I recently set up another blog for one of my niche project, and quickly realised it needed to be equipped with some essential plug-ins. This is NOT an ultimate list of plug-ins, it’s a practical list of plug-ins that I actually make use of. I made this list primarily to help myself, so I can go through it and add each plug-in accordingly, but I also hope it will help you:
The Plug-ins
All In one SEO pack
Very simple way to SEO optimise your blog so you do not have to worry about it again.
Askimet
Bundled Spam prevention plug-in that come with your WordPress setup. You just need an API key to activate it. Set it and forget it.
Contact Form 7
Great easy to use plug-in which creates a contact form like the one I use on this site. Very easy to setup. The advantage of a contact form is that it helps reduce spam by not presenting any of your personal contact details on the site.
Feed Statistics
A great plug-in for stats and statistics about your RSS readers. It can display your reader count like mine does under my newsletter sign-up form. The advantage is that it counts readers from any RSS feed to your site, not just your Feedburner link.
Exclude Pages from Navigation
I love this plug-in. I can create pages and opt for them not to be linked on my site. It means I can create projects behind the scenes and publish them later and create pages such as my ‘Thank you for signing up to my newsletter page’ which will not be linked on my blog but shown whenever somebody signs up for my newsletter.
Freebie Images
I have recently started experimenting with adding images to my posts. This plug-in makes it so simple. It adds a box to your ‘create post’ admin page where you can search their database of quality images, then just drag and drop it into your post. No uploading, resizing or other complications. Drag and drop and your done.
Google Analytics for WordPress
I have two stats plug-ins on my blogs. Google analytics is great but it counts my visits to my blog also, so often I can skew the data (my other plug-in does not count my visits). However, still a valuable data source on visitors statistics.
Google XML sitemaps
An easy set and forget plug-in which helps search engines to index your entire site. If it helps me in search engines and I have to do no work after setting it up, I add it.
Socialize this
Great plug-in that add Social Network icons under my posts so the reader can recommend or bookmarked my posts easily. Set it once and forget it.
Subscribe To “Double-Opt-In” Comments
A valuable plug-in that gives visitors another reason to regular add to a comments discussion. Encourages activity. Set it and forget it.
What Would Seth Godin Do
A fantastic plug-in that displays a welcome message to your new visitors. You can also set it to show a different message to regular uses after x amount of visits. I currently use mine to remind people to subscribe to both my RSS feed and my newsletter.
Tip: When using this, Google your site and view the cache of it. Then you get to see how it looks to a new visitor. (After a while you can forget what it looks like as this is set and forget).
WordPress.com Stats
My alternative statistics plug-in that DOES NOT count my page views if I am logged in. Great backup to Google Analytics and I can see all the info from my WordPress admin dashboard.
WordPress database backup
This is so easy to use and such ‘a set and forget’ plug-in that there is little excuse for anyone not to have it. I have a daily backup automatically emailed to me. Such the worst occur, I have plenty of backup that the plug-in took the time to make itself. Set and forget. If you only add one plug-in from this list, this is the one.
WP Ezinearticles
I have been experimenting with Ezinearticles for a while. I basically make a blog post, alter it a little then log into EZA and submit it which took maybe 5 to 10 minutes. Well, not any more. This plug-in allows me to do the same submission in a few clicks. Made my life a lot easier.
Bonus tricks:
Permalinks
I always change the Permalink structure so that the post name appears in the URL (helps SEO). Again, just set it and forget it.
Be sure to subscribe to this page, as I will be updating it regularly.
“Google Analytics for WordPress” section — second line, last word. I think you should correct that
.
Anyways, good post. Some I already have and some I really needed.
Cheers,
-Aidan.
/blush mode/ – umm Thanks for heads up Aiden, didn’t know those kind of words were in my spell checkers dictionary /end blush mode/
Glad the plugins help and welcome to my blog.