The right WordPress plugin can make all the difference.

As a person who toiled away writing code building sites with HTML and PHP (Yep, I was locked in the nerdery for hours each day), I can say WordPress is the best thing EVER!

While it may take away some work for website developers, it also makes us much more efficient and allows us to manage more clients.

WordPress also allows solopreneurs like you and me an opportunity to build and manage a site ourselves.

One thing you need to make building and managing a site is great WordPress plugins.

11 WordPress Plugins You Need Today

Yoast SEO provides real-time page analysis that allows you to optimize your page and post content on WordPress.

The free version of this top WordPress Plugin is loaded with great features. Here are a few…

Content analysis allows you to check the SEO friendliness of your content. It also checks the readability of your content looking at the length of sentences and even if you are using “passive voice” too often.

Set post titles and meta descriptions. You can set up a template for your meta descriptions or use the snippet editor for custom descriptions

Primary category is a great feature to allow you to use multiple categories and have one main category show in the breadcrumb.

This is a great, must-have plugin for everyone who creates content on a regular basis.

Tablepress allows you to easily put tables on your web pages.

This WordPress plugin is very user-friendly with great features for creating tables.

You can easily embed tables into posts, pages and text widgets with Shortcode.

Edit table data in a spreadsheet format with absolutely no coding knowledge necessary.

Tables can contain any type of data including formulas.

Edit Flow allows you to collaborate with team members in WordPress.

Creating a content schedule is critical to keeping your content flowing and keeping your website up-to-date.

EdIt Flow has a very useful month-by-month calendar for scheduling your content (my favorite feature of this app).

Other key features include custom statuses for content, the ability to make editorial comments for collaboration and notifications to keep track of content.

Pretty Link Lite gives you the ability to create custom shortened links using your own domain name.

This WordPress plugin gives you the ability to clean up affiliate links and track your clicks.

Digg Digg is a social sharing WordPress plugin from Buffer.

This is a very customizable floating share bar for all the popular sharing platforms.

Key features include Facebook like options, lazy loading that increases website performance, and support for email and printing services.

Quickiebar is a powerful drop down conversion bar for your site.

This is an attractive opt-in bar that is completely responsive for mobile, tablet or desktop devices.

Quickiebar is very customizable with 10 color schemes and hundreds of icons.

With the advanced conversion reporting, you can track the metrics of our opt-ins.

Ninja Forms is a very easy and flexible form builder for WordPress.

Customize forms through general settings down to individual fields, submit actions and emails.

Akismet is hands down the best comment anti-spam service available.

It’s constantly learning and evolving to continually improve it’s spam filtering.

What Would Seth Godin Do is a WordPress plugin that actually distinguishes between new and returning visitors to you blog.

Visitors see a box in each post.

Using cookies this WordPress plugin allows you to create separate messages for visitors who are new to your site and those who are returning.

BackUpWordPress simply backs up your WordPress installation.

This WordPress plugin backs up your entire site including your database and all your files on a schedule of your choosing.

It is very simple to set up and works in low memory. It also includes the option to have your backups emailed to you.

Better Click to Tweet is a fantastic WordPress plugin that allows you to create tweetable content for your visitors.

You can use simple shortcode and have selected content highlighted and made tweetable.

Easily tweetable content will get your visitors to share your content and be more engaged.