get glossed over by the majority. However, working with a blog that has thousands of email subscribers – who are all interested in raising chickens in their yard – is the perfect way to get your message out. 

Afterall, why spend tens of thousands of dollars working with a Home & Garden magazine when you can work with a niche blog that already has your perfect audience waiting for you! 

SEO Plugins 

This is likely one of the most flooded categories for WordPress plugins as everyone loves the idea of getting free traffic from ranking #1 on Google.  

The reality is that you need good content to start before getting results in any search engine.  

Using an SEO plugin is beneficial in organizing your contents data so that Google bots can easily understand what your website is about. 

There are lots of paid SEO plugins that will offer the world and provide nothing, just as there are some free SEO plugins that go overlooked and are true gems.  

You can see our picks for the top SEO plugins here. 

Visual Page Building  

One of my personal favorite categories is the visual page building. Having used WordPress for over 13 years it is great to not have to spend hours writing code to make a page look how I want it too.  

Visual Page builders give you easy drag and drop features within WordPress. These blocks are blended seamlessly into your website and can be optimized for SEO just as everything else on WordPress. 

These plugins make it easy to create consistent page templates that you can use over and over – making your website have a more consistent look and feel.  

Making charts, graphs and tabs are also much easier using a page builder. For anyone looking to expand their WordPress expertise, using a visual page builder is a great next step. 

Analytics Plugins 

If you plan to grow your website, learning about customer behavior and tracking your websites Analytics is a must. There are a variety of plugin options that can help you get a better picture of what is going on.  

If you have not already signed up for Google Analytics and Webmaster tools, it is recommended that you do this first before adding other analytics plugins to your site. 

Anti–Spam 

With traffic comes lots (and lots, and lots, and lots) of spam. It will come in the form of comments, messages, emails, and other ways I haven’t even figured out yet.  

Adding an anti-spam plugin is a great way to product your website from a flood of random comments. There are a variety of options, most of them free, that you can choose from. 

Coming Soon Plug In 

For those that are just starting on their websites, a coming soon plugin is a good idea. No matter how hard you try there will be times that you want to tell everyone about your new project. The first thing they are going to do is look you up online.  

Having a professional coming soon page is a much better look than a website with nothing on it.  

Re-search Your Plugins and Delete Ones That Don’t Work 

Plugins are just as easy to install as they are to delete! If you are not happy with a plugin, delete it and look for another one. Do not feel lock into using it just because they send you emails asking you not to leave.