Maybe you’re a WordPress blogger, run an online business, are changing the world with your latest new start company or you run a hobby website.  There is one thing of which you will never have enough, but which cannot be purchased and that is of course TIME.  Sometimes it seems that the more we try to cram into our day – the less we actually achieve. Maybe that’s because multi-tasking is a myth. If you’ve missed it, single tasking is the new multi-tasking!

There are many apps around designed to increase our productivity – many of them are great, like Slack, or Swipes App. To get you started, here is a short list of 32 productivity apps .  But what about when it comes to your website?  How can you shave some precious minutes from the task of website maintenance or blog posting?

Although WordPress is a great management system for running a website and saves a lot of time compared to other solutions, there are always improvements to be had.  Plugins are a great way to enhance the standard capabilities of WordPress and there are some great plugins that can help release more of that precious time.

Here’s a list of 11 Super Plugins to Save Time with WordPress – in no particular order (p.s. we are not getting paid to list any of these!)

 

1) Find Images with ImageInject

Finding royalty free images to match the content of your blog is a time consuming and frustrating process. ImageInject aims to speed it up by helping you find and insert images all from the comfort of the WordPress admin area. Fantastic!

 

2) Send automated thank you emails with Thank Me Later

Thank Me Later sends an automated email to anyone who leaves a comment on your blog. Thus saving you tons of time and helping increase audience engagement, you can even choose the time delay before an email is sent. Brilliant!

 

 

3) Check your vitals with Google Analytics Dashboard for WP

No need to open a separate browser window and log into Google Analytics to check your site performance. This plugin will display all the info you need right in the WordPress admin dashboard. It might only save a few minutes. But hey why not. High Five!

 

4) Automatically post your blogs to Social Media using NEXTSCRIPTS

As discussed in our previous blog, 4 Ways to Publish from WordPress to Facebook. There is no need to be manually logging into your Social Media accounts to share all of your latest insightful blog posts. All of that can be automated. This saves tons of needless time wasting – plus it never forgets. Amazing!

 

5) Make your site Search engine friendly the easy way with Yoast.

Having an optimised website these days is not a luxury, it’s that entrance price to be part of the game. No visitors and you might as well be banging your head against a brick wall, nobody will care what you write. In our view and many others Yoast is by far the best plugin to optimise your website. Feel the Power!

 

6) Create child Themes the easy way with One-Click Child Theme.

We all know that we should be running our websites on child themes rather than the Parent Theme. If that is news to you please Google it to discover the many advantages. Using this plugin you can create a child theme with… errr one click! Now make those custom changes to your site safely!

 

7) Backup your site easily with UpdraftPlus

This may not immediately seem like a time saver. If you’re not currently doing a regular backup, it may seem like one more thing to add to the list. But believe me – if your site goes down – you will see the time saving advantages of having an up-to date back up very quickly – albeit too late! Avoid the tears and backup now.

 

8) Check for broken links without even lifting a finger with Broken Link Checker

Broken links are bad news on your site. Not only does it give a bad impression to your readers, but it’s also not great for SEO. It’s a simple error to fix, but time consuming to find. Broken Link Checker makes your life easy by checking your site and warning you if there are any broken links. Now go and use the time you saved wisely and have a coffee – I mean do some more work.

 

9) Save yourself all that time deleting spam comments by using Akismet

It’s one of the most popular plugins on the WordPress store and for good reason. Akismet helps to filter out those spam comments, which if you have ever ran a WordPress website you will know appear readily. There’s nothing that fits the definition of “time wasting” more than wading through comments and deleting spam. 

 

10) Make forms the easy way with Ninja Forms.

Not everybody needs to create web forms on their site. But for those that do, Ninja Forms makes the process easy and intuitive. No need to mess with code, the drag and drop editor is a breeze to use. Become a form Ninja with Ninja Forms!

11) Make all your web maintenance dreams come true with the WP Hero plugin!

Ok this one is a bit cheeky, obviously I work for WP Hero :). But I thought it was worthwhile mentioning that if you do not have enough time to be constantly updating and optimizing your website there are services that can do it all for you, of which WP Hero is one. Changes and updates to your site become a simple email – the experts take it from there. Yes we do have a plugin called WP Hero – but no, it’s not available for free 🙂   Check out WP Hero for more info.