Blogging is not easy! Especially if you are a food blogger. For a WordPress-powered website to develop and grow, paid or free plugins can help maintain and advance further for success.
No matter the type of niche you follow, there are only a handful of plugins you must-have and are vital for the growth of your website. These plugins can only help serve and increase your website’s overall health and appearance to attract more organic traffic.
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FREE WP Plugins for Bloggers of All Niches
There are literally thousands of WordPress plugins available in the market. In fact, it is difficult to tell apart from which plugin is essential for a site to look attractive and valuable.
Where do I find FREE WordPress plugins?
Plugins are located on the left side of your WordPress admin panel. From there, you can install/uninstall new plugins at any time as an admin.
To install a new plugin,
- First, log in to your WordPress.
- Go to the Plugins from the left side of the admin panel.
- On the top left side of the window where it says plugins, go to Add New to search for new plugins.
- Type and search for a specific keyword on the upper right side of the window, and it will bring out the best results for your search.
- From there, choose the one you prefer to download.
- Next, Install Now to add the plugin to your site.
- Once installed, you may have to activate it to start using it.
To access the WordPress dashboard or to install plugins, you must have a website. If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend Bluehost as one of the best web hosting services. WordPress itself has recommended Bluehost as one of their top recommendation for hosting services. Check out their pricing plan to choose what fits you best.
Not sure whether you should become a food blogger? READ: 10 Questions to Ask before becoming a food blogger. The answers to these questions may help make the right decision.
Which free plugins are best for WordPress?
From free to paid versions, there is a plugin made for just about everything, So, it is easy and fun to customize a website without having to break your bank.
However fun it is, be aware of the free plugins you install. Since a majority of these available plugins come free, it is not too difficult to get carried away, installing one too many on your website. Especially without doing the recommended research, it can get out of hand very fast.
Many of these free plugins do not come with technical support. Some are not compatible with your website theme, and some may make your site load much slower.
So, be sure to do your research with each free or paid plugin before you add it to your website. Read the plugins description, reviews, find out whether it is suitable, compatible and/or valuable to your site before installing it.
The list of plugins out there is abundant. You may not need them all. However, it is essential to add the best plugins available to improve and grow your website further, no matter the niche you follow.
Start your website with Bluehost today. With their 1-click installation, it is easy to have WordPress set up and ready in no time. One of the first plugins most bloggers install and activate is the jetpack plugin.
1. Jetpack
Jetpack is one of the best plugins in the market used by so many bloggers. They offer both free and paid versions and provide must-have features to WordPress-powered website users. Some of the features include advanced security, optimized SEO, social sharing abilities, detailed site statistics, backup tools, 24/7 support and more.
User-friendly features like this plugin can make it easier for bloggers to keep track of their website growth from their WordPress dashboard.
2. Google XML Sitemaps
Google XML Sitemaps is an open-source plugin to help index the contents of a website. This means it simplifies the task of crawling to index the URL and other data of your website.
A plugin like this one is more helpful in time-saving, being effortless, and being very effective. Indexing your content is essential to stay up to date, and to rank well on search engines like Google.
When growing and advancing on your website, it is crucial to stay on top of everything as a blogger. This means getting to know the in’s and out’s of how your website really works.
3. Site Kit
Site Kit can provide real-time statistics of how your website runs on the inside. The service offered by Google brings valuable information, resources and predictive understandings of your website, directly from your WordPress dashboard for easy access.
This open-sourced free plugin is incredible for WordPress-powered site users. With this plugin set up and running, it is easier for bloggers to find the key metrics and insights of Google Analytics, Search Console, AdSense, PageSpeed and more features from all in one spot.
Statistics like these can be used to optimize your website to help grow further, leading to more organic traffic, attracting the right subscribers and more.
When setting up your website initially with google analytics or other custom CSS, you may need to insert codes manually into the files at the backend of your website.
4. Insert Header and Footers
Insert Header and Footers is a helpful plugin for WP beginners. With this add-on installed, you can easily insert necessary codes, snippets, and scripts to your WordPress site without adding them manually to your backend files.
This saves time, effort, and gets the job done without having to stress. As a beginner, there is only so much you can do to keep up as a blogger.
As we maintain the back-end of a website, we must also manage the front-end of the website to look presentable to capture the potential visitors.
5. Elementor & 6. Beaver Builder
Elementor and Beaver Builder are both page builder plugins. You can turn any boring page into a stunning one. With their easy editing and the drag & drop features, you can custom create a page that you like all on your own. You may also use one of their pre-made template designs to edit and create a page too.
Page builder plugins like these help take control over your website to look better and perform better. Although both plugins are free for users, there are paid plans too to pick from. Which provides more advanced designs, unique features, access to widgets and more that can help customize the appearance of your website in detail.
7. Contact Form by WPForms
Contact Form by WPForms is not just a free plugin made to create a contact form. With the built-in drag & drop feature, building an informative page got much easier. Add a custom-made design to your subscription page, order/payment pages, and pages that need surveys and polls.
Pages containing these custom or pre-made template forms can help turn potential visitors into readers and then into loyal subscribers.
While turning all the pages look attractive for the audiences, it is the recipes they look forward to when visiting a food blog. To rank above other food bloggers, optimize your recipe details with a plugin.
8. WP Easy Recipe
WP Easy Recipe is another open-sourced plugin. This one helps fill in the details of a recipe without missing a thing. It presents a clean-cut layout for your site, shareable and print options available to those who wish to print out any recipe.
As this plugin is made specifically for food bloggers, it is crucial to optimize the rest of your content to rank high among other bloggers of all niches.
9. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO can help improve your websites’ content through the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) technique. A few features include generating sitemaps, content readability, SEO-optimized title, meta description, and other benefits that can help increase your website’s organic traffic.
Most bloggers don’t hesitate to add this plugin, as it ranks as one of the highest SEO plugins known in the market. It offers both free and paid plans to choose from.
Aside from setting up these free plugins, creating content and adding large files of images can put a toll on your website’s health and page speed.
Having a slow-loading site can disappoint the audience who visit your site, and in turn, can hurt your traffic.
10. WP Super Cache
WP Super Cache is a fast-caching free plugin. It can significantly improve your website’s health by speeding up your page loading time on desktop and mobile.
When websites start picking up page speed, and therefore, more traffic, your site visitors will begin leaving opinions and comments. Not all of them will be meant for you, some of which will include spam attacks and unwanted messages.
11. Akismet Spam Protection
Akismet Spam Protection is a popular plugin to filter out spammy comments and attacks. You can review those spammy comments, later on, to double-check. This helps shield your website from accumulating unsolicited messages.
It’s free to use for personal bloggers. However, the premium paid subscription plans are built for businesses and commercial sites for higher security to improve and grow.
As you grow with your blog, accumulating website content, there may be a time where you may have to update or re-edit an already published post.
12. Yoast Duplicate Post
Yoast Duplicate Post Plugin helps duplicate a copy of an original post for easy editing. This way, the original post can be up and running while you work on improving a copy of your content offline or on the backend. Another great feature is the ability to schedule and auto-publish your content. When republished, the changes auto merges into the original post.
The more quality content added the more traffic starts to pick up. This results in more loyal subscribers to your website.
13. RafflePress
RafflePress is a giveaway plugin. With this plugin’s drag & drop feature, you can build a giveaway template to best suit your website to help attract viewers into potential subscribers.
All contents, images, and data related to your website can be damaged or lost due to unexpected events like updates, server crashes, security flaws, and getting hacked. It is highly recommended to backup your work in case the worst were to happen.
14. UpdraftPlus
UpdraftPlus is one of the best free backup plugins for WordPress users. It is super easy to auto-set your backups to a remote location. Which makes it that much easier to restore your site back and work again.
The free version offers must-have features. However, the premium provides incremental backups, multi-site and multi-network compatible, providing tech support and more.
To start installing FREE WP plugins, you must have a website with WordPress already installed. If you haven’t yet, grow your blog with Bluehost web hosting service. With their 1-click installation, it is super easy to install WordPress and start growing.
Thousands of more free plugins like these are on the market that can make your WordPress-powered site look attractive, function better, and grow a step further.
Whether to add side widgets, advanced securities, save a daily backup, or improve the theme… There is a plugin for everything
All you gotta do is research about it before settling with the one you like. Next, run it on the staging site before moving on to activating a plugin directly to your website.
I haven’t mentioned all but only the most essential for now. Have you utilized any of these free plugins or have you got one in mind that is not mentioned here?
Grab a coffee and share your thoughts in the comment below.
Not a coffee person? Take a quick look at the recipe collection HERE. You can choose recipes from snacks & appetizers, curries & sides, sweets & desserts to meals & more. Find ways to create delicious meals to satisfy your food cravings.
