Free WordPress plugins to get you started

In general, you should avoid too many plugins, as too many plugins can negatively impact your website loading speed. The security aspects of WordPress are also important.

So what free WordPress plugins should I install to use only those that really useful and contribute in some way to your site? Below we have compiled a small subjective list of interesting plugins.

Free WordPress plugins to help you start blogging:

1. Yoast SEO.

The Yoast SEO plugin is undoubtedly one of the most popular plugins. This happened for a reason.

With Yoast SEO, you can, among other things:

• Affect the appearance of subpages that make up your site in search results;
• Creating a sitemap;
• take care of the appearance of links pointing to your site that are shared on social networks;
• improve the SEO status of subpages.

Unfortunately, many people call Yoast SEO "SEO- plugin", which is complete nonsense. Simply installing a plugin and using it won't magically disappear your site's competitors.

Instead, it helps improve user experience your site not only by users, but also by search engine robots.

By the way, I recommend our post on how create your own SEO friendly content. The role of the mentioned plugin in this case is very important.

2. Contact form 7.

No text that discusses free WordPress plugins can by any means bypass Contact Form 7.

The main function of Contact Form 7 is the ability to create a contact form and place it anywhere on the site .

Contact Form 7 is particularly popular due to its simplicity and intuitive use.Using this plugin, you can create a wide variety of forms - from the simplest to the most advanced.

Moreover, the plugin also has integration with Google's reCAPTCHA system, which effectively facilitates the fight against spam.

3. Free tools to automate the growth of your site.

Under this long name you will find the Sumo toolkit. It includes, in particular, applications with which:

• create a pop-up window to attract new newsletter subscribers;
• add social sharing buttons to your site;
• Check which parts of your site get the most clicks using the heat map".

These are just a few of the features you can use on your site with Sumo. This toolkit is mainly aimed at attracting new content recipients through various forms that you can use almost anywhere and in any form.

4. Smush Compress and optimize images.

The plugin, also known as WP Smush, primarily reduces the size of images by your site without any noticeable quality loss.

This is extremely important as many people don't really understand what can be reduced "weight" of the graph without any loss. This is especially felt by those users who access the Internet via data transfer, as it saves data transfer.

What's more, WP Smush will not only take care of previously added images, but also ensure that any newly added graphics are optimized on the fly.

You can also set maximum image sizes so that anything you upload to your site is scaled to the correct resolution.

5. Auto-optimize

If we are discussing free WordPress plugins, it is worth taking a look at one of these add-ons that mainly serve to compression of the resources that make up your site.We mean Autoptimize.

With this plugin, with a few clicks, you can, among other things:

• combine multiple CSS and JS files into one;
• enable the so-called cache;
• force scripts to load only after actual page content is loaded;
• Remove the default emoji in WordPress.

Just remember to thoroughly test your site's performance after making any changes with this plugin. Theoretically, it should work more smoothly, however this plugin interferes with quite important elements of the site, so some errors are possible. If this happens, you have nothing to worry about - all changes can be undone.

6. Responsive lightbox by dFactory.

This plugin allows you to enhance and refine the way images on your site display when they are enlarged.

Some WordPress themes are not equipped with the so-called lightbox effect, and this plugin adds this feature.

It can be used to manage individual slides, combine individual images into galleries, change the appearance of arrows and navigation indicators, and more. d. etc. The range of options is really huge as there are several different scripts available (including prettyPhoto, SwipeBox or Featherlight).

7. kk Star Ratings

A collection of cool and free WordPress plugins should include this plugin. You can see how it works near the very bottom of this post.

kk Star Ratings gives you the option rate blog posts. What's more, using the appropriate settings also introduces so-called schema tags, which - by the grace of Google's indexing bots - can add "stars" to your site's pages appearing in search results.

This plugin is worth showing interest in as it allows your site to stand out in the SERPs when used correctly.

8.Instagram Feed

Do you have an Instagram account in addition to your blog?

If yes, the Instagram Feed plugin will allow you to display the latest photos directly from this service on your website.

Key benefits of this plugin include:

• fully operational;
• simple configuration;
• display photos not only from one, but also from several Instagram accounts;
• affect the number of photos displayed, their size, margins, and much, much more.

If you have an Instagram profile linked to your blog, this plugin will be of great help to you.

9. Broken Link Checker.

Sometimes a typo is allowed when adding a link to a subpage. We're only human, so errors just happen.

This is known as the 404 error, which tells users and bots search engines that the address does not contain the desired content.

Broken Link Checker gives you the ability to track the status of all links, that appear on your site. If a 404 error appears among them, the plugin will notify you immediately.

10. User Role Editor.

Is your blog (or WordPress business site) being managed by someone else , except you? Maybe you don't want some people to have too much power, allowing them to interfere too much with the content of your site?

If so, check out the User Role Editor plugin.

With it, you can it is easy to manage absolutely all elements of the administrative panel and determine which people can have access to certain parts of it.

This way you ensure that all users see only what they need to see.

11.Sirota

And finally, a suggestion for a plugin from the Pole Marcin Pietrzak.

The so-called "orphan" is a typographical error that consists of leaving a lone short word at the end of a line. Most often, this concerns conjunctions and prepositions, such as "and" or "of".

This plugin does not does not interfere with the content, but changes the appearance when the text is displayed.

For people who are particularly sensitive to such errors even on the web, Orphan is a must-have.

Are free WordPress plugins a good choice?

Of course you can!

The only thing you need to keep in mind is the rule that you should only use basic add-ons.

In fact, there is no point in setting them by force, since plugin overload is usually o you have to pay with a drop in site performance. It might sound a little harsh, but essentially

user experience is what matters, not personal preference.

Can you recommend any other WordPress plugins that would be helpful for beginners? If yes, we strongly encourage you to share your knowledge in the comments section.