Wordpress is one of the most well-developed open-source software packages available on the net today. I’ve used it for blogging, as a review site or an article directory, as a CMS, and even for a simple e-commerce site. All of these uses are possible using the stock Wordpress install because of the huge selection of Wordpress plugins.
As of the time I write this post, there were 4,245 plugins available for download in the Wordpress Plugin Directory. So the question is this: How do you decide which Wordpress plugins to use?
MattMauldin.com runs on WordPress 2.7.1 with quite a bit of custom work, but the main functionality on this site comes from my use of 15 Wordpress plugins (at the moment).
15 Best WordPress Plugins (because I use them)
Akismet – Keep your comments spam free (or damn near) with this plugin. It will automatically remove comments marked as spam from your comment queue. This plugin has saved me a ton of time weeding through jibberish, stupid “great post, admin” comments and sale notices at oversea pharmacies. I mean, come on; I don’t want a stupid Viagra ad running on my website (unless it’s from my own affiliate link).
No Self Pings – This plugin keeps WordPress from sending pings to your own site. It’s incredibly helpful if you record pingbacks as comments, or if you are trying to manage your internal link juice.
All-in-One SEO Pack – This is the #1 most popular plugin on WordPress.org. And there’s a reason why: you can manage most of the lacking SEO items for your blog from a single settings page. Set how your Title and META tags are displayed for each page and post, tag, archive, and category page. Set the same tags for your home page individually. Beyond that, you can customize the Title and META tags for each page or post if you choose to.
Google Analytics for WordPress – There are a few other plugins that integrate Google Analytics into your WordPress install, but none are as easy or as configured out-of-the-box as this one. There’s also a great resource available from Joost de Valk here to help you with some of the more powerful (or complicated) tracking options Google Analytics offers.
Google XML Sitemaps – Keep your XML feed to Google Sitemaps up to date with this easy plugin. Take some time to set your settings correctly, and then you can forget it – it runs itself.
FeedBurner FeedSmith – Manage your RSS feed with Feedburner. Then use this plugin to ensure all of the subscribers subscribe through your Feedburner feed so your tracking is accurate.
PS Auto Sitemap – Use this plugin to quickly create a Site Map for your WordPress blog. It comes installed with several CSS skins you can choose through the admin settings page. In fact, there are quite a few powerful settings you can choose through the settings page to create a helpful sitemap.
Page Link Manager – Add additional navigation and pagination to your blog. Although I’ve got an archive, categories, and a tag cloud, I thought it was important to provide the pagination at the bottom of this blog for usability. The last thing you want is a blog that is difficult to navigate.
WP-PageNavi – This plugin allows you to choose which pages appear in your blog menu if you use the wp_list_pages hook. It works will with the next plugin.
My Page Order – This plugin provides a drag-and-drop interface for changing the order of your pages. It’s great to easily manage the menus on your blog. Use it in combination with the previous plugin and you have almost total control over your blog’s menu.
Simple Tags – Simple Tags offers three powerful new options to manage your tags.
- Manage your tags: search tags, rename tags, delete, add or edit a tag, change the sort order of your tags, and even see how many times each of your tags are used.
- Mass Edit your tags: changes tags on multiple posts at once instead of going post by pont – a huge timesaver. and
- Auto tag: this is by far the most powerful function of this plugin. Choose the tags you expect to repat among your posts and enter them here, then Auto tag will automatically apply them to new posts if they match the headling or content.
Popularity Contest – This plugin scores your posts by calculating the number of comments, links, and a number of other attributes. You can then show the result in a number of ways. My footer contains a “Popular Posts” that uses this plugin. I also use this plugin to help rank my page importance in my XML sitemap.
Twitter Tools – The Twitter Tools plugin is just what I was looking for to integrate my twitter account. I’ve scheduled a post once per week, early on Monday mornings, that pulls all of my tweets over the past week. I also use it to post a notification tweet each time I publish a new post.
Contact Form 7 – Create multiple forms with a ton of options for input fields. You can create forms with text fields, comment boxes, and even CAPTCHA support. I use it on my contact form, and have used it on other WordPress installs for much more complicated forms with ease.
Note: You will notice that I do not use Sociable. Instead, I’ve custom coded five social icons that show up inside The Loop beneath each post that allow readers to share my posts on Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Technorati, and Facebook. The only reason I bypassed Sociable is for style. In many other instances, I’ve used it and it will work just fine.
If you have a suggested plugin, please comment.
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Obligatory post: 15 Best WordPress Plugins (because I use them) http://tinyurl.com/dguyus