If you’re  a freelancer or more specifically a freelance writer then you probably know that there are tons of Freelancer websites like eLance, oDesk, Freelancer, etc. and also many other sites that pay you for contributing content.

I’ve already featured 10 websites that pay upfront for writing articles and I got so many mails suggesting that they’re mostly for U.S. writers. While it’s true to some extent the real problem is that they’re all quality websites in search of high quality writers. It basically means that you must be very experienced to be part of their network.

So today I’m going to tell you how to kick-start your freelance writing without relying on any of those Freelance websites or agencies or those upfront pay sites.

Content Is King: Start With A Blog

You already know that quality content creators are always in great demand and hence you do have a chance. But you’ve to prove yourself that you can write good stuff and must brand yourself as an expert. How? The answer is – a blog.

Blogs need no introduction and you know that it’s one of the powerful ways to create and share content. So all you need to do is start a blog preferably on self-hosted WordPress with your own custom domain name (.com, .net, .co, etc.).

Read: WordPress vs. Blogger.com (Blogspot)

If you’re a complete newbie and don’t know where to start with then you can contact me anytime.

I’ll help you to start a WordPress blog at almost zero cost with your own .com domain name. Seriously.

Now, I’m going to assume that you want to start a blog or have already started one by now.

So What’s Next? Simple. Showcase Yourself As An Expert!

If you really want to make a living from freelance writing then you’ve to focus on a niche topic. I’ve noticed that most of the freelance writers apply everything that’s writing. That is, they claim that they can write on almost any topic under the sun. While it’s possible that’s not the way it should be.

No one can produce original content on any topic. For that you’ve to follow an industry or a niche very closely so that you can come up with original ideas and can easily brand yourself as an expert.

Don’t think that you can’t do it. Remember – every professional was a newbie. If you’re unable to write regularly or produce original content then you can start with content curation. But there’s one thing – you have to be passionate about what you’re reading and blogging. You won’t stop reading, writing, thinking as long as you’re passionate about your blog. And don’t expect a result overnight as it takes some time to build a brand, credibility, and experience.

But the first step is to get started… and everything else (traffic, revenue, clients, credibility, etc.) will follow.

Here’s Why A Blog And Its Branding Is Essential

If you’re just starting as a freelance writer and you don’t have much experience then no one’s going to hire you. Because content creators are everywhere and it is obviously the top skills on-demand and available on all freelance websites.

So you have to build some credibility by showcasing your talent, expertise and portfolio on your blog. How?

Just continue to contribute quality content regularly until you get noticed.

Initially it’s very likely that your blog may look a bit amateurish especially if your blog is hosted by a free hosting platform (.blogspot.com, .wordpress.com, etc.). Again, you have to take care of your design as well as it tells a lot. If you’ve got a professional web design then your readers tends to think that it’s a quality blog.

No one can find your traffic unless you disclose it. They can only assume your traffic based on some available metrics like Google PageRank, Alexa Traffic Rank, etc. But experienced marketers know that those metrics can be faked so they are not going to underestimate your blog.

But design and content is something different. If you’ve got some very interesting content and have taken care of all design stuff then you’re already done.

How About Competition? No, It’s All About Quality!

Like I mentioned earlier content creators are everywhere and every freelance website is crowded with freelance writers. So do you still have a chance? Yes. Why? Because it’s all about quality.

Most of the content creators available are those who don’t focus on a specific niche. They write on almost any topic. So if you’re confident that you can produce better quality content than them then blogging is the right way to acquire clients, showcase your expertise, build credibility, etc.

“If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.” – Bill Gates

Why You Should Focus On Niche Blogging (And Writing)

As I’ve mentioned earlier there are tons of content creators everywhere but not many of them are real experts. If there are experts then it costs a lot of money to hire their services for content creation. So what if you can generate the same quality content at a lower cost? You’re hired!

I don’t know how many times have I tried to hire a content creator from various freelance sites. But nothing worked as they were not niche writers and showed me low quality or irrelevant content when I asked for portfolio.

So if you already have a blog and you’ve already published few high quality content then you have already marketed yourself.

Why Quality Matters A Lot

As you probably know the primary source of traffic is Google for most websites. In 2011 there was a huge update by Google so as to filter out low quality content from search results.

Ever since that update everyone is after quality and not quantity. It applies to content creation as well because webmasters have now realized that it makes a lot more sense to create one quality article a week than publishing mediocre content frequently.

They Say You Need Big Traffic To Make Money And I Say…

Ask any blogger out there “How to make money blogging?” and they say you have to write content regularly and build links for traffic. Okay, it’s true if you want to make money selling advertisement or by reviewing affiliate products.

The perfect example is my sister’s food blog that she started couple of years back. She started on blogger.com as a hobby and as an online diary where she wants to archive all her recipes. She never cared about traffic or SEO or whatever and all she did was contributed content regularly. Now the blog receives over 100,000 page views a month and that’s great as she didn’t spend a dime for promotion. Recently I convinced her to switch to WordPress platform and we noticed a 30% jump in traffic after migration.

So it’s true that you need good traffic to make money blogging – but it applies only if you want to make money selling ads.

Now if you’re a freelance writer… all you need is a blog AND a huge “Hire Me” button so that everyone will see that you’re a freelancer and can get in touch with you effortlessly. ;)

Again, the perfect example is my friend’s lifestyle blog who is a freelance writer. I convinced her to start a blog and helped with design, SEO, and other technical aspects. Voila! She branded herself as an expert in her niche by blogging unique and quality blog posts. And the result? In less than a month or so companies and agencies contacted her via the blog and hired her for content, for event management, for social media jobs, product reviews etc. again with zero promotion.

Once your blog is established (say with quality content, a complete design, etc.) then you’ll get organic traffic from Search Engines, Social Media, etc. and you can make some extra bucks by way of ads, affiliate sales, etc.

That’s not all! There are sponsored reviews and posts. When you showcase yourself as an expert in a niche then agencies and companies will contact you for a review of their product or service. And you can easily make $50+ per sponsored review.

Freelance Writing Can Make A Fortune For You

If you go to various forum marketplaces like Digital Point or some micro-job websites like Fiverr.com, Gigbucks.com, etc. then you’ll see that anyone can buy an article or two for just $5.

Read: Top 20 Micro-job Websites You Probably Don’t Know

They’re mostly article writers who write on almost all topic by following some simple research or re-writing content from other websites.

But if you ask the rate card of a niche blogger who’s a freelance writer as well then it costs $50 – $500 (or even more) per article depending upon the topic.

So what it means to you is that you don’t really need a high traffic blog to earn that six-figure income from your home.

If you’re still confused or don’t know where/how to start with then leave your query as a comment below or you can e-mail me as I obsessively read and reply to each and every mail I get.

Happy Blogging, Freelancing, and Monetizing!

Image Credit: magnetbox, wheely, smemon

Make Money Blogging: At No Cost & Zero Promotion [Freelancer's Guide] is a post by Minterest

It’s true that Google’s Play Store revenues are soaring high as Android devices now outsell iOS devices. But when it comes to revenues Apple App Store is still dominating and analysts don’t expect Google to overtake Apple until 2016.

Now if you’re a blogger who reviews apps for smartphones and tablets on your blog then you can make money by joining the iTunes affiliate program. Google Play Store doesn’t have an affiliate program yet but you can join the iTunes partner program and review apps (and much more) for Mac and iOS devices.

The iTunes Store, App Store, Mac App Store, and iBookstore feature thousands of apps, songs, movies, music videos, tv shows, games, podcasts, books, gift certificates, etc. for iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod) and Mac.

So you can make money by joining affiliate program for iTunes, App Store, iBookstore and Mac App Store via LinkShare (aff link). iTunes doesn’t have an in-house affiliate program yet so you’ll need a LinkShare account and have to apply for iTunes, App Store, iBookstore, and Mac App Store affiliate program (LinkShare Advertiser ID: 13508).

Once you’re accepted to the iTunes affiliate program you can start linking to songs, apps, etc. by creating affiliate links using iTunes Link Maker. You’ll get 5% commission on all qualifying sales generated via your affiliate links to the iTunes Store, App Store,Mac App Store, and iBookstore.

iTunes Affiliate Program: Make Money Reviewing Apps For iOS & Mac is a post by Minterest

Today, the only thing by Google that I really use is the Google search apart from their tools and products (AdSense, AdWords, Analytics, Webmaster Tools, etc.) for marketers and webmasters.

Read: The Google Alternatives: How To Break Free From Google’s Prison

With Outlook.com, Microsoft Is Finally Trying To Be ‘Cool’

10 Reasons Why I Love The New Outlook.com

1. It’s got a a fresh, clean, and an intuitive interface.
2. It’s integrated to Google, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn account.
3. It can recover deleted messages.
4. It can sort messages (by date, sender, size, etc.) in one-click.
5. It allows to sign in with a single-use code without entering password.
6. It allows to create e-mail aliases and can even rename our e-mail id.
7. It offers virtually unlimited storage space.
8. It allows to delete, flag, or mark a message as read/unread/junk in one click without opening the message using “Instant actions”.
9. It’s integrated to SkyDrive.
10. It offers a huge “Reply” window with no annoying sidebar with ads.

Read: 13 Outlook.com Tips & Tricks You Probably Don’t Know

18 Things I Wish The New Outlook.com Could Do

So those were the good things about the new Outlook.com. Now I would like to give you few suggestions to make Outlook.com more powerful and ahead of Gmail.

I’ve already submitted some of the following suggestions when you asked me to use the feedback form on Twitter but I thought to make it more precise here.

1. Enable Faster Fetching Of Emails From Other Accounts

I need faster fetching of e-mails from my other POP accounts as you limit the number of messages to 60 at a time. Unless you do this not many power Gmail users are going to migrate to Outlook.com.

2. Support SMT Server For Outgoing Emails

It’s good that I can add my other POP3 accounts to Outlook.com but since you use your own server to send the mails it shows an annoying “On behalf of” message to the recipient. So introduce SMTP Server support to Outlook.com like in Gmail.

3. Revolutionary App For Mobile Devices

I want to see a Mailbox like revolutionary Outlook.com app  for mobile devices so that we don’t have to rely on a third-party e-mail client to manage e-mails.

4. Ability To Delete Default Categories

You should allow users to delete the default Outlook categories like Bills, Newsletters, Shopping, Travel, etc. because personalization is the key to good user experience.

5. Make Outlook.com Search More Powerful

Outlook.com Search sucks! One of the many reasons why I loved Gmail is its Search function. I can find any mail I want from the archived 100,000 messages in just few seconds. So you really have to improve your Search by making it more powerful with more options in advanced search.

6. Make Outlook.com More Responsive

I want Outlook.com to be more responsive. While it’s true that Outlook.com has got an intuitive and a modern design it’s not as responsive as Gmail (especially Search, Switching Folders, Sending Mails, Refresh button, etc.) [Screenshot].

7. Option To Hide “New folder" Button

I hate the "New folder" button on the left navigation as it eats up the space. We really don’t need those buttons as they’re a right-click away or at least you could give us an option to hide those buttons. Don’t you think?

8. Option To Hide “Messaging history” Folder

Your “Messaging history” button should have been simply labeled as “Messaging” (of course with an option to hide that folder) so as to save even more space.

9. Add More Filter Options To “Rules”

Outlook.com’s Rules (in Gmail it’s known as Filters) is a light-year behind Gmail filters. First, we can’t select multiple actions per rule and second it’s not as flexible as Gmail Filters as Gmail offers tons of ways to filter mails.

10. Improve Folders

I love the concept of Labels in Gmail. I’m Okay with Outlook.com’s Folders & Categories but it’s really absurd as it’s possible to move messages from Sent folder to Inbox (or another folder). I’d expect all my Sent messages in the Sent folder itself no matter what.

11. Change The Way You Treat Junk Mail

I see some reports that your Spam filter is superior to Gmail. But what I’ve noticed is that Outlook.com marks most of the mails that come from someone who’s not in my contacts as spam. So Gmail filters works better at least for me as I rarely have to use the "Not spam" button in Gmail.

If there’s a mail in my “Inbox” from someone not in my contacts then it’s quite a hassle as you block the images, links, and attachments in the message. If it’s not Junk mail then why do you even block its contents?

Again, if there’s a mail in my “Junk” folder then I’ve to first click on “Not junk” and then have to unblock the contents and then have to add the sender to “Safe list” so that future messages are not blocked and sent to spam. If I mark a mail as "Not junk" then it basically means that I trust the sender so you don’t have to block the contents and force me to add the sender to “Safe list”.

12. Redefine“Safe and blocked senders” List

You must redefine the way you treat “Safe and blocked senders” list. Instead of forcing me to add senders to safe/block list you could reimagine it by making it a personal safe/block list. That’s if I block a sender then messages from that person should not appear anywhere in my folders – Inbox, Junk, Trash.

13. Standardize Access Domains

I’m very much irritated with the domain names used by Outlook.com and/or Hotmail. Your domains like col002.mail.live.com, col127.mail.live.com, etc. on my web browser’s address bar look ugly to me and must be standardized to just mail.live.com.

14. Unify Individual URLs

Also, each message should have its own unique URL like in Gmail (https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#all/unique-id). So that we can copy-paste the URL of a message in another browser and go to the message directly. As of now your URLs are all messed up.

15. Use “Hyphens” Instead Of “Plus” For Sub-addressing

While your Plus addressing (like Gmail) is useful it’s not effective since a ‘plus symbol’ in our e-mail address is considered fishy and is not even recognized by some websites. I understand that you support “hyphens” in usernames but you could have used a “hyphen” instead of “plus” for sub-addressing.

16. Discontinue Outlook.com Plus Accounts Or Give More

I wonder why Hotmail Plus still exists. $19.95 a year for an ad-free Outlook.com with no account expiration? Oh, come on, give something more for my 20 bucks!

17. Give An Ad-Free E-mail Experience

I admit that ads on Outlook.com are not as annoying as in Gmail but ideally you should not display ads on Outlook.com. You are not going to build up a mansion with the earnings from these ads. Instead of showing ads you can integrate Bing Search to Outlook.com without annoying users.

18. IMAP Support & Skype Integration

One more thing! When are you going to support IMAP on Outlook.com and integrate Skype with Outlook.com? And I want to see my new e-mail notifications on Skype.

Read: Gmail vs. Outlook.com vs. Yahoo! Mail: An Ultimate Comparison

Having said all that, the new Outlook.com is awesome but it’s not revolutionary. Because the biggest thing that could happen to e-mail has already happened with Gmail. And now, the next big thing that has happened after it is the new Mailbox app as it reinvented the Inbox.

My 18 Suggestions To Outlook.com: Microsoft, Are You Listening? is a post by Minterest

I’m subscribed to Nifty Fifty blogs and it includes the one that you’re reading now. :P

If your RSS reader is empty then I have also included the OPML version of this list so that you can import the same to your RSS Reader. Download the OPML file here.

Blogging

1. Blog Tyrant | blogtyrant.com
2. Digital Inspiration | labnol.org
3. Kikolani | kikolani.com
4. Niche Pursuits | nichepursuits.com
5. Point Blank SEO | pointblankseo.com
6. ProBlogger | problogger.net
7. Sugarrae | sugarrae.com
8. Quick Sprout | quicksprout.com
9. Smart Passive Income | smartpassiveincome.com
10. ViperChill | viperchill.com
11. Minterest | minterest.com

Lifehacks

1. Big Think | bigthink.com
2. Lifehack | lifehack.org
3. Lifehacker | lifehacker.com
4. Zen Habits | zenhabits.net

Marketing

1. AWeber | aweber.com
2. Business 2 Community | business2community.com
3. Copyblogger | copyblogger.com
4. Distilled | distilled.net
5. HubSpot | hubspot.com
6. KISSmetrics | kissmetrics.com
7. Marketing Land | marketingland.com
8. Marketing Pilgrim | marketingpilgrim.com
9. Search Engine Land | searchengineland.com
10. Search Engine Journal | searchenginejournal.com
11. SEO by the Sea | seobythesea.com
12. Search Engine People | searchenginepeople.com
13. SEOmoz | seomoz.org
14. Search Engine Roundtable | seroundtable.com
15. Search Engine Watch | searchenginewatch.com
16. Small Business Trends | smallbiztrends.com
17. Social Media Examiner | socialmediaexaminer.com
18. Social Media Today | socialmediatoday.com
19. Sprout Social | sproutsocial.com
20. State of Search | stateofsearch.com
21. Top Rank Blog | toprankblog.com
22. Unbounce | unbounce.com
23. WordStream | wordstream.com

Technology

1. Cult of Mac | cultofmac.com
2. GigaOM | gigaom.com
3. iMore | imore.com
4. Macworld | macworld.com
5. Mashable | mashable.com
6. TechCrunch | techcrunch.com
7. The Verge | theverge.com
8. VentureBeat | venturebeat.com

Web 2.0

1. Hongkiat | hongkiat.com
2. Inspired Magazine | inspiredm.com
3. Six Revisions | sixrevisions.com
4. Smashing Magazine | smashingmagazine.com

Apart from the 50 blogs above, I also follow dozens of other business and tech blogs via social magazine app Zite and LinkedIn Today. Why? Because they show curated content by featuring only the popular articles based on their social signals. On Zite and LinkedIn Today, you can add Topics and it shows interesting content tailored for you.

Top 50 Marketing & Tech Blogs To Make You A Complete Geeky Marketer is a post by Minterest

My favorite Task Manager was Google Tasks but ever since they started killing good products I prefer non-Google products nowadays. I’m a bit old school when it comes to task management and I prefer to write them as notes on Microsoft OneNote, Evernote, and iCloud Notes.

That said, I understand that Task Manager apps are different from note-taking apps like Evernote, OneNote, etc. as they are a bit complicated if you treat it as a task manager.

So, what are the options?

If you’re looking for a perfect Task Manager for your iPhone and iPad then then I’ve shortlisted the ‘Perfect 5’ of them. Out of the following apps I’ve personally tried only the app Any.DO. Others are listed based on their popularity and iTunes reviews.

5 Non-Apple Task Managers For Your iPhone & iPad

1. Wunderlist

Wunderlist is the easiest way to manage and share your daily to-do lists. With a host of new features including Reminders, Recurring and Subtasks along with improved Notes, Sharing and Notifications Wunderlist 2 ensures that no detail will be missed.

iTunes: iPhone & iPad (FREE)

2. Things

Things is a delightful task manager that’s easy to use, yet has all the power when you need it. Projects, tags, repeating tasks – all at your fingertips. And no matter what device you’re on, Things Cloud keeps your to-dos updated across them all – automatically.

iTunes: iPhone ($9.99) | iPad ($19.99)

3. Any.DO

Any.DO features Seamless cloud sync, Speech recognition, Time & Location Reminders, Any.DO Moment, Folders, Notes, Repeating Tasks, Calendar view, Gesture support & more!

iTunes: iPhone (FREE)

4. Clear

Clear’s fresh take on productivity fits seamlessly into your life. Whether it’s a personal todo list, a shopping list, or to store longer ranging life goals, Clear’s beautifully-simple design lets you stay focused on what needs to be done.

iTunes: iPhone ($1.99)

5. Priorities

Priorities uses “pages” to take the “task” out of task management. Quickly scan through your pages of to-dos and add new to-dos with the ease of a single button. Add alerts, due dates, due times, and notes right from the Add screen.

iTunes: iPhone & iPad ($2.99)

BONUS: Orchestra To-do

Orchestra is an amazing to-do list app that helps you stay organized with reminders, recurring tasks, real-time sync and voice capture. Chat with your collaborators from inside a task, share an entire list and get real-time status updates.

I guess you already know the guys at Orchestra. Don’t you? Well, if you don’t then they’re the creators of Mailbox app. The guys who revolutionized the way we use e-mail and that exactly is the reason why I listed their To-do app.

iTunes: iPhone (FREE)

Top 5 Task Manager Apps For Your iPhone & iPad is a post by Minterest

But now I no longer care about Google Reader and in fact I don’t want Google to bring back their Google Reader as Feedly is just too awesome. Feedly is the biggest winner with Google Reader’s death as over 3 million new users have joined Feedly ever since the announcement of Google Reader’s death.

Feedly was not a perfect alternative to Google Reader but then guys at Feedly did a great job after Google Reader’s retirement news. And with one of its recent update the Feedly even mimics Google Reader in terms of appearance as they added a "Title Only View".

Now the only problem with Feedly is that you need a browser extension to access the web version and it’s available for Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari. You can’t access Feedly simply by going to their website like we access Google Reader.

10 Reasons Why I Love Feedly More Than Google Reader

1. Feedly’s interface is (now) much more richer than that of Google Reader.

2. Google Reader offers only two views namely Title View and Expanded View. But Feedly offers 4 views namely Title Only View, Magazine View, Cards View, and Full Article View. What’s interesting is that you can set a “Default View” and then a different view for each folder/category you’re adding.

3. And with "Themes", you can personalize your Feedly with your favorite color (as you can see my Feedly looks blue-ish).

4. If you’re too busy to read your daily feeds then Feedly’s "Today" section is just for you. It automatically shows the most popular content based on their Social Media popularity.

5. Now if you want to read the most popular content from a specific website or category then you can switch to magazine view so that Feedly will show the most popular articles based on their social media popularity at the top as “Featured”.

6. There’s a giant "Giant Mark As Read" button at the bottom of each list so that you can mark all the content as "read" and I love it (of course you can turn it off if you don’t like it).

7. Feedly can auto-mark content as read as you scroll. Though I have disabled this feature you may still like it.

8. You can customize the font of heading and the color of links in preferences. As you can see I chose black so as to get a Google Reader like experience.

9. Feedly is social. You can share the content to Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Buffer, Pocket, etc. in just one-click.

10. Feedly is mobile too and is available for both iOS and Android which is more powerful than Feedly web.

And now the only turn off I see on Feedly is the lack of “Search”. Google Reader’s search is powerful but I don’t care it as I rarely used the search feature of Google Reader.

Dear Google, Now Please Don’t Bring Back Your Google Reader… is a post by Minterest

A content curator is someone who aggregates content from across the web. They’re not the ones who copy stuff from the Internet and repost the same on social media, blogs, etc. Content curators are passionate about what they share and hence they “curate” content before sharing by adding more information and value to it.

Content Curation is different from Content Creation because curators don’t generate any significant content by themselves. Their primary goal is to find interesting stuff and then re-publish the same by adding their own views about the content.

Why Content Curators?

The internet is an information superhighway. People post gazillions of photos, videos, articles, etc. on the Internet every single day such that no software can sort them. What’s more? It contains a good amount of spam too which machines can’t recognize.

According to Fast Company, “Curation is the act of individuals with a passion for a content area to find, contextualize, and organize information.” and that exactly is the reason why curators are the new superheros of the web.

Let’s say I’m passionate about “Technology”. So what I’ll be doing is reading the popular tech magazines, blogs, following events, etc. so that I keep myself up-to-date about the latest happenings in the industry. People who want to follow technology the way I do can follow my updates instead of reading multiple blogs, magazines, etc. as they may contain too much irrelevant information for them.

The best example is Mashable and TechCruch. Both of them cover almost all technology stuff but the fact is that they post too much unwanted stuff. I have even unsubscribed from their RSS feeds as most of their articles have nothing to do with me. But at the same time most of the popular content by Mashable or TechCruch reaches me, thanks to Zite.

To Bloggers…

You don’t need original ideas to write a great blog post. All you need is passion and an ability to curate content. If you can’t write original blog posts then start curating content.

If you really add more value to the original content by acting as an expert yourself and giving an unbiased view on the story then users will like your content and it will rank higher on search engines.

Read: How To Use Zite Magazine App To Get Ideas For Your Next Blog Post

In order to succeed it’s better to focus on niche topics instead of targeting a whole industry. For example, if you’re an iPhone fanatic then you can focus on three hashtags – Apple, #iOS, and #iPhone.

Once you start curating content you’ll get more ideas and can start sharing other tech stuff that’s somehow related to your primary topics. But make sure you’re consistent and share almost everything that’s digital media (articles, photos, videos, audio, e-books, infographics, podcasts etc.) related to your topic.

Now, want to become a content curator? Here’s a a 17-step guide to be a formidable content curator and also learn how content curation can improve your search rankings.

Happy Curating!

Forget Content Marketing, Let’s Focus On Content Curation is a post by Minterest

You know one reason (or perhaps the primary reason) why people prefer an iPhone over Android is that you get the best quality hardware and software from Apple with apps like Siri, iMessage, FaceTime, etc. that’s not available for Android. That’s not all! You also get the first-class versions of all official apps by various vendors.

As you probably know few apps by Google work better on iOS than Android. When Google released Maps for iOS, several sources claimed that Google Maps for iOS is better than Android version. And this report suggests that Google’s apps run better on the iPad mini than the Nexus 7.

So it really means that you don’t have to buy an Android phone for the sake of apps. When you buy a phone you’re really investing in its ecosystem. And that’s the primary reason why people say they’re switching to Android or iOS instead of mentioning the brand name of a phone.

Today, I’m going to feature an app for each default app by Apple though I prefer to stick with official apps by Apple only. Since the core Apple apps like Mail, Safari, Maps, etc. can be replaced with one app by Google an iPhone is obviously the best Google phone too.

As you can see most of my preferred apps are made by Apple, Microsoft and Google.

If you’re installing an alternate app for each default app by Apple then obviously you took a bad decision when you bought the phone as it doesn’t make any sense to use an iPhone filled with their competitors’ apps. :P

The Default iPhone Apps By Apple Are:

Phone, Safari, Messages, Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Notes, Reminders, Calculator, Camera, Clock, Voice Memos, Music, Photos, Videos, Newsstand, Compass, Passbook, Stocks, Weather, Game Center, App Store, iTunes, and Maps.

And the alternatives are…

1. Skype / Google Voice / Viber (instead of Phone)

Skype (FREE)

Say “hello” to friends and family with an instant message, voice or video call on Skype for free. There’s so much you can do, right from the palm of your hand. Add a little Skype Credit to send low-cost SMS messages or call friends on their mobile or landline.

Google Voice (FREE)

Google Voice is currently only available in the US. Send free text messages to US phones and make international calls at very low rates, access your voicemail messages with transcription, and make calls with your Google Voice number.

Viber (FREE)

Viber lets everyone in the world connect. Freely. More than 140 million Viber users call, text, and send photos worldwide – for free. Viber is available for the iPhone and other smartphones. It’s completely free with no advertising.

2. Google Chrome / Opera Mini (instead of Safari)

Google Chrome (FREE)

Browse fast with Chrome, now available on your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Sign in to sync your personalized Chrome experience from your computer, and bring it with you anywhere you go.

Opera Mini (FREE)

Keep Opera Mini handy on your iOS device, especially for those unavoidable times you are on a slow crowded network, away from Wi-Fi or when data roaming. Opera’s powerful servers compress data by up to 90% before downloading, so page loads are lightning fast.

3. WhatsApp (instead of Messages)

WhatsApp ($0.99)

WhatsApp Messenger is a cross-platform smartphone messenger currently available for iPhone and all other smartphones. Switch from SMS to exchange messages, pictures, audio notes and video messages with WhatsApp users at no cost.

4. Gmail / Sparrow / Mailbox (instead of Mail)

Gmail (FREE)

Get the official Gmail app for your iPhone or iPad. The newly redesigned app brings the best of Gmail with real-time notifications, multiple account support and search across your entire inbox.

Sparrow ($2.99)

Sparrow by Google is an iPhone mail client designed with love to provide you with an efficient and pleasant mailing experience. With its pane navigation, its new threading system and many new features, you’ll never look back.

Mailbox (FREE)

Mailbox is a completely redesigned inbox that makes email light, fast, and mobile-friendly. Quickly swipe messages to your archive or trash. Scan an entire conversation at once with chat-like organization. Snooze emails until later with the tap of a button — they’ll return to your inbox automatically so you can focus on what’s important now. Mailbox works with Gmail only and is available based on reservations – first-come, first-served basis.

5. Fantastical / Sunrise Calendar (instead of Calendar)

Fantastical ($3.99)

Fantastical is the fastest and friendliest calendar app. Just type in “Lunch with John in Cupertino on Friday” and Fantastical will schedule it! Best of all, the beautiful interface makes using your calendar fun and easy.

Sunrise Calendar (FREE)

Sunrise is a free calendar app made for Google Calendar users. Designed with love, Sunrise is a new experience that will make your life easier.

6. Smartr Contacts / Brewster / Addappt / IntouchApp (instead of Contacts)

Smartr Contacts (FREE)

Smartr Contacts brings you that magic. This free app automatically creates rich profiles for all your contacts, including communication history and updates from Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Brewster Address Book (FREE)

Bring together everyone you know (including contacts from iPhone, LinkedIn, Facebook, Gmail, and Twitter) to create your own personalized address book. Additionally, syncing Brewster to your iPhone address book keeps your contacts’ information up-to-date and adds large photos to every contact.

Addappt (FREE)

Addappt is an always up-to-date private address book maintained by your friends… on iOS, desktop and iCloud all with one free app. Change your contact information once in the app and your contact info is updated across all your connected friends’ address books. It is that simple.

IntouchApp Contacts (FREE)

IntouchApp is a simple and elegant solution for managing your contacts so you stay in touch with those that matter, forever! Never worry about your contacts ever again!

7. Evernote / Fetchnotes (instead of Notes)

Evernote (FREE)

Evernote lets you take notes, capture photos, create to-do lists, record voice reminders–and makes these notes completely searchable, whether you are at home, at work, or on the go.

8. Any.do / Clear (instead of Reminders)

Any.DO (FREE)

Organize your life in a simple and elegant way. Any.DO is a better way to make things happen.

Clear ($1.99)

Life is messy. Keep it together with Clear, an amazing new app for list-keeping that is unbelievably simple, quick and satisfying to use.

9. Calculator+ / Soulver / Quick Graph (instead of Calculator)

Calculator+ (FREE)

Calculator+ is an iPhone / iPad calculator designed with simplicity, usability, and beauty in mind…

Soulver ($2.99)

Soulver is the ultimate app for doing quick calculations and figuring stuff out on the iPhone. It’s a far more elegant way to work with numbers than a traditional calculator.

Quick Graph (FREE)

It is a powerful, high quality, graphic calculator that takes full advantage of the multi-touch display and the powerful graphic capabilities of the iPad and iPhone, both in 2D and 3D. A simple, yet intuitive interface that makes it easy to enter and/or edit equations and visualize them in mathematical notation.

10. Camera+ / Camera Awesome / KitCam (instead of Camera)

Camera+ ($0.99)

With Camera+ you’re able to use your iPhone to shoot the best photos you possibly can. Packed with several useful features that your standard camera app doesn’t include, your pics will improve the instant you start using Camera+.

Camera Awesome (FREE)

Camera Awesome takes your photos to the next level by shooting faassst and taking sharper, better-exposed shots. Make your memories come alive with stunning professional effects. 0-Tap sharing on the sites you love.

KitCam ($0.99)

KitCam is a virtual camera kit that contains an amazing assortment of lenses, films, and frames, which can be used to create incredible effects and turn your photos and videos into stunning works of art.

11. Nightstand Central / Rise (instead of Clock)

Nightstand Central (FREE)

Nightstand Central Free turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a high quality alarm clock with current weather information and customizable wallpaper. It also supports iOS 4 background alarms. You get many of the great features of Nightstand Central, but for free.

Rise ($1.99)

Rise is a delightfully simple and unique alarm clock, now available for your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. With its refreshing and clever way to set time, Rise is one of the simplest alarm clocks you’ll ever use.

12. Audioboo / AudioMemos (instead of Voice Memos)

Audioboo (FREE)

Audioboo is an application for recording and sharing your voice with the world. This free version allows you to create audio up to 3 minutes in length and post that to your own account on the web.

Audio Memos ($0.99)

Audio Memos is a professionally made audio recorder. It has an amazingly intuitive interface, which is easy to use and full of powerful features. Use it in interviews, lectures, music session, briefings, … and simplify your recording tasks.

13. Ecoute (instead of Music)

Ecoute ($2.99)

Ecoute for iOS is an alternative player using your existing musical library. It sports a clean and elegant interface, revolves around gestures to help you control your music quickly, and integrates Twitter, Facebook, and Last.fm so you can share your favorites tracks.

14. Flayvr / PhotoFolders (instead of Photos)

Flayvr (FREE)

With flayvr all your iPhone’s photos and videos are magically sorted into beautiful interactive albums, for you to keep or share with friends. Finally bring your memories back to life – use flayvr instead of endlessly swiping through your Camera Roll searching for your lost moments.

PhotoFolders ($1.99)

Protect and hide your private photos without being obvious about it! PhotoFolders allows you to organize your photos into separate albums (folders) that you can password protect to lock or hide. Now you can share the photos you want to share, and hide the photos you want to hide all in the same app.

15. GoodPlayer / AVPlayer (instead of Videos)

GoodPlayer ($2.99)

GoodPlayer can play AVI, Xvid, Divx, DAT, VOB, FLV, WMV, WMA, MKV, MP3, MP4, 3GP, AAC, AMR, FLV, MPEG, etc… files and streaming directly on iOS devices. Just transfer the media files to your iOS devices by iTunes File Sharing or over Wi-Fi, then it can be played at once.

AVPlayer ($2.99)

The AVPlayer can play almost any computer video file format such as AVI, Xvid, WMV and much more clearly and effortlessly. No converting hassles. Just copy files via USB and just drag and drop into the AVPlayer’s Media Explorer.

16. Zinio (instead of Newsstand)

Zinio (FREE)

Introducing Zinio, a better way than ever to explore, read and shop for the world’s best magazines on your iPad. Zinio now has more magazines than ever, and a new app built to make it easier to read your favorites anytime and anywhere. Access thousands of titles, tens of thousands of issues, and millions of pages of the world’s best digital content.

17. Google Earth / Compass+ (instead of Compass)

Google Earth (FREE)

Explore distant lands or reacquaint yourself with your childhood home. Search for cities, places, and businesses. Browse layers including roads, borders, places, photos and more. Visit the Earth Gallery to find exciting maps such as real-time earthquakes, planes in flight, hiking trails, city tours, and more.

Compass+ ($0.99)

Compass+ offers you much more than the standard compass. It features: six beautiful themes, retina graphics, Google Maps integration, location tagger, distance and heading information, etc.

18. Gyft (instead of Passbook)

Gyft (FREE)

Gyft is a digital gift card wallet that enables you to upload, send & redeem gift cards. Get two free $5 cards from mystery retailers! Beautifully designed for your iPhone to track balances and buy gift cards from over 200 national retailers. Connect with Facebook to send gift cards to friends & family.

19. Yahoo! Finance / Bloomberg (instead of Stocks)

Yahoo! Finance (FREE)

You’ve come to expect the highest quality financial coverage from Yahoo! Finance. Now you can get it all in an app built for you. Ranging from broad market indices to the details on a specific commodity, it’s all here. This app has something for everyone, no matter what your need of financial detail may be.

Bloomberg (FREE)

Get instant access to all your business and finance news, market data and portfolio tracking tools from the most trusted source financial professionals around the world rely upon.

20. Haze / Weather Live (instead of Weather)

Haze ($1.99)

Haze is build around the idea of giving you a radiantly crafted forecast at a glance. Swipe through temperature, sunshine hours and rain chance or dive even deeper and get detailed information about the weather. Swipe down to get a 5 day forecasts and unlock multiple colorful themes to personalize the look.

Weather Live ($1.99)

Don’t let bad weather take you by surprise! Whether it is cloudy, rainy, snowy or even stormy outside, Weather Live will provide you with current weather conditions and forecast in your city and multiple locations all around the world.

21. Appsfire (instead of App Store)

Appsfire (FREE)

The new Appsfire is the best way to find your next favorite app. Appsfire makes it super easy to browse the best deals and exclusive promotions. Set up price alerts to be notified when that paid app you’ve had your eye on drops in price, or even goes free.

22. Spotify / TuneIn Radio (instead of iTunes)

Spotify (FREE)

Spotify gives you instant access to millions of songs on your iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch. With the Spotify app, you can choose to listen for free, or subscribe to Spotify Premium. US users can listen to radio for free. If your station plays a song you really like, save it with a single tap. Unlimited songs and stations – listen forever!

TuneIn Radio (FREE)

TuneIn lets you listen to the world’s radio with music, sports, news, talk, and comedy streaming from every continent. Enjoy 70,000 live radio stations and 2 million podcasts, concerts or shows on your iPhone, iPad and iPod, all for free.

23. Google Maps (instead of Maps)

Google Maps (FREE)

Get comprehensive, accurate and easy-to-use maps with built-in Google local search, voice guided turn-by-turn navigation, public transit directions, Street View and more. Use Google Maps to discover great places to eat, drink, shop and play, with ratings and reviews from people you trust.

24. Google Search (instead of Siri)

Google Search (FREE)

Search the web faster and easier with the latest Search app from Google. Get new features available only in this app. Now, with streaming voice search.

Google Search app for iOS recently enabled Voice Search and it really works well. Since it’s not integrated with iOS it can’t do all things which Siri can do but it’s really smarter than Siri when you ask information from the web.

25. CloudMagic (instead of iPhone Spotlight Search)

CloudMagic (FREE)

Magically find anything when you need it the most. Lightning fast search across Gmail, Google Apps, Hotmail, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Dropbox, Box, SkyDrive, iCloud email and much more.

Again, though the primary purpose of CloudMagic and iPhone’s Spotlight Search is different, this app is worthy to feature here as an alternative to Spotlight Search as it offers a one-stop search box to search almost everything cloud.

BONUS: Even More Alternatives To Replace ‘Other’ Apps By Apple…

Now those were the best alternatives to the the default iPhone apps by Apple. And here are few more apps to replace iWork, iBooks, Find My Friends, Find My Phone, iMovie, iPhoto, Podcasts, and iCloud.

26. CloudOn / Documents To Go (instead of iWork)

CloudOn (FREE)

CloudOn brings Microsoft Office to your iPhone & iPad and links it to your Box, Dropbox, Google Drive and SkyDrive accounts.

Documents To Go ($9.99)

Looking to access your Microsoft Office files at any time? All you need is your favorite iOS device and Documents To Go to be constantly connected!

27. Kindle / Google Play Books (instead of iBooks)

Kindle (FREE)

The Kindle app is optimized for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, giving users the ability to read Kindle books, newspapers, magazines, textbooks and PDFs on a beautiful, easy-to-use interface. You’ll have access to over 1,000,000* books in the Kindle Store plus hundreds* of newspapers and magazines.

Google Play Books (FREE)

With Google Play Books for iOS start reading today with millions of titles from Google Play on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. Take your favorite books with you on the go and personalize your reading experience. Shop books in your browser on Google Play.

28. Google Latitude (instead of Find My Friends)

Google Latitude (FREE)

Google Latitude lets you stay in touch with your friends and family by making it easy to share where you are and see each other on a map. Check in at places to share them with friends.

29. Prey Anti-Theft (instead of Find My Phone)

Prey Anti-Theft (FREE)

Open source, cross-platform anti-theft tracker. Prey lets you keep track of *all* your devices easily in one place.

30. Vimeo / ReelDirector (instead of iMovie)

Vimeo (FREE)

The new Vimeo iPhone app is the fastest way to watch, create, and share Vimeo videos on the go. The smarter, more intuitive design makes uploading, browsing, and sharing ridiculously easy.

ReelDirector ($1.99)

ReelDirector is the 1st and the most feature rich, powerful video editor for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

31. Adobe Photoshop Express / PicsArt (instead of iPhoto)

Adobe Photoshop Express (FREE)

With Photoshop Express, it’s easy to improve your photos. Choose from a variety of one-touch effects, or simply drag your finger across the screen to crop, rotate, or adjust color. Add artistic filters like Soft Focus or Sketch.

PicsArt (FREE)

PicsArt is a free, full-featured photo editor and art community. PicsArt’s toolkit includes picture editor, magic effects, draw, sharing, and a photo art community.

32. Instacast / Downcast / Stitcher Radio (instead of Podcasts)

Instacast 3 ($4.99)

Instacast makes it easy to discover, create, and manage multiple podcast subscriptions. Subscribe a podcast via the integrated Online Directory, import episodes from your iPod Library and always stay up-to-date.

Downcast ($1.99)

Download and listen to your favorite podcasts directly from your iOS device without the need to sync with iTunes.

Stitcher Radio (FREE)

Listen to your favorite news, comedy, sports and talk radio shows on-demand from your mobile device. Discover the best of NPR, CNN, Fox, BBC, WSJ, Adam Carolla, SModcast and over 15,000+ shows and live stations. Change the way you listen to radio – on your schedule, not the schedule of traditional stations.

33. Dropbox (instead of iCloud)

Dropbox (FREE)

Dropbox lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily. Access any file you save to your Dropbox from all your computers, iPhone, iPad and even the Dropbox website!

Dropbox can’t be considered as a complete alternative to iCloud since iCloud is tightly integrated with iOS and Dropbox is more or less a cloud storage platform. But several apps support integration with Dropbox and you can access your Dropbox account from any device.

Do you know of any other good alternatives to native iPhone apps?

Image Credits: Flickr, Free Digital Photos

30 Default iPhone Apps By Apple And Its Great Alternatives is a post by Minterest

I first came to know about Jetpack for WordPress from web hosting companies. The popular web hosting control panel vDeck (used by iPage, PowWeb, iPower, etc.) recommends Jetpack for WordPress plugin whenever we do an automatic installation of WordPress script using their control panel.

But I started using Jetpack since the past 2 years only and it’s a fantastic plugin. It’s comparable to WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin as these plugins offers multiple functionality. And both these plugins are featured in the 13 WordPress plugins I can’t live without.

Install the WordPress SEO by Yoast and you can deactivate several other plugins as it’s more powerful than what you can imagine. Likewise, enabling Jetpack on your self-hosted WordPress blog can also reduce the number of plugins used by your blog which ultimately improves the performance of your blog.

Read: Top 25 WordPress Plugins 2013 To Supercharge Your Blog

What’s Jetpack for WordPress?

Jetpack plugin brings the power of WordPress.com cloud to your self-hosted WordPress. It enables you to connect your self-hosted WordPress blog to your WordPress.com account so that you can enjoy almost all the power features normally available to WordPress.com users.

“Jetpack supercharges your self?hosted WordPress site with the awesome cloud power of WordPress.com.”

So why am I reviewing this plugin individually when I have already featured it in my WordPress Plugins 2012 and 2013 blog posts? Well, it’s only because of Jetpack’s image acceleration and editing service (or call it a content delivery network) called Photon.

I’m already using Google’s PageSpeed Service to turbocharge this blog so I didn’t want another CDN for this blog. But recently I enabled Photon on my friend’s blog and its PageSpeed Score increased to 80 from 63 instantly. Her blog is not using any performance plugins (like WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache) or CDN service and hence this score improvement is awesome.

25 Reasons Why You Should Install Jetpack By WordPress.com Plugin

1. Photon

“Give your site a boost by loading images from the WordPress.com content delivery network.”

Photon is a FREE Content Delivery Network (CDN) service by Automattic. It’s an image acceleration and editing service for your Jetpack enabled WordPress blog. It boosts your page speed by caching your images and then serving them from WordPress.com servers thereby reducing the server load on your web host. Learn more about Photon »

2. Publicize

“Connect your site to popular social networks and automatically share new posts with your friends.”

Publicize allows you to connect your WordPress blog to popular social networking sites Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Yahoo! so that all your new blog posts will be shared to your social networks automatically. Learn more about Publicize »

3. Notifications

“Monitor and manage your site’s activity with Notifications in your Toolbar and on WordPress.com.”

Notifications on toolbar allow you to view, reply, unapprove, spam, and trash comments right from the toolbar, anywhere on your site (if toolbar is enabled) or across WordPress.com sites. Learn more about Notifications »

4. WordPress.com Stats

“Simple, concise site stats with no additional load on your server.”

WordPress.com Stats show simple yet comprehensive and easy to understand analytics about your blog. It shows the page views per day for the last 15 days, top posts and search queries of the day right within your WordPress dashboard.

You can get more detailed stats like weekly page views, monthly page views, and quick stats about top referrers, search engine queries, clicks, top posts, etc from Jetpack > Site Stats menu. And that’s not all! You can view all these stats (and much more) from your WordPress.com account too by going to WordPress.com > Stats. Learn more about WordPress.com Stats »

5. Jetpack Comments

“A new comment system that has integrated social media login options.”

Jetpack Comments allows your visitors to use their WordPress.com, Twitter, or Facebook accounts to comment on your blog. Learn more about Jetpack Comments »

6. Enhanced Distribution

“Share your public posts and comments to search engines and other services in real-time.”

Enable Enhanced Distribution and Jetpack will automatically share your content instantly with third party services like search engines to increase your reach and traffic. Learn more about Enhanced Distribution »

7. Subscriptions

“Allow users to subscribe to your posts and comments to receive a notification via email.”

Allow your blog readers to subscribe to your blog posts and follow-up comments via e-mail. Users can subscribe via a sidebar widget or by enabling the right options when they leave a comment on a blog post. Learn more about Subscriptions »

8. Likes

“Likes are a way for people to show their appreciation for content you have written. It’s also a way for you to show the world how popular your content has become.”

Likes is a new feature on Jetpack that allows  your readers to appreciate your posts using their WordPress.com accounts. They’ll be able to review their ‘liked’ blog posts from their WordPress.com dashboard. Learn more about Likes »

9. Post By E-mail

“Publish posts to your blog directly from your personal email account.”

Post by Email is for those who want to publish a blog post by e-mail. You can use any e-mail client to send the mail as it uses a special e-mail address. Anyone who knows this secret e-mail can publish  blog post to your blog. Learn more about Post By E-mail »

10. Carousel

“Transform your standard image galleries into an immersive full-screen experience.”

Enjoy fascinating full-screen browsing experience with comments and EXIF metadata in your standard WordPress galleries with Carousel. Learn more about Carousel »

11. Sharing

“The most super duper sharing tool on the interwebs. Share content with Facebook, Twitter, and many more.”

Sharing module in Jetpack is perhaps the simplest way to integrate social media to your blog posts. Just activate Sharing on Jetpack control panel and customize the same on Settings > Sharing menu. It supports all major social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Google +1, etc. Learn more about Sharing »

12. Spelling and Grammar

“Improve your spelling, style, and grammar with the After the Deadline Proofreading service.”

Spelling and Grammar feature improves your writing by using After the Deadline proofreading service. It uses artificial intelligence to find errors in your blog posts and then offers smart suggestions. Learn more about Spelling and Grammar »

13. Gravatar Hovercards

“Show a pop-up business card of your users’ gravatar profiles in comments.”

Hovercards enhance the Gravatar images to include more details about the commenter like  name, bio, pictures, their contact info, and other services. If the commenter has a Gravatar hovercard associated with his/her profile then it will be shown when we hover mouse over their image. Learn more about Gravatar Hovercards »

14. Contact Form

“Easily insert a contact form any where on your site.”

Contact Form by Jetpack is the simplest contact forms of all I guess, as it’s so easy to implement. You can customize the contact form the way you want with an easy-to-use interface. And all the use submitted information will be filtered by Akismet so that only legitimate messages will be e-mailed to you. You can review your messages in your WordPress Dashboard > Feedbacks. Learn more about Contact Form »

15. WP.me Shortlinks

“Enable WP.me-powered shortlinks for all of your Posts and Pages for easier sharing.”

WP.me Shortlinks gives you short and unique URL hosted by the domain name wp.me so that you can use these plugin generated short URLs instead of typing the long URLs. You can click on “Get Shortlink” within your post’s editing page to generate a short URL. If this feature is disabled on Jetpack then you can still use the “Get Shortlink” feature to generate a http://www.minterest.com/?p=5796 like URL. Learn more about WP.me Shortlinks »

16. Tiled Galleries

“Create elegant magazine-style mosaic layouts for your photos without using an external graphic editor.”

Tiled Galleries feature creates elegant magazine-style mosaic layouts for your photos without using an external graphic editor. Learn more about Tiled Galleries »

17. Mobile Theme

“Automatically optimize your site for mobile devices.”

Today, a good percentage of your visitors must be using a smartphone or a tablet to browse through your blog. So it’s important to give them a good reading experience by optimizing your design. Jetpack’s Mobile Theme feature optimizes your blog by using its header image, background, and widgets for a great look. Learn more about Mobile Theme »

18. Shortcode Embeds

“Easily embed videos and more from sites like YouTube, Vimeo, and SlideShare.”

Shortcode Embeds allows you to easily embed content from YouTube, Flickr, SlideShare, Vimeo, SoundCloud, etc. to your blog post by using short codes. Learn more about Shortcode Embeds »

19. Extra Sidebar Widgets

“Easily add images, Twitter updates, and your site’s RSS links to your theme’s sidebar.”

Extra Sidebar Widgets can be used to add widgets for RSS Links, Twitter, Facebook Like Box, and Images. You can activate this feature and customize the same on your WordPress Appearance > Widgets. Learn more about Extra Sidebar Widgets »

20. Infinite Scroll

“Automatically pull the next set of posts into view when the reader approaches the bottom of the page.”

If your current WordPress theme supports “Infinite Scrolling” then you’ll be able to activate this feature. Learn more about Infinite Scroll »

21. Custom CSS

“Customize the appearance of your site using CSS but without modifying your theme.”

Custom CSS allows you to edit your WordPress theme’s CSS supplying auto-indentation and validating your CSS codes. Learn more about Custom CSS »

22. JSON API

“Allow applications to securely access your content through the cloud.”

JSON API by Jetpack allows third-party applications to connect to your blog securely and enables them to use your content in different ways offering new functionalities. Learn more about JSON API »

23. Mobile Push Notifications

“Receive notifications on your Apple device.”

If you’re using WordPress for iOS app then you can now enable push notifications and can get real-time notifications whenever you get a new comment on your blog. Learn more about Mobile Push Notifications »

24. Beautiful Math

“Mark up your posts with the LaTeX markup language, perfect for complex mathematical equations and other über-geekery.”

LaTeX a powerful markup language that’s really good for writing complex mathematical equations, formulas, etc. Learn more about Beautiful Math »

25. VaultPress (PREMIUM)

“Real-time backup and security scanning for your WordPress site.”

VaultPress is a premium feature on Jetpack and hence requires a monthly subscription. VaultPress plugin will backup your blog’s content, themes, and plugins in real-time and performs regular security scans to protect your blog from potential threats. Learn more about VaultPress »

Turbocharge Your Blog With WordPress Jetpack Plugin [Review] is a post by Minterest

As you probably know WordPress is the darling of bloggers and is the most popular Content Management System (CMS). According to WordPress.org there are over 60 million WordPress powered websites and there are 23,598 plugins that can transform your blog into almost anything you can imagine.

Webmasters and developers love WordPress because of its flexibility and the plugins as there is a plugin for almost anything. I wrote a blog post on Top 30 WordPress Plugins 2012 last year and today I’m going to revisit WordPress plugins by blogging my current favorites.

I have just 13 WordPress Plugins active on this blog and those are the only plugins which I can’t live without. That said, I’m not going to limit this blog post with just 13 plugins as there are some other plugins which you probably need.

13 Essential WordPress Plugins 2013 I Can’t Live Without

I will first start with the 13 best plugins that I am addicted to and I believe that these are the most essential plugins for almost all WordPress blogs. I have made sure that I listed only one plugin for a specific purpose so as to avoid any confusion.

*Plugins with images are the ones that I highly recommend.

1. AdSense Deluxe

AdSense Deluxe is perhaps the only obsolete plugin in this list but it’s something which I can’t live without as I’m using that on this blog since the past 6 years or so. It was the best plugin to manage AdSense and other ads but its author stopped the development and is not even listed in the WordPress plugin directory anymore. The last version of AdSense Deluxe was released in June, 2006. If you want to stick with some other AdSense plugin then I recommend AdSense Manager which I believe is the perfect alternative to AdSense Deluxe.

Learn More & Download: AdSense Deluxe | AdSense Manager

2. Akismet

Akismet is undoubtedly the best way to protect your WordPress blog from comment spam. I can’t imagine a blog without Akismet plugin as otherwise you’ll be forced to disable the whole comment system due to spammers. Akismet has protected my blog from 159,350 spam comments already as it filters all the comments and tracks back spams.

Learn More & Download: Akismet

3. Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is the best contact form plugin with over 9 million downloads. It’s a simple and flexible plugin and we can have multiple contact forms which can be customized to match our requirements. The Contact Form 7 plugin supports Ajax-powered form submission, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering etc. so that you don’t need another plugin.

Learn More & Download: Contact Form 7

4. FeedBurner FeedSmith

FeedBurner FeedSmith is a must plugin for all WordPress blogs that are using FeedBurner to manage RSS. It redirects all users requesting access to your original WordPress feeds to FeedBurner.

Learn More & Download: FeedBurner FeedSmith

5. Jetpack by WordPress.com

Jetpack brings the power of WordPress.com cloud to your self-hosted WordPress. It enables you to connect your self-hosted blog to your WordPress.com account so that you can enjoy almost all the power features normally available to WordPress.com users. Jetpack is a must have plugin for all WordPress blogs and that’s exactly the reason why it’s featured as one of the best plugins of all time.

Some of the features of Jetpack includes quick stats of your blog, notifications, social sharing, social comment system, comment subscriptions, proof reading, contact form, etc.

Learn More & Download: Jetpack

6. Price Table

Price Table is the best plugin for WordPress to create beautiful tables. It comes with an easy to use table builder and an attractive design.

Read: How To Create Beautiful Pricing Tables In WordPress

A Table plugin is a must have for any blog that sell services. If you want alternate table designs then you can try the Pricing Table plugin as well.

Learn More & Download: Price Table | Pricing Table

7. PubSubHubbub

PubSubHubbub is a simple, open, server-to-server web-hook-based pubsub (publish/subscribe) protocol as an extension to Atom and RSS. It’s the new standard by Google to let people and search engines know in real-time when your blog is updated and is a must have plugin to fight content scrapers. It’s already being used by Google Reader, Google Alerts, FriendFeed, etc.

Learn More & Download: PubSubHubbub

8. Scrolling Social Sharebar

Scrolling Social Sharebar is the best social sharing plugin for WordPress. I have tried almost all other social sharing plugins (Digg Digg, Sociable, AddToAny, ShareThis, Shareaholic etc.) that support scrolling but Scrolling Social Sharebar worked best for me as I encountered several problems with all the other plugins.

Learn More & Download: Scrolling Social Sharebar

9. W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache is the best performance plugin for your WordPress blog. It increases the performance of your blog dramatically thereby improving the user experience. You can easily review the performance of your blog before and after enabling this plugin by comparing the PageSpeed Insights. With W3 Total Cache plugin you can add browser caching , page caching , object caching, database caching as well as minify and content delivery network (CDN) to your WordPress blog.

Learn More & Download: W3 Total Cache

10. WordPress Related Posts

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin could be the most popular “Related Posts” plugin for WordPress but I would say WordPress Related Posts is the best as it shows the related posts via tags and moreover their latest version offers more advanced features like traffic analytics, styles etc. A related posts plugin is essential to your blog as it helps to increase the reader retention and to reduce the bounce rate.

Learn More & Download: WordPress Related Posts

11. WordPress SEO by Yoast

WordPress SEO by Yoast is the best SEO plugin for WordPress. I was using All In One SEO since ages until I finally switched to the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast. If you check my WordPress Plugins 2012 then you’ll see that I’ve highlighted All In One SEO Pack instead of Yoast.

Now why have I migrated to WordPress SEO by Yoast from All In One SEO Pack? Well, I decided to reduce the total number of active plugins as I prefer to use minimal plugins. How? If you’re using All In One SEO plugin then you’ll have to install additional 4 plugins to get all the functions offered by Yoast SEO.

With  the installation of WordPress SEO by Yoast, I disabled All In One SEO Pack, Google XML Sitemaps, Page Links To, Robots Meta, RSS Footer as all the features offered by those plugins are supported by Yoast.

Learn More & Download: WordPress SEO

12. WP PageNavi

WP PageNavi adds more advanced pagination feature to your blog.

Learn More & Download: WP PageNavi

13. WP UserOnline

WP UserOnline displays how many users are online on your blog with detailed statistics. It shows the total number of guests, members, and bots online with a referral URL so that you’ll know exactly how your visitors came to your blog.

Learn More & Download: WP UserOnline

The Next 13 Best WordPress Plugins 2013 For You

Now these are the other top plugins that I no longer use but are still considered as the best WordPress plugins out there. So you can definitely try the following plugins as well according to your needs.

14. WordPress Backup To Dropbox

WordPress Backup To Dropbox is a WordPress Backup Plugin which is an easy to use plugin that keeps your valuable WordPress blog, its media and database backed up to Dropbox in minutes.

Learn More & Download: WordPress Backup To Dropbox

15. Better WP Security

Better WP Security is the best, easiest and the most effective way to secure your WordPress blog. It uses the best WordPress security techniques to ensure that as many security holes as possible are patched.

Learn More & Download: Better WP Security

16. Google Analyticator

Google Analyticator adds the necessary JavaScript code to your WordPress templates so that you can enable Google Analytics on your blog without editing the template manually. If you know how to add the necessary codes manually then you don’t really need this plugin.

Learn More & Download: Google Analyticator

17. Limit Login Attempts

Limit Login Attempts plugin limits the number of login attempts for each IP and it’s fully customizable. WordPress by default doesn’t limit login attempts. Limit Login Attempts blocks an IP address after specified number of failed login attempts so that it makes a brute-force attack almost impossible.

Learn More & Download: Limit Login Attempts

18. Pinterest Pin It Button For Images

Pinterest Pin It Button For Images allows your readers to “Pin” images on your blog posts to Pinterest. The plugin adds a “Pin it” button over the images so that users can pin it easily. If your blog posts contain interesting images then this plugin is an essential one.

Learn More & Download: Pinterest Pin It Button For Images

19. SEO Friendly Images

SEO Friendly Images adds the “ALT” and “TITLE” attributes automatically to all your images so that your images will be search engine optimized and will improve traffic from image search engines. If the images don’t have “ALT” and “TITLE” texts then SEO Friendly Images plugin will add them automatically according to the predefined options set by you. Since I use Windows Live Writer for publishing I prefer to enter all the image attributes manually.

Learn More & Download: SEO Friendly Images

20. SEO Rank Reporter

SEO Rank Reporter is an SEO plugin that allows you to track your Google rankings every 3 days and see reports of your progress in an easy to read graph. If you’re really obsessive about your rankings then this plugin does a nice job.

Learn More & Download: SEO Rank Reporter

21. SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam

SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam adds a CAPTCHA to your WordPress forms for comments, registration, lost password, login, etc so as to fight spam. I was using this plugin and recently disabled it as Akismet is good enough to catch spams.

Learn More & Download: SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam

22. Social Metrics

Social Metrics is a “Social Media Monitoring” tool to track how your blog is performing on the popular social media websites. With Social Metrics, you can find out how many times your blog posts are shared on Facebook, Twitter, Google +1, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn.

Learn More & Download: Social Metrics

23. Testimonials Widget

Testimonials Widget allows you to display quotes, reviews, random or rotating portfolio, showcases, or some text with images on your WordPress blog.

Learn More & Download: Testimonials Widget

24. ViperBar

ViperBar adds an attractive bar to your blog’s header so that you can use that to promote one of your services or newsletters. It includes built in styling, Aweber & FeedBurner integration, conversion rate tracking, split-testing, themes, etc.

Learn More & Download: ViperBar

25. WP Smush.it

WP Smush.it reduces the sizes of images and improves the performance of your blog using the Smush.it API within WordPress. All images on your blog posts will be automatically run through Smush.it behind the scenes and will be optimized. I’m not using any of those performance plugins other than W3 Total Cache as I’m already using Google’s PageSpeed Service.

Learn More & Download: WP Smush.it

26. WPtouch

WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress blog for mobile devices, complete with AJAX loading articles and smooth effects when viewed from mobile devices like iPhone, iPad, Android devices, BlackBerry, etc.

Learn More & Download: WPtouch

Top 25 WordPress Plugins 2013 To Supercharge Your Blog is a post by Minterest