Over a period of eleven years of blogging on WordPress, I have tried and tested many WordPress plugins.
Every now and then I need to remove the outdated plugin and pick something which offers a better feature and let my blog grow.
I understand that searching for right plugins could be a daunting task and this is why I keep sharing about using WordPress plugins here at ShoutMeLoud. Based on my research and experience, I have created a secret list of plugins which I use on all my blogs.
However, today post is an exclusive post which is part of our transparency culture. I love to share how we do things, what tools we use and other important stuff which will help you to grow your blog just like ShoutMeLoud.
Today, I’m sharing the list of must-have WordPress plugins we are currently using at ShoutMeLoud.
Do remember, these plugins are the outcome of my years of experience with blogging.
If you have just started with WordPress, you should first read: How to add plugins to WordPress.
Do remember, I keep changing our plugins, so I suggest you to bookmark this page and keep checking after a month to see the updated list of plugins.
The list is not in any particular order, and at the time of updating (February 2020), these are the must have WordPress plugins which power ShoutMeLoud.
Since many of you asked: : Right now ShoutMeloud is currently using Genesis Theme + Custom skin design and hosted on Kinsta hosting.
List of Must Have WordPress Plugins I use on ShoutMeLoud:
Here is a quick list:
- Advanced Ads: This is the ad management WordPress plugin I’m using to run ads on ShoutMeLoud. This is a feature rich plugin, which let you add direct ads, banner ads, AdSense ads. The coolest part is, you can run A/B test, show/hide based on category/tags, to make most out of the ads on your WordPress website.
- Advanced database cleaner: I use this to reduce the size of my database. A free alternative is WP Sweep which doesn’t offer advanced feature but it’s alright for new blogs. For a serious blog, Advanced database cleaner is recommended.
- AMP for WP: I use the free version of AMP for WP plugin.
- Akismet: For handling spam comments
- Broken link checker plugin:
- Clicktotweet: To add a tweetable code within an article.
- Easy table of content: To show table of content in WordPress (Helps in SEO and UX)
- EasyDigitalDownloads: This plugin helps in setting up a digital download store.
- Email post changes: This sends me a notification when an author or editor make changes.
- Jetpack by WordPress.com: One of the most popular WordPress plugins offer great features.
- Limit modified date: This plugin helps me to prevent updating the timestamp when making minor changes to an old post. This practice is good for SEO.
- Linkwhisper: For internal link building
- OptinMonster: To add email subscription box.
- Pushengage: Push notification for desktop browsers.
- Pixel Caffeine: Fastest way to integrate Facebook pixel on your website.
- Premium Yoast SEO: For SEO optimization (On page & On-site)
- Peter’s Collaboration E-mails: Sends an email to admin & editor when a contributor submit a post.
- Q2W3 Fixed Widget: Fixed widget plugin
- Redirection: Manages 301 redirection & 404 errors from WordPress dashboard. However, I shifted a lot of redirection now using Yoast SEO premium. Over the time, I will be moving everything to Yoast SEO for redirection.
- ShortPixel: Compress images without degrading quality. Helps in faster loading of the articles.
- Ultimate Nofollow: Helps in adding nofollow tag from the WordPress post editor section.
- WP Link Status: The purpose of this plugin is to find broken links. I use it for more than this.
- WP Forms: To add contact form & create a variety of forms here at ShoutMeLoud.
- WP security audit log: Keep an eye on user activities inside the WordPress dashboard.
- WP Advanced Ads: For adding ads
- WPS hide login
Here is a detailed explanation of most of the listed plugins:
SEO By Yoast Premium:
This is a free WordPress plugin that is the powerhouse of my blog SEO. It helps to optimize on Site SEO, On page SEO & Social SEO of the blog. This is a must have plugin for every blog, and I have written a guide over here to learn about the configuration of this plugin. Yoast SEO comes in two versions: Free and paid.
In the pro version there are few extra features like redirection and internal linking. This is why I useYoast premium. You can read my take on premium version here.
Akismet Plugin:
Akismet is a free anti-spam WordPress plugin that I recommend as it is the official plugin from WordPress creator, which lets you fight with spam comments. To use Akismet, you need an API key. You can get one by following this tutorial.
One downside of this plugin is that sometimes it skips spam trackback or comments or legit comments land in the spam folder. Though this usually happens due to a previous interaction with an I.P or with an email address but you can always address this problem by checking your spam folder daily.
This is also a must have plugin that you should have from day one to stop spam comments on your blog.
Schema Pro plugin
This WordPress plugin is useful if you do review post. Using this plugin, you can add a star rating to your blog post, and make it stand out in the search engine. It’s a premium plugin that cost only $79, and it’s a good one-time investment.
CloudFlare plugin:
Cloudflare is a free service which offers security & free CDN. What I really like about CloudFlare is, you can block bots and spam traffic at DNS level. This saves a lot of bandwidth and also your server load is not affected due to the bot traffic.
If you are using a managed WordPress hosting, shared hosting or any web hosting where your bandwidth is a limit, you should definitely use a service like CloudFlare.
Social Snap plugin for social media sharing buttons:
SocialSnap lets you add social sharing & social media follow buttons on the blog. This plugin offers beautiful looking social sharing button at various places such as Floating sharing buttons, after post, fixed bar, and a few other options.
If you need one plugin that takes care of your social media sharing needs, this is the best plugin for now. This is a paid plugin and cost about $39 only for a yearly license.
The analytics feature is also highly useful and you can get stats right inside your WordPress dashboard.
WP Forms plugin:
This free plugin lets you add the contact form on your blog, and I like it because it also shows the referral URL of the person who is using my contact form to send a message.
This helps me to filter down the real and spam message. If you are using Jetpack plugin, you should rather use contact form feature of that plugin.
Jetpack WordPress plugin:
This is a multi-purpose free WordPress plugin that adds the feature like stats, contact form, mobile theme, social sharing button and many more. This is a power packed WordPress plugin.
You need to have a free account on WordPress.com to use this plugin. You can learn more about this plugin over here.
LinkPatrol:
This is a WordPress SEO plugin that controls your blog external link. Using this plugin you can Nofollow, remove any existing external link of your blog.
It’s a premium plugin and is very powerful and useful for the SEO of your blog. You can read the review and how I use this plugin over here.
No Self Pings:
This useful and free WordPress plugin let me stop sending the trackback to interlinked posts inside my domain.
Read: No self-ping WordPress plugin: Stop pinging your Blog post.
OptinMonster:
This is a feature rich plugin. I use it to show email subscription pop up and is highly configurable. Even without any designing skills, I can quickly configure and design an effective pop up for my blog.
If you are into email marketing and need an easy to use WordPress plugin, look no further than OptinMonster.
SEO Friendly Images:
This free plugin lets you optimize images for the search engine. It adds alt text based on the name of the image. Highly recommended.
Read: How to Alt Tag into Images.
WP Status Notifier Plugin:
This plugin notifies me when any blog post is submitted for review and notifies the user when his blog post is accepted.
Later on, we shifted to peter’s collaboration Email plugin that turns out to be more powerful.
Some additional plugins which I use for ShoutMeLoud:
- Ultimate Nofollow to quickly add Nofollow link attribute.
- Link Whisper for internal linking
- Q2W3 Fixed Widget for making sidebar widget fixed
I will keep updating the post whenever I add or remove a plugin here at ShoutMeLoud. You can bookmark this page & visit it after a month or so to see the updated list.
Nice list of handy plugins Harsh
While I m using many of them, I wan to know that which plugin or widget do you use for social media counter (in the side bar)
@Farooq
They are from manual code!
@Harsh Seriosuly? Wow. I tries to look at the source code but couldn’t put it all together for that social widget in your sidebar. Nice Work
Hi Harsh ,
First of all nice post, it helped me a lot in starting the blog. I did not find the plugin you use for the publicize buttons. I tried a few but which plugin gave u the buttons on the image?
Hello Harsh
Seriously very needy post you’ve published.
Dear Harsh there are few confusions that I wish you’ll rectify.
1. At max how many plugins should be used??(say 10,13 or 15)(Currently I used 12)
2. Does the quantity of plugins affect the speed or any other factor of a website??
3. There is a plugin called Jet Pack which you’ve also discussed above.. I tried to install it on wordpress but it encounters an error..
Here is the message given below:
“Try connecting again.
Error Details: The Jetpack server could not communicate with your site’s XML-RPC URL. Please check to make sure http://rockslife.com/xmlrpc.php is working properly. It should show ‘XML‑RPC server accepts POST requests only.’ on a line by itself when viewed in a browser and should not have any blank links or extra output anywhere.”
It made me mad.
Probably the no. of plugins affect the load speed. You can use wp total cache and cloudflare to speed up your website
Although the list is exhaustive, but I would like to see some security related plugins and broken link analyser too, which will add to the over all effectivity.
Almost Added all plugins But i had a problem with
Author Advertising WordPress plugin: i did not get how to make it live if you have any post about this plugin please share
Thanks Harsha Ji
i think you are not using EasyWPSEO anymore, may be a update in this post is needed 🙂
hello harsh , i want to know that rss footer and meta robots wp plugin page is saying that it has been suceeded by seo plugin , do i still need this , please guide me regarding this issue as i’m a new to WP
@Manthan
If you are using WordPress SEO by yoast plugin, you don’t need RSS footer, and meta robots plugin.
Hello Harsh,
Wp-DBManager was only useful for me, and as well i think you forget stylebox. also let me tell you i liked this stylebox what you are using and after 1 wek of search i came to kow about this plugin, and now am amazed to see that you are using it and had not mention it on your Blog…….
Great list of plugins for a new wordpress blog like mine. Sir, I am using premium theme Publisher which has inbuilt SEO option. So do I require to install any other SEO plugin ?
@Avinash
If you are using Theme based SEO options, you might not need any additional plugin.
Though I highly recommend to use a plugin for SEO purpose, and disable the theme SEO option. If possible, switch to SEO by Yoast or SEOPressor plugin, and disable theme SEO option. As it will be more useful in long-run. (Specially, when you decide to change theme framework).
you really helped me for my website
can you please suggest for the featured post slider please.
thank you
Awesome list. Just add font uploader to that list, it allows you to upload font of your choice to your blog and change the default font embedded in themes. Makes life much easier and site looks beautiful.
Thanks Harsh for this impressive list of plugins! As a new entrant, I must say it feels a bit overwhelming right now.. but yes this will definitely get me started on the plugin path 🙂
Just a query though – can you give me pointers to where I can learn about custom coding in wordpress?
Hi,
you forgot to add this plugin:
Easy Media Gallery – WordPress Portfolio and Gallery
Great list,i think” why do work” for adsense insert, also “simple tags” should also be considered…what do you think,because these are widely used among the bloggers.
Your tips are awesome and after reading your posts i have decided to move from blogger to a self-hosted WordPress site in 2013.
This is really a long list of plugins and most of them are unknown to me. I have bookmarked this page and will be trying some of them. Thanks Harsh for this wonderful list of plugins 🙂
REG — no self ping,,, till now i was approving self pings from my own blog ,,, is it something i am not supposed to do ? Please explain harsh ?
I have seen SEO smart link in this list and little bit amazed to see it here as it adds more loading time to your site, then adding value to your site. Am i right it is not a good sign if your are consious about the traffic and PANDA.
The second plugin that impressed me a lots is after the deadline. Do you know any such extension for windows line writer?
I was doing some research about a Adsense plugin that let me do what Quick Adsense does and eventually I got to…Quick Adsense! Very pleased with the plugin but I’ve noticed some conflicts with Simple Facebook Connect.
I’ve saved this post to my Instapaper as I want to refer later to it…great resource of valuable plugins.
The conditional captcha plugin saves a lot of time handling with the spammers. very good post and very informative. i never knew about the rest of the listed plugins except the captcha plugin and askimet. thank you for publishing 🙂