{"id":2658,"date":"2011-10-07T07:03:49","date_gmt":"2011-10-07T11:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/?p=2658"},"modified":"2021-10-19T06:48:28","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T10:48:28","slug":"the-13-best-free-wordpress-plugins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/the-13-best-free-wordpress-plugins\/","title":{"rendered":"The 13 Best Free WordPress Plugins"},"content":{"rendered":"

We covered recently the best plugins available for the webmaster who doesn’t mind spending a few bucks<\/a>.\u00a0 Now it’s time to look at the best ones for webmasters who do.<\/p>\n

Free plugins shouldn’t be looked at with so much of a suspicious eye.\u00a0 While there is definitely something to be said for the polished professionalism that comes from purchasable products, the world is filled with programming geniuses who enjoy adding something to the electronic world.\u00a0 One advantage these guys have is that what they think of is often clever, and may not have made it through a marketing meeting.<\/p>\n

So let’s look at some of the best free WordPress Plugins<\/a>:<\/p>\n

1. Snazzy Archives<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Snazzy, indeed.\u00a0 This plugin takes your blog post history and presents it in an impressive, attractive format.\u00a0 Snazzy scans your posts for images and YouTube videos, and lays thumbnails of them with the post summaries.\u00a0 The package contains a number of options so you can alter some of the layout parameters.<\/p>\n

2. WP Comment Remix<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This full-featured plugin adds a host of new options to your WordPress blog.\u00a0 Options for simple commenting include several different reply types, different ordering of comments and trackbacks, and comment tags.\u00a0 A number of widgets also let you track user data and perform administrative functions through side bars.<\/p>\n

3. All in One SEO Pack<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The description for this package simply says \u201cAutomatically optimizes your WordPress blog for Search Engines\u201d.\u00a0 That belies just how much this free package does for your SEO efforts.\u00a0 It provides integration for WordPress E-commerce sites, for one.\u00a0 It has two levels of use, so novice users can just jump right in, and advanced users can do the fine-tuning that they need to.\u00a0 It optimizes your page titles and generates META tags automatically.\u00a0 If all of this isn’t enough, there is a purchasable Pro version that they claim is the most downloaded WordPress plugin.<\/p>\n

4. Simple Pull Quote<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a neat one that is good for those who heavily use their WordPress site for more serious article writing.\u00a0 Simple Pull Quote lets you take a certain quoted text and emphasize it in the form of a separate text box located within your main text field.\u00a0 It also includes multiple adjustable presentation options.<\/p>\n

5. Theme Tester<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Here’s a clever one.\u00a0 Theme Tester allows the webmaster to test out any new themes that they install, so it is visible only to administrators.\u00a0 Of course you’re not going to be doing this every week, but when the time comes around that you do want to change your theme, especially if you have a lot of readers, you aren’t going to want to show off to them a few hours\u2019 worth of trial and error filled with broken images and links.<\/p>\n

6. Categories by Tag Table<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This plugin is also for writers, but of the more prolific variety.\u00a0 Falling squarely into the \u201cWhy didn’t anyone think of this before\u201d category, it displays a graph that uses for one of its axis your post categories, and as the other the post tags.\u00a0 The table data itself is the number of posts that fall into each intersection.<\/p>\n

7. Hit Sniffer Live Blog Analytics<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Here’s another one that we’re surprised we haven’t seen more of for just about any platform.\u00a0 Instead of waiting until the end of the day, Hit Sniffer allows the user to perform real-time analysis of the traffic to their web site.\u00a0 In other words it lets you see what users are doing as they’re doing it.\u00a0 The screenshots we saw showed a dazzling array of different graphs and statistical pages.\u00a0 Hit Sniffer also gives you the ability to put a chat request pop-up window on your site, so users are presented the option to talk with you while they’re browsing.<\/p>\n

8. Animal Captcha<\/strong><\/p>\n

Getting irritated by the robots that are able to keep up with the Captchas?\u00a0 You might want to install this plugin just for the personal gratification.\u00a0 It asks the user to identify different types of animals.\u00a0 The software comes with more than 100 default images.\u00a0 To further confuse the bots the images are put through random micro-transformations before being displayed and the user can upload their own.\u00a0 Besides, as they themselves point out, instead of looking at random ugly warped text, wouldn’t you rather be clicking on a smiling beagle?<\/p>\n

9. Newsletter Professional<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Almost forgotten in the rush of other more modern features is the need to sometimes contact your users via newsletter.\u00a0 Newsletter Professional lets you put together a newsletter distribution quickly and according to your specifications.\u00a0 Users can opt in via a sidebar widget, and you can use single or double opt-in mechanisms.<\/p>\n

10. Broken Link Checker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The longer and more established your blog is, the less you’re going to want to do this by hand.\u00a0 This plugin will check the links on your blog, not only in your posts, but in comments and other sections, and notify you if they contain any broken links or missing images.\u00a0 This isn’t frivolous: too many broken links can be held against you by search engine crawlers.<\/p>\n

11. SM Sticky Click Star<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a plugin that you see used a lot but may not think of.\u00a0 Sticky Clicky gives you the ability to designate certain posts \u201cSticky\u201d so that they always appear at the top of your blog.\u00a0 This is a lightweight plugin that is designed to work well with other WordPress themes.<\/p>\n

12. EmbedPlus for WordPress<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

There are various plugins that allow you embed YouTube videos into your web site.\u00a0 There aren’t many that have some of the features that this one has.\u00a0 Its playback options include zoom, slow motion, scene making and skipping and instant reply.\u00a0 It also supports third-party annotations, and real-time social reactions.<\/p>\n

13. CSV to Webpage Pearlbells<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This plugin will save the right web site owner a lot of time and headache.\u00a0 It allows the webmaster to upload a CSV (Comma Separated Value) file onto your web site and have it displayed as a table.\u00a0 The file can be set to always upload from a specified location, and the plugin contains customizable style elements.<\/p>\n

There you are!\u00a0 Thirteen really useful WordPress plugins: and like the software themselves, this list didn’t cost you a penny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We covered recently the best plugins available for the webmaster who doesn’t mind spending a few bucks.\u00a0 Now it’s time to look at the best ones for webmasters who do….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2665,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2733],"tags":[3673,117,351],"class_list":["post-2658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tools","tag-freeware","tag-seo","tag-wordpress"],"views":124,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}