WordPress is nothing without its plugins, they are an integral part of any WordPress blog. Due to the overwhelming choice of WordPress plugins, though, it can be nerve wracking for any person to select the important ones for their blog.
So here I present to you 21 Essential WordPress Plugins. Your blog is incomplete without these:
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The All-in-One SEO Pack is the ultimate SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plugin out there. It automatically optimizes your blog for search engines, and has several options for the more advanced users.
2. Akismet
Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not, and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s Comments admin screen. With the ever increasing amount of spam on the web, you’d be dumb not to get this plugin.
The FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin detects all ways to access your feed (e.g. yoursite.com/feed/ or yoursite.com/wp-rss2.php etc) and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber. It will forward for your main posts feed, and optionally, your comments feed as well.
4. Google XML Sitemaps Generator
The Google XML Sitemaps Generator plugin generates an XML sitemap of your WordPress blog. Ask, Google, Yahoo!, and MSN support this format. Having an XML sitemap and submitting it to the search engines that support it can really increase your blog’s search engine visibility, especially when it’s new.
WordPress.com Stats is a traffic statistics plugin that shows only the most popular metrics a blogger wants to track – such as page views, referrers, top posts & pages, search engine terms, and clicks – and provides them in a clear and concise interface.
6. Sociable
Sociable automatically adds links to your favorite social bookmarking sites on your posts, pages, and in your RSS feed. You can choose from 99 different social bookmarking sites.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the Digg Effect and the Slashdot Effect. They can cause a server meltdown, and if you’re on shared hosting, get your ass kicked out. To Digg-proof your blog, get WP Super Cache. It reduces the load on your server b generating static HTML files from your dynamic WordPress blog.
8. One Click
The One-Click plugin allows you to upload themes and plugins straight to your WordPress blog from the browser. Just upload the zip file, and it’ll automatically unzip the contents and install the plugin for you. Now you never have to use FTP again!
Ever felt your dashboard was too cluttered? Then download Dashboard Widget Manager. It allows you to remove unnecessary widgets from your dashboard so it’ll look clean and load faster.
10. Exec-PHP
Exec-PHP lets you execute PHP code in posts, pages, and in the text widgets of your sidebar.
11. Google Analytics for WordPress
The Google Analytics for WordPress plugin lets you insert the Google Analytics code automatically throughout your blog. It discounts your own visits, automatically tracks and segments all outbound links from within posts, comment author links, links within comments, blogroll links, and downloads. It even allows you to track AdSense clicks, add extra search engines, and track image search queries.
12. Lighter Menus
Lighter Menus creates drop down menus instead of the regular admin menus for WordPress, so you can browse items in one click. It’s fast to load, adaptable to color schemes, and comes with some sleek icons.
13. PageMash
Customize the order of your pages, manage their parent structure, and hide them, all using PageMash. It features an Ajax drag-and-drop administrative interface, and is a great tool to re-arrange the order of your pages quickly.
14. Simple Trackback Validation
The Simple Trackback Validation plugin helps to eliminate trackback spam by performing a simple a simple but effective test on all incoming trackbacks.
15. WP-Spam Free
Fed up of all that comment spam? Stop wasting time checking and clearing your Akismet spam queue every day and download WP-SpamFree. It will eliminate 99% – 100% of the comment spam you receive. Yep, I’m not joking. And it does it without captchas! WP-SpamFree uses a combo of JavaScript and cookies to stop the spambots. Since 99% of the spambots out there can’t process JavaScript, they won’t be able to submit comments. It also doesn’t slow down your blog one bit.
From the day I’ve installed WP-SpamFree, I’ve received zero comment spam! I highly recommend you get this one, unless you’re masochistic.
16. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) inserts a list of related posts below each post on your blog, and in your blog’s RSS feed. It’s extremely configurable, and a must-have.
17. Contact Form 7
Even though there are tens of contact form plugins out there, I’ve always liked Contact Form 7. The problem with most contact form plugins is that either they are too simple or way too complex. Contact Form 7, on the other hand, is extensible yet easy-to-use. It supports Ajax-powered submitting, multiple forms, CAPTCHAS, and Akismet spam filtering.
18. Manageable
Manage allows inline editing of the date, title, categories, tags, status, and more of both posts and pages without ever having to leave the “Manage” admin section. No need to load each post or page individually. Simply double-click anywhere in the post or page row and when you’re done, press enter.
You should always backup your WordPress database regularly. However, doing it manually every time can be difficult and time consuming. The WordPress Database Backup plugin lets you easily backup your WordPress database tables. You can even schedule a backup, and it’ll email the file to you every day!
20. OIO Publisher
OIO Publisher is the ultimate ad management plugin. It’s great for those who want to sell ads on their blog by themselves. The great thing about OIO is that it removes all the hassle one gets from self-selling ad space: you only have to approve purchases. OIO Publisher handles everything else. Using OIO, you can sell reviews, links, ads, and even your own products! Heck, it even allows you to create your own affiliate program, so other people can sell your ads and products for you.
The SRG Clean Archives plugin displays your archive listings in a clean and uniform fashion, that’s search engine and user-friendly, on a dedicated page or in your sidebar. If you’re still manually updating your archives page, stop doing it!
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December 12th, 2008 at 6:25 am
Some of the plugins listed here are not compatible with 2.7 …
December 12th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Hello Buddy, you have got a nice blog. Can you tell me the name of the theme? I like it.
December 16th, 2008 at 6:19 am
Thank’s for share info.I’ll keep 4 my knowledge.
December 16th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
thanks for your info.
nice blog anyway ..
December 20th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Popular, related and random posts plugins are my favs also (instead of YARP plugin). Good list and will use most of them on my blogs. thnx
December 25th, 2008 at 11:33 am
great, i have similar plugins, but some i never used before, happy holidays
December 25th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
thank you
i like SRG Clean Archives i will test it on my site
great stuff
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:54 am
Nice post! Especially the topic about WP plugin. Very informtive. Thanks.
March 1st, 2009 at 9:09 am
Here’s another one you might want to check out – Kaltura’s new All-in-one Video plugin for WordPress.
This is not just another video embed tool, bloggers can upload, import and edit videos in any blog post, and allow readers to post video comments and participate in collaborative videos. You can download it free from – http://corp.kaltura.com/download?m=wplaunch.
You can see a sample of what it looks like on our corporate blog: http://www.kaltura.com/blog/ or read more at http://community.kaltura.org/viewforum.php?f=4
March 30th, 2009 at 5:05 am
Popular, related and random posts plugins are my favs also (instead of YARP plugin). Good list and will use most of them on my blogs. thnx
April 1st, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Those are surely some cool plugins. I would recommend platinum SEO rather then All on one SEO.
April 4th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Thanks for the great information. There are several on here that I knew nothing about. I look forward to getting them uploaded.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
My fellow on Facebook shared this link with me and I’m not dissapointed that I came to your blog.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Thanks! I’m installing several of these today.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:14 am
seems the contact form 7 has a vulnerability exploit so i would not use it. check WP directory comments. thanks
May 5th, 2009 at 9:50 am
How about this allrounder?
Use wp-insert to insert every kind of code you will ever need to insert into your blog. The plugin features 5 ad widgets, provision to insert ads into right,left,top and bottom of your posts/pages, feed management options like adding your logo to your feeds, redirecting your feeds to feedburner, feedburner subscribe via email widget, Provisions to insert ads above or below your feeds, Subscribe to feed widget, Provision to insert google analytics code easily, Provision to add any kind of code to your header and footer area.
Future plans include sections for SEO and social bookmarking..
Download
May 15th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
nice post
i ll download from it
May 21st, 2009 at 10:59 pm
helpful plugins, thanks for share..
May 26th, 2009 at 9:16 am
nice plugin list thanks
July 12th, 2009 at 5:14 am
Thanks for the list..nice collection
July 27th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Great plugins.. Thanks!
July 29th, 2009 at 7:49 am
I’ve been looking into getting deeper into WordPress, & eventually convert my web design sight to it. Especially since I now have a client who requires WordPress. This really helped. THX!
July 31st, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Wow.. Thanks for the list.. very nice
August 21st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Some nice links there – YARPP is definitely one of the top plugins!
But I’d like to add my plugin into the mix. It’s called the Wapple Architect Mobile Plugin for WordPress and it does exactly what the title says – it mobilizes your blog.
It works for every single device in the world, dynamically resizing as it goes so that every image fits perfectly. It keeps the same URL structure and retains the all important SEO titles!
You’ve got options galore – from uploading a specific mobile logo, to styling virtually every single element on the mobile site – you get to preserve your brand identity like no other mobile plugin out there.
Version 1.4 has just been released and the homepage can be found here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wapple-architect/ – it’d be great to hear what you thought of it!
October 8th, 2009 at 7:09 am
Nice post! Very informtive. Thanks.
April 12th, 2010 at 2:31 am
Great list.
I’m using some already.
July 19th, 2010 at 5:43 am
ขอขอบคุณที่ร่วมกันเป็น Great!