WordPress.com offers a wide range of resources to boost your site’s functionality. If you run a WordPress site using a different host but still want to incorporate features like advanced search engine optimization (SEO), security tools, and backup services, look no further than Jetpack — a plugin created and provided by WordPress.com.
So what is Jetpack, exactly? How does Jetpack work? Read on for the Jetpack basics!
What is Jetpack?
All WordPress.com websites come equipped with several plugins. These include tools that power the analytics, social media, and SEO across your pages. Jetpack is a plugin that allows all WordPress sites to enjoy some of the same powerful features offered on WordPress.com. With more than 20 free tools available, Jetpack features:
- Site stats and analytics
- Automatic sharing across social media sites like Facebook and Twitter
- A function that displays related posts next to your content
- Security features like downtime and uptime monitoring
- Secure logins and two-factor authentication
You can use Jetpack to create a professional-looking site without investing in web designers. For example, if you own a bakery and want to drive traffic to your site, use the related posts function to display links to your other menu options whenever a fan views one of your posts. You can also configure your site to automatically share your posts on Twitter by utilizing the social media sharing feature. With Jetpack, view your site stats to determine which posts are receiving the most views. If your cupcake posts are more popular than the muffin ones, plan your content accordingly. Adhering to reader preferences will foster a loyal following.
Other free features included with Jetpack are image slideshows and carousels, embedded multimedia content from Google Docs and YouTube, customizable sidebars, and a high-speed content delivery network (CDN) so that your site loads faster.
Yes, despite offering all these features, Jetpack will not increase page load times. Some worry that, because of all it offers, Jetpack might slow down their website. That’s simply not true, and there’s proof. Check out this article that answers the questions: does Jetpack slow down your site?
Paid Jetpack plans (Personal, Premium, and Professional) are also available if you want even more features for your site. With a paid plan, you can access tools that will boost your SEO across Google searches. You’ll receive security tools like daily backups, spam filtering, and a 30-day content archive. Finally, paid plans deliver high-speed, HD, and ad-free video hosting which includes access to advertising programs that will enable you to display ads on your site, generating some extra revenue.
What Does the Jetpack Plugin Do?
If you’ve created a site using WordPress, you’ve likely heard about the Jetpack plugin. It enables functions normally only available to WordPress.com sites on self-hosted WordPress.org sites.
If you have a website created within WordPress.com, Jetpack’s essential or advanced features (depending on your plan) are already built-in. Free, Personal, and plugin-enabled plans come with Jetpack’s essential features, while Business and plugin-enabled plans provide the advanced feature set.
On self-hosted sites, the plugin costs nothing to install and provides an array of basic features free of charge. Enhanced abilities are available to those on paid plans. Check out our infographic on the Jetpack plugin’s essential and advanced tools to help you decide which features to start using.
Whether you have a self-hosted site from WordPress.org or a site hosted through WordPress.com, Jetpack integrates seamlessly into your online presence. It’s made by WordPress, so you can forget about the headache of coding and technical conflicts stemming from sometimes unreliable third-party plugins.
Jetpack’s free, essential functions
If you opt for Jetpack’s free features, you’ll have a solid foundation of functionalities to ensure your website’s security while growing your readership.
These functions include:
- Site statistics
Know how many people come to your website and which pages they look at - Media hosting
Also known as a CDN, or content delivery network, this lets you upload and display high-resolution images without slowing down your site’s loading time - Site monitoring and alerts
Track site downtime and know the instant it happens - Login protection
Keep hackers from logging into your website and messing things up - Social sharing
Make it easy for your readers to share your content to social networks like Facebook and Twitter - Free themes
Get access to over 100 free WordPress.com themes to make your web design easier - Design customization
Customize page elements like your sidebar, widgets, and image galleries without knowing how to code - Email subscriptions
Send readers an email every time you publish a new blog post
With all the different features available through Jetpack, some developers have concerns that it can cause bloat and slow down a website. However, Jetpack users have the ability to turn features on and off depending on what’s needed.
That means you’ll need fewer plugins, which helps reduce bloat. Plus, many Jetpack features, such as the content delivery network (CDN) are meant to speed up your website.
Need more proof? See the numbers for yourself in this article that debunks myth of Jetpack bloat with hard data.
Jetpack’s paid, advanced features
Jetpack’s free features are great, but you can always upgrade to get more advanced features like:
- Automated backups
Automatically back up the most recent version of your website so if something happens, you don’t lose all your hard work - Spam filtering
Prevent spam comments from appearing on your website - SEO preview tools
Help your website content perform better on search engines and social media - Google Analytics integration
Set up and integrate Google Analytics with your website easily - PayPal payments
Use Jetpack’s payment button to easily and securely collect payments from your site visitors - Ad network approval
Get access to the official WordPress.com advertising program to make money from the content you create - 200+ premium WordPress themes
Use beautiful themes with previews and support to make web design easier - Priority support
Priority support gives you access to WordPress.com experts when you need them
If you’re using WordPress.com, upgrade to a Business plan to access these features. On a self-hosted WordPress.org site, you’ll need to activate Jetpack using a free WordPress.com account, which connects you to all the features. If you want more than the basics from Jetpack, update your subscription within the plugin on your website’s dashboard. You’ll be able to choose from plans ranging from $4 to $29 per month, depending on the features you want.
Get the Jetpack WordPress plugin working on your website
If your website is running on WordPress.com, you’re good to go! Jetpack features come standard with each plan — though it may be worth doing a comparison to make sure you’ve got the features you want.
If you have self-hosted WordPress website, install the Jetpack plugin today. Start using the free features, or upgrade to a paid plan to access more.
Millions of Sites Have Jetpack. Here’s Why Yours Should Too.
WordPress is a great, secure option for building your site and growing your brand or passion. But, of course, you probably want to expand upon its foundation to build something unique to your vision.
Jetpack can help you accomplish that, providing a wealth of tools all in one plugin.
If you host your site through WordPress.com, you get the advantage of top-notch servers, a dedicated support team, world-class integrations, and more. On top of all of that, with a plugin-enabled plan, you gain instant access to Jetpack’s top features.
Here’s why Jetpack is already trusted by millions of sites:
Why Jetpack is the best all-around WordPress plugin
1. It helps secure your site.
Hosting your site on WordPress.com’s secure servers already enhances your protection against certain kinds of cyber attacks. But there’s so much more you can do to keep your investment out of the hands of hackers.
This is where Jetpack shines with world-class security features that can prevent attacks, notify you if there’s a problem, and help you recover quickly if the worst ever does happen.
Here are some of Jetpack’s key security features:
Jetpack Backup
Backups are a crucial part of protecting the data on your site. Think of all the changes you make — writing new blog posts, adding images, editing pages, or making sales. Losing all of that could be devastating!
While daily backups are great, Jetpack Backup ups your protection with real-time backups that save every change as it happens. This means that you always have records of every sale, comment, or update, and you can run your website with peace of mind.
You can even access and restore backups remotely if your site is ever down.
Jetpack Scan
Thousands of websites are hacked every day, hurting site owners’ finances and reputations. Visitors who see that your site is dangerous will do a digital about-face, leaving your website for safer online waters.
Jetpack Scan provides automatic security scans and immediately alerts you if anything’s found on your site, like malware. It even provides one-click fixes for the majority of threats, so you can get right back to writing content, engaging with readers, or selling your products.
Jetpack Anti-spam
Manually sorting through comments on your site takes a lot of time and gets frustrating fast — especially if the majority of them are spam from mindless bots. Jetpack Anti-spam does the heavy lifting for you by automatically clearing out irrelevant comments. It makes things easier for your visitors, too, because they’ll no longer need to complete annoying CAPTCHAs to prove they’re not robots.
It keeps the real conversation moving while eliminating the definitely aggravating — and possibly dangerous — spam.
Jetpack Brute Force Attack Protection
Brute force attacks are the most common type of hacks. This is when bots try thousands of different username and password combinations until they find the right one. Once they’ve gained access to your site, they can do anything from inserting spammy links to stealing data or worse.
And, even if they don’t get in, a brute force attack can drain your site resources and slow things down for you and the visitors you serve. It’s a bummer of an attack and one that’s done randomly — a site with a few hundred monthly visitors is just as much of a target as one with thousands.
Jetpack’s brute force attack protection defends your WordPress site by stopping the attack at its source. When it detects suspicious behavior, it will block the offending IP address. But it’s also continually making notes from attacks on other websites and proactively banning identified bots before they can even try. On average, Jetpack defends against more than 5,000 brute force attacks over the life of a site.
2. It can improve the user experience.
A lot goes into providing an excellent experience for your site visitors. It’s important that they can find what they’re looking for quickly, without having to wait forever for your website to load. If they can’t, they may go elsewhere to find a recipe for dinner, purchase a T-shirt, or book a consultation. Negative user experience can also hurt your search engine rankings, making it harder for potential customers, clients, and readers to find you.
Here’s how you can improve your user experience with Jetpack’s tools:
- Jetpack Boost: You can check your site performance, speed things up, and improve your search rankings all at once. It works by improving things that impact Core Web Vitals — measurements that Google uses to evaluate a site’s user experience. When implemented, your site will load faster and in a more logical manner. The result is happier visitors and an improved reputation in the eyes of Google.
- Jetpack CDN: When someone tries to access your site, the content is served from, well, servers. Large files like images can slow things down. But so can factors like the physical distance between a visitor and the server. Jetpack’s content delivery network (CDN) serves bulky image files from their network of global servers. This means your site loads more quickly, no matter where someone is located.
- VideoPress: This powerful tool allows you to upload videos to your own site, so visitors won’t experience ads from competitors (as they would with YouTube, for example). But it also dramatically improves the load time of your videos and keeps them from bogging things down.
- Jetpack Search: This is an all-in-one customizable search tool that beefs up the traditional search functionality. Site visitors can easily explore your site and use filters to narrow down hundreds or thousands of posts to find exactly what they’re looking for. It also provides handy features like spelling correction, instant content indexing, and result prioritization based on site stats.
3. It can help you grow.
There are a variety of things that go into successfully growing your website, whether you sell products online, offer services, or write content. And the exact strategy you’ll use to grow can vary dramatically from site to site.
Here’s a few of the ways Jetpack can help you expand your reach, engagement, and sales:
- Site stats: With site stats, you get a no-nonsense summary of the most essential elements of site performance. Find out how many visitors you’re welcoming, where they come from, what pages or posts are most popular, and more. You can use this info to spot trends or problems and guide your strategic planning.
- Social media: Creating an authentic presence on social media is one way to drive traffic to your site. But manually posting on each platform can be tedious and time-consuming. With Jetpack’s automation tools, you can create, preview, and schedule blog posts to publish to your social media accounts.
- Payment solutions: Accept payments from customers worldwide with the Payments block. Add a payment button to any page on your site and never miss another sales opportunity. You can even use this tool to set up monthly or yearly payments for membership websites or product subscriptions.
- Online advertising: Looking to monetize the content on your website? Jetpack can display high-quality ads to your audience, helping you earn passive income every time an ad is viewed.
Invest in success
No matter the kind — or size — of the site you run, Jetpack simply makes for a better WordPress experience. That’s probably why so many of Jetpack’s features are already included with a WordPress.com plugin-enabled plan. Combining the brilliant support and unparalleled infrastructure of WordPress.com with tools from Jetpack is a simple way to invest in the future success of your site.
Millions of sites already trust Jetpack. Upgrade to WordPress Pro or explore Jetpack plans today.
Should I use Jetpack? Is it worth it?
Since many Jetpack features are available for free, you should take advantage of the tools that will work best for your site — whether you’re a photographer using the image gallery to display your work, or a restaurant owner setting up automatic Facebook posts about your weekly specials. Although Jetpack is an all-encompassing plugin, you can pick and choose which features you want to activate, giving you more control over your site’s functionality and performance.
When deciding whether to purchase a paid Jetpack plan, consider the elements of your website or business that make it unique, and if Jetpack’s paid features can enhance those aspects. If you store customer information or other proprietary data on your site, the premium security features included in a Jetpack paid plan will keep private information safe. If you primarily engage with your audience through videos, the video hosting services offered through a paid plan are probably worth investing in.
Whether you use Jetpack or not, understanding the ins and outs of the plugin will help you unlock new website tools to make your site more user-friendly and professional, allowing you to build an engaging destination that continually draws in visitors.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Go WordPress 