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If you missed last week’s post, it was about how to start a teacher blog. In it, I shared 10 steps for getting started. Today, I will be going into more detail on Step 6: Add Plug-ins to Your Website. Plug-ins help your website function smoothly, protect it, and enable you to add new facets to your website. Many are paid subscriptions, however you can get free versions that will cover the basics. I’m going to share 5 of these essential plug-ins that you will want to install on your site.
With Bluehost, it’s easy to search for, install, and activate plug-ins. You only have to click plug-ins from your sidebar menu to get started. Once there, you can find whatever you’re looking for. Here are the 5 I recommend you get started with right away.
1. Yoast SEO
This plug-in will boost your site engine optimization (SEO). This means it will give you tips to help make your site more searchable by search engines. When you enable Yoast SEO on your site, you will see it located on the right hand side when writing new posts. Once your post is complete click over there to see the face icons for SEO analysis, readability analysis, and inclusive language. If they are all green smileys, you’re good to go. If not, click the “Improve your post with Yoast SEO” button. This will pop-up a checklist to show you areas for improvement.
2. Google Site Kit
With Google Site Kit installed you can track your readers without going to a separate Google site. You can see how many people visited your site, your most viewed pages, and the keywords searched to find your posts.
This information is useful to see what content your readers love and what content may need an upgrade. It also shows you how your page was found by your readers. That way you know your best sources for gaining new readers. Furthermore, Google Site Kit easily connects to other Google products you may be using or wish to use in the future.
3. Jetpack
The Jetpack plug-in protects your site from malware and other “unwanted guests.” It also tracks readers in a different way than Site Kit, so you will see a bar graph of your day-to-day pageviews. This plug-in has other useful features like letting you know when your site is down (and back up), and it will speed up your site with a free CDN (content delivery network).
Jetpack can connect to other plug-ins, such as Akismet, an anti-spam plug-in. One issue I had with Jetpack is that when I activated Jetpack Boost, my site did not work well, and I had to disable that part to get it to work again.
4. Ad Inserter
This was a plug-in I wish I had installed sooner. Ad Inserter makes it simple to place ads and other information on different spots on your pages. You can place up to 16 ads onto your pages, if you’d like.
What you do is click ad inserter from the sidebar in the tools section. When it opens, you’ll select a page on the top, then insert your code into the space below. Underneath that, you will check off where you want the ad or other information to be placed.
I have coding in one of those boxes that places my affiliate disclosure onto every post I write. That way I don’t have to remember to write it each time.
5. The Newsletter Plug-in
The Newsletter plug-in makes it extremely easy to create my weekly newsletter. Once activated, you can add your subscribers to the list. If you use the paid version, it will automatically add them in. I don’t get very many subscribers at the moment, so I am able to keep up with entering them on my own when I get the notification e-mails with the free version.
It’s also great that you can schedule your newsletters ahead of time, so you don’t have to create them weekly. You can create a batch at one time and schedule them out. This plug-in is a real timesaver and easier than other newsletter plug-ins I’ve tried.
Final Notes
These 5 essential plug-ins will make running your website easier, giving you more time for writing your posts! Keep in mind that all of these plug-ins have free versions you can start with until you build up your readers, then you may want to get the paid versions of some. Also these plug-ins are for websites powered by WordPress. If you have a webhost that does not use WordPress, you will have to do a little research to see if these plug-ins will work for you.
Finally, a couple other plug-ins I love are Shared Counts, for adding trendy social sharing buttons to your website, and jQuery Pin It Button, so users can hover over an image and click it to create a Pinterest pin. Search for jQuery from your WordPress site in the plug-ins section.
As I am not a tech-y person by any stretch of the imagination, I hope this was helpful to you to read about what plug-ins can do for your website in layman’s terms. Please share in the comments any plug-ins you find that you can’t live without!
Note: I am not affiliated with any of these plug-ins. I am merely sharing my experiences with them and my opinions of them.