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Ever since its inception, WordPress has influenced many bloggers and webmasters and many seek this unique platform to power their websites. But what makes this platform so popular? And is building websites what it’s all about? This post will give explore some areas you should be away of and 5 types of WordPress plugins you should enhance these website areas.
- Say NO to Spam
We all hate spam as much as we love our WordPress sites. Soon as you start your website, spammers join in to spoil the party. Spammers love this platform as much as we do but for the wrong reason. They use automated bots that visit your site and start submitting forms. These forms have irrelevant links that advertise their website and get SEO backlinks. Failing to moderate comments leads to posts and pages getting filled with numerous content that will end up affecting reader experience and your SEO score. Since moderating spam and comments by deleting them manually is a tiresome task, you need a WordPress plugin that detects and blocks spam from ever reaching your WordPress site. If you want such a plugin then check out these two.
Anti-spam Bee
This nifty plugin is completely free. I have tried and tested it on my websites and it works perfectly. It uses filters like IP addresses, comments time, Gravatar, languages, BBCode, local as well as a public database of spammers to identify spam
Akismet
This awesome spam blocking plugin is bundled with WordPress and is developed by Automatic which is the same company that created WordPress. If you want to use it in your blog it will cost you nothing, but if you want to use it for commercial purpose you will have to part with $5 every month. For multiple websites, they offer $50 per month. This plugin works by running incoming comments through their API service to decide whether they are spam or not. Besides that, they also have smart filters that identify spam. Of the two, I prefer Anti spam Bee since it’s free and works very well.
- Backups are Crucial!
Your website security is paramount and you can’t gamble with it unless you want to see your hard work go down in the drains. One of the measures that you can take is backing up your website. This way, in the worst-case scenario, you can easily replace a broken one. Several instances may cause your website to break. A sudden update on your WordPress site may cause your website. A security attack may also cost your site. Don’t assume that your website is reliable to keep a backup of your site. What if the servers crash down? Keeping off-site backup is always a good practice. And to help you with this, here are some backup plugins.
Updraft Plus
If you want a WordPress plugin that backs your website up as well as restore it, then this is it. Restoring your site traffic is pretty easy and is done with a single click. You can restore part of your website or the entire website. It has a time capsule that helps you roll back only the changes that happen during an update. This is a popular WordPress backup plugin that helps take backups of your website. You can choose the free version or the paid one depending on the features you wish to have. The backup plugin allows you to restore backups in Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, and Rack space Cloud.
WP Time Capsule
This backup plugin allows you to select cloud storage to save all your backups. Some of the cloud storage you can choose from includes Dropbox, Google Drive or Amazon S3. The awesome part of this plugin is incremental backups, which preserves your server on the lower side. If you are wondering which one to choose, I would say the Updraft Plus since it’s free and does a great job.
- Keep Your Website Safe and Secure!
The web is 30%run by WordPress, making it the biggest target for hackers and spammers who are always trying to compromise these websites. Your business is represented by your website online; therefore leaving it exposed to hackers will be risking your hard work. Staying safe is better than being sorry. Fortunately, there are plenty of WordPress security plugins that can secure your website pretty well. You can install one sleep easy.
IThemes Security
IThemes Security is one of them. This is a free WordPress security plugin that also has a premium version. They boast of being the best security plugin in WordPress development. The free version is available on the WordPress repository. You will, however, have to purchase the paid version at $197 per year for unlimited sites.
After installing the plugin some of the features that you will enjoy, are locking users after a couple of attempts that have failed. You will get email alerts with file change detection, strong password enforcement, changing the default login URL of a WordPress website and more.
Word Fence
This WordPress security plugin also has a free and premium version. It is also a trusted plugin that offers great services. Their dedicated team is focused on providing the best WordPress security and has even performed security updates of the WordPress core meaning that they are also reliable. The plugin has a feature called Threat Defence Feed that uses the latest firewall rules, malware signatures, and malicious IP addresses, making Word Fence much stronger. The free version takes care of malicious traffic and that coming from malicious IP’s, whiles the premium one stops Brute Force attacks permanently and ensures you use stronger passwords. From the two, iThemes Security takes the day because of its high-speed load on servers.
- Make Your Website Search Engine Friendly
If you want to increase your website’s dwell time you need to create a website awesomely, with all your products and services listed and a very attractive design. That is just half of the job. The other half is to ensure that your website is visible to both visitors and search engines. The handful of visitors that come from other sources is not enough. You have to make efforts to ensure that your webpage is found and on the first few pages of search engines which will be viewed by many visitors. There are also several plugins for your SEO. They include:
Yoast SEO
This plugin is an all-in-one SEO plugin that is perfect for your SEO needs. It has both the free and the premium version. This WordPress plugin allows you to set canonical URLs to avoid duplicate content. You can also add better titles and Meta descriptions for your site pages and also perform SEO and content analysis. It has a social media preview feature that manages how your page will look when shared. It has lots of other feature to improve your SERP. Yoast SEO has won the hearts and free many since it’s been a major contributor for the WordPress community for a long time
It offers great WordPress support and it’s an established brand known for SEO. There a few setbacks though. One of them being the ugly advertisements that appear in the backend.
- Analyze and Track Your Visitors
Creating a website expecting visitors to flock in is not enough. You also need to track your website’s performance to know how your investment is holding up. Tracking requires measurable results. That is where plugins for analyzing and tracking user behavior come in. These plugins act accordingly and make changes when things network as expected. Knowing what people like or dislike on your website is very important. You should also track what is brings more conversions and what annoys your readers. Knowing these things allows you to put in more effort in improving your website. For these tasks, you need WordPress plugins to insert in the header or footer of your website.
Conclusion
If you are a WordPress user, all these plugins are available at your disposal. Fortunately, there are plenty that can help you with different tasks in your WordPress site. These five types are just a few of them but very crucial in enhancing site performance. Install them to see the difference they bring in running your business online. However, when picking a WordPress plugin, ensure that it’s properly installed and configured to avoid slowing down your site or technical errors.
