10 Must-Have WordPress Plugins for Internet Marketers

If you Google “best WordPress plugins for internet marketers” or “top WordPress plugins for internet marketers”, you’ll be overwhelmed by all the available options.

Yes, there are many great plugins around… but do you really need that many of them for your blog?

No, you don’t.

In fact, installing too many plugins makes for a bad experience with your WordPress blog.

You see-

When each visitor hits your blog, a server request is sent.

The more plugins you have installed in your WordPress; the more server requests are sent.

Each request consumes server resources and decreases your blog load speed.

Moreover, some of the plugins require a bundle of styles and scripts to work, generating extra CSS files and Javascript libraries.

Imagine hundreds of visitors loading your blog post at the same time, and you have 50 plugins working at the same time.

Your load speed performance will slow to a crawl, increasing your bounce rate as viewers get tired of waiting for the page to load.

Unless you are hosting with a high performance server, to optimize your WordPress site performance I recommend you only run those must-have plugins.

You want to choose your plug-ins carefully: only run those that are essential for your blog.

On this page, I’m going to share with you the 10 must have WordPress plugins for any Marketer.

SEO WordPress Plugin

1. Yoast SEO

Yoast is one of the top WordPress plugins.

It’s a complete SEO plugin. The plugin has received so many recommendations that there is no need for another review. Just use it.

Apart from on page SEO checks, Yoast generates your blog xml sitemap too. This is essential for Google to index your site.

2. Google XML Sitemaps

If you’re already using another SEO plugin and don’t want to switch to Yoast, that’s okay.

But make sure you install the Google XML Sitemaps plugin.

This plugin generates a special XML sitemap, making it easier for Google to index your site. Sitemaps are vital to SEO.

Security WordPress Plugin

3. All-In-One WP Security

This is a comprehensive WordPress security plugin.

This plugin protects your blog from brute force attack, protects your database security, prevents illegal access to your WordPress php files, blacklists bad IP addresses, denies bad or malicious query strings, and more functions that safeguard your WordPress blog.

One down side though.

if you’re new to WordPress, it can be a little challenging to set everything up properly.

If this plugin is too overwhelmed for you, use the following 2 plugins to protect your WordPress blog.

Alternatives:

Rename WP Login

Your default WordPress login URL looks like this: domain.com/wp-admin.

If someone wants to break into your WordPress site, they will simply go to your admin login page and do their hacking there.

But what if you were to change your login page to another URL that only you know?

This plugin allows you to change your login URL from wp-admin to whatever name you want to give it.

This way, you make it harder for hackers to find your login page, adding an extra layer of security to your blog.

WP Limit Login Attempts

This plugin limits login attempts.

You can set how many times one IP address can attempt to login to your WordPress blog, adding yet another layer of security that limits the hacker’s ability to use automated passwords tries.

Contact Form Plugin

4. Contact Form 7

I’ve been using this contact form plugin for years. Unlike many other contact form plugins, this one is really easy to set up.

Just a few clicks and you have a contact form up and running. It’s easy, and the form looks nice and clean.

List Building Plugin

5. Thrive Leads

This is a paid plugin.

I use Thrive Leads to power almost all lead capture forms on Growth Text.

I use it to build, run and track my exit pop ups, content upgrades, and slide in pop up.

It’s a robust tool to grow your email list.

If you want an all-in-one plugin to build your email list from your blog, this the tool to use.

Alternative:

If you don’t want to spend money on getting a list building plugin, Sumome is a free alternative.

It creates optin forms, exit pop ups, and full-screen lead capture forms.

It doesn’t come with a 2-step lead capture like Thrive Leads offers though, a feature that makes for better lead conversions.

Social Share

6. Sumome Share

I install this plugin to build my blog’s social shares.

The plugin makes it easy for your visitors to share your content on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and 13 other social networks.

And it’s mobile friendly too, so this plug-in makes it easy for mobile users to spread your content on the social media.

WordPress Backup Plugin

7. BackUpWordPress

You’ve spent time, energy and money on your site. Make sure it’s backed up regularly.

This plugin backs up your WordPress site automatically on a schedule.

You can either have your backup emailed to you, or have the backup files stored on your server.

Performance Optimization Plugin

8. W3 Total Cache

This plugin increase your page loading speed.

WordPress is a dynamic CMS (Content Management System).

WordPress has to process every visitor’s request through your WordPress database on the server.

If you’re getting small traffic, this doesn’t really affect your site performance.

But as your traffic grows or there is a sudden surge of traffic to your site, a lot of CPU resources will be used up on your server to fulfil duplicated requests.

This slow down your page load.

With a caching plugin, the database is query is only run for the first visitor, and a cached HTML file is generated so that subsequent visitors do not have to wait for their query to be answered.

This significantly decreases your site’s load time and server resources.

And that’s what W3 Total Cache is doing for you site.

To any average user, it takes time to learn how to properly configure the plugin.

The segments covering Minify, Object and DB cache take a while to understand.

If you’re technically challenged and don’t want to spend the time and energy learning how properly configure this plugin, WP Super Cache may provide you with an easier solution.

It does the same job as W3 Total Cache, except it comes with fewer functions and doesn’t integrate with CDN, however, it is easier to get it up and running.

9. Plugin Performance Profiler

In most cases, WordPress sites load slowly because of poorly developed plugins.

I still remember a time when I had a plugin updated to its latest version, and immediately saw my server resources consumed at a high rate and my site load become incredibly slow.

Once I had the plugin deactivated and removed, the site gets back to its normal state.

So, it’s always good to keep an eye on your plugins… but how?

This plugin keeps your other WordPress plugins in check.

It scans all plugins that are installed on your WordPress blog and measures their impact on your site’s load time.

In short: Plugin Performance Profiler lets you know which plugins are slowing your blog down so you can make an informed decision about which plugins to keep and which to remove.

It’s a great plugin for highlighting bad plugins on your WordPress site.

Embed Script

10. Insert Headers and Footers

Where do I insert my Google Analytics code?

And where do I insert my Facebook pixel?

I’m asked these questions countless times.

Some WordPress themes come with special sections in which you can embed Google Analytics and other codes.

But if a theme doesn’t provide that, I always recommend this simple plugin.

This plugin let you add scripts to your WordPress blog without having to get your hands dirty digging around for the right php files to throw scripts to.

Sometimes, a simple plugin makes your life a lot easier.

I’ve shown you 10 essential WordPress plugin and offered some alternative plugins which technically easier to configure.

If there are any plugin you think are essential to a WordPress blog but were not included here, please let me know in the Comments below.