Must-have WordPress plugins for your author website

Do you even need these must-have WordPress plugins when you already have the best theme framework for your author website?

Yes, I did say on this page that you don’t need to install tons of plugins when the theme framework already takes care most of your author website’s basic functionality.

Well, that is true for the most part.

But you still need to install these plugins to make your author website better in many ways.

The good news is you can get these must-have WordPress plugins straight from the plugin page of your WordPress dashboard.

Even better? You can also install these plugins with a click of a button too. The process of installing the plugins is the same as installing the WordPress theme. So, it shouldn’t be a problem if you already know how to do that.

Just to let you know that some of these must-have WordPress plugins are also available as premium plugins too. If you find the plugins to be helpful and you want more than just basic features, consider getting the premium version of the plugins.

The must-have WordPress plugins for your author website

Here’s the list of the must-have WordPress plugins that you can install on your author website. These plugins are also the same plugins that I use on The Efficient You and also on my author website.

Akismet Anti-Spam

If you’re planning to have a blog on your author website or at least enabling comments section on any of your pages, consider getting this plugin. It will help you to weed out the spam comments.

The plugin is also available in premium version too. But the free version is doing just fine for me so far.

Email opt-in plugin

There are quite a handful of email opt-in plugins out there. But my favorite is MailOptin plugin since you can do so much even with the free version of the plugin.

With MailOptin, you can create an email opt-in that you can place at the beginning or at the end of your blog post. You can also place the email opt-in at the sidebar too.

Want to create an email opt-in popup? You can do that with MailOptin too.

The only downside with the free version of MailOptin is you need to manually place the opt-in form if you want it to appear on a specific page. Otherwise, it will appear on every page of your author website.

Not only that, but you can only place the opt-in form on the post that is already live. You can’t place the opt-in form on the scheduled post. You can do that with the shortcode. But it’s only for the premium version, though.

Alternatively, you can use Elegant Themes’ Bloom plugin. If you’re using Divi theme, your subscription also includes the Bloom plugin.

iThemes Security

Want to protect your author website from the malicious attacks and hackers? Well, this WordPress plugin can do that for you.

Not only it can strengthen your author website’s security, but it can also do database backup for your author website too.

The premium version of the plugin allows you to enable two-factor authentication and can do automatic updates for WordPress, themes and plugins.

If you use iThemes Hosting as your WordPress hosting, the premium version of iThemes Security is already included in your hosting plan.

Limit Login Attempts

This plugin will lock out any intruders who try to break into your website after a few attempts. Use it together with iThemes Security to make your website security even stronger.

Social sharing plugin

Want people to share your blog post or any of the pages on social media? Well, this plugin can do that for you.

Just like the email opt-in plugins, there are also many social sharing plugins out there. But the one that I highly recommend everyone to use is SumoMe. The reason for that is because I can configure the social sharing button to not appear on specific pages such as the contact page and privacy policy page.

The downside is you need to register with Sumo first before you can use the plugin. And you need to do the configuration on Sumo website instead of within your WordPress dashboard.

Alternatively, you can use Elegant Themes’ Monarch Plugin. I find that the plugin is much easier to configure than SumoMe.

If you’re using Divi, the Monarch Plugin is already included in your membership.

NGT jsDelivr CDN

This plugin will make your author website loads faster by using the free CDN.

You don’t need to install this plugin if you’re using WordPress hosting since it can apply CDN on the server level.

But if you’re on the shared hosting, it’s better for you to use this plugin. You can also use the CDN service such as Cloudflare and RackSpace CDN. But I find that using these CDN services seem tricky.

If you have the money to spare, you’re better off using WordPress hosting instead of using a separate CDN service for your author website.

WP Super Cache

This is another plugin that can help to make your author website loads faster.

Just like NGT jsDelivr CDN, you don’t need to install this plugin if you’re using WordPress hosting since it can do the caching on the server level.

Yoast SEO

Want to take the guesswork out of SEO? Then this plugin can do that for you.

With Yoast SEO, this plugin can help you to pinpoint all the things you need to do to optimize the page or the blog post for the search engine.

The premium version of the plugin allows you to use more than one keyword to optimize the page or the post. If you want to get more traffic from the search engine, then it’s worth getting the premium version of the plugin.

Smush

This plugin can help with reducing the size of the image file, making it quicker for the image to load on your website. With the smaller image file size, it can also reduce the amount of hard disk space on your server too. This is important if your author website has a lot of images and the file size is large.

The premium version of the plugin allows you to smush the image files in bulk.

UpdraftPlus

If you’re looking for the free alternative to Backup Buddy, then you should take a look at UpdraftPlus.

With UpdraftPlus, you can backup your entire website to the cloud storage such as GoogleDrive, Amazon S3 and Dropbox at a scheduled time.

The premium version allows you to backup your whole website and keep it in UpdraftPlus storage. You may need the premium version of the plugin if you don’t like the idea of keeping your website backup in the cloud storage. Otherwise, the free version of the plugin works just fine.

Always keep these plugins updated

Always remember to update the plugins whenever the new version of the plugins are available. Not only the new version of the plugins are compatible with the latest version of the WordPress. But the new version of the plugins also contain the latest security patch too.

Some of the WordPress plugins can be vulnerable to the malicious attacks. If you’re wondering whether the plugins you use will put your author website in danger, then keep an eye for the security roundup post by iThemes.

If you use iThemes Security, you’ll be notified of their latest blog post which includes the security roundup posts once in a while.