The best WordPress plugins, and why to use them.
Welcome to my blog, please feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed, join me on Twitter or leave a comment.
What Plugins Are the Best WordPress Websites Running? but this week I wanted to take a quick look at what plugins I think are the best for WordPress websites and how a new blogger can make the most of the blogging platform.
First off, there are some standards that everybody who runs a blog should be running as we’re not going to waste too much time looking at those. They are:
- Akismet which provides exceptional protection against comment spammers through a shared reporting server.
- No More Frames is a simple JavaScript plugin which forces your website to pop out of advertisers frames, this ensures that it’s your website (not others) who are earning revenue from your content.
- Search & Replace adds functionality to the WordPress admin tool, allowing you to do a bulk search and replace for words or phrases. This is very handy when moving a website or just correcting an error on your website.
- WordPress.com Stats offers a statistics tracking package but be careful. You should also download WordPress.com Stats Smiley Remover to ensure the creepy happy face goes away.
- WordPress Database Backup emails a copy of your database to you nightly, very handy.
- Google XML Sitemaps improves Google’s understanding of your website.
Here are some other, great plugins that a lot of people over look.
- Comment Relish sends a short thank you note to people after they’ve posted a comment to your blog. My friend Chris fixed up a couple problems with the original publisher (Comment Relish Free WordPress Plugin) and made it truly brilliant.
- LinkLove this little plugin works by adding a nofollow tag to outbound links until people post a few times. This helps protect your PageRank value.
- Theme Switcher Reloaded is a cool plugin which allows you to host multiple themes on your website. This lets admins test new themes on their live websites without disrupting the existing look.
- What Would Seth Godin Do one of the best plugins on the planet. This little baby adds a small welcome message for the first few visits.
- WP Super Cache converts your website from a dynamic to a static site which is then cached for visitors to view. Sounds pretty technical but what is it really? It’s a way to ensure thousands of visit’s doesn’t crash WordPress.
- WP Auto Tagger this is a new plugin for me but one that I’m in love with. It queries remote servers to determine the best tags for your post.
- Simple Image Grabber WordPress Plugin is a nifty tool for pulling the first image out of your post and displaying it beside your excerpts, wonderful for homepage and portfolio searches.
- Login LockDown tracks and protects your WordPress website admin (see also: How to Secure Your WordPress Website)
- Show Top Commentators displays a list of the top commentators on your website, encouraging people to leave comments and increase your exposure.
Why you don’t include in this list the CommentLuv ?
I think this is a very nice plugin, and how I see, you use it on this blog.
@Seobag — (could you include a name in the future? Thanks) — You’re right, CommentLuv is a wonderful plugin and I should have included it.
no more frames – every website should have this functionality. Especially with the growing use of the annoying ‘content bars’ that some sites use to embed other content from other websites under their logo.
Yeah. I love wp super cache plugin.. :)
thegands’s last blog post..Free Wordpress Theme – Simply White
Excellent recommendation Chris. Most I use but a few I’ve never heard of. I’ll be sure to check these out.
Joe’s last blog post..Tri Cities Goal In Zoning | Promote Well-Being and Protect The Environment
Almost complete WP plugins. Time to time, plugins are changing and even more better add ons are released. I am really looking forward for more updated plugins post of yours in future.
I love the boy’s WP pic.!
Cheers!
Cavitenio Blogger’s last blog post..Carmona Cavite Website, History and Information
I didn’t know about some of these plugins. Thanks for the list! I’m already installing Comment Relish to my site.
Webkinz’s last blog post..Grapplesnap Webkinz Recipe Is Solved
The usability and sheer number of plugins to fit any type of blog is probably the number one reason why I love Wordpress more than any other blogger platform out there.
I want to start my own worpresss blog so this list is very useful. I should try them out. I presume it is easy to uninstall if I do not like a particular one. Thanks for the post.
Nice List of Plugins. Almost all are mandatory to use.
Dave’s last blog post..Make your Wordpress Blog Secure/ HackerSafe
needed that backupplugin…just lost my database a few days ago :( Been spending some time finding cached pages on google to recover lost posts.lol. found about 90% or so..
by the way Christopher…can’t you put up some search field on your blog? took me some time to locate this post;)
Casper @mymoneyblog.info’s last blog post..Japanese Candlesticks – Part Two: Doji
Thanks for the plugin tips, I’ve since used Login LockDown.
Database Backup is a great plugin, it’s reassuring to get sent weekly backups of all the websites I’ve built but don’t trust the owners to remember to backup!
I’d add Search Reloaded to the list, it greatly improved WordPress’s search results.
Jason King’s last blog post..Managing a web project with Basecamp