7 Must-Have Wordpress Plugins

Over the past few years, I’ve installed Wordpress on a handful of sites. Some have seen the light of day, some have not. I’ve done numerous searches for various plugins, or have come across other blogs that recommend certain plugins. Some plugins are incredibly useful – dare I say essential – and some are more for fun.

Going through the plugins I’ve installed for this site, I realized that there were several that I always install in my new blogs. A few of these you’ll recognize and will probably already have installed on your own blog. But there are some here that most people don’t know about. Despite their relative obscurity, I’ve found them to be essential to running my blog(s) efficiently.

• Akismet – This is one of the ubiquitous plugins. There just isn’t a better comment spam filter. It requires a Wordpress API key, so you’ll have to sign up for a username at Wordpress.com and use the API key that’s shown on your profile.
• All in One SEO Pack – This plugin streamlines SEO optimization for your blog. It automatically manages titles, descriptions, keywords, and more. It’s ready to go practically right out of the box; there’s just a little minor tweaking once you get it installed. Then in each post, you can override the defaults with more specific keywords, title format, or description.
• Contact Form ][ – This is one of the lesser-known plugins, I’m guessing, but no less important. A way for readers to contact you is essential for anyone serious about blogging. What this plugin does is makes it ridiculously simple to create your own “Contact Me” page. You’ll want to fine-tune the settings, but once you have it the way you want, all you have to do is create a new Page, then click the “Insert Contact Form” button on the formatting bar. That’s it. This plugin was used to make my Contact Me page.
• What Would Seth Godin Do? – Seth Godin once said: “One opportunity that’s underused is the idea of using cookies to treat returning visitors differently than newbies….” This plugin takes that idea and runs with it. WWSGD will display a message to readers that have visited your site less than five (customizable) times, based on their cookies. This message is fully customizable with inline CSS. You might have already noticed my WWSGD-powered welcome message; the one inviting you to subscribe to my RSS feed.
• Wordpress.com Stats – This is the traffic metering plugin that’s built into Wordpress.com blogs. It provides up-to-the-minute stats, as opposed to Google Analytics, which only updates once a day. WPStats uses an easy to read layout, provides information about how your visitors arrived, and what links they click from your site. This plugin also requires an API key; you can use the same one you used for Akismet.
• WP Database Backup – Everyone knows that they should be backing up their blog on a regular basis. But unless you automate it, it’s just too tedious and time consuming to do it on your own. This plugin backs up your database without you having to do a thing. Just tweak the settings when you install it, and that’s it. You can set it to email the backups to yourself on a daily or weekly basis, and you can even have it send one whenever you want. Believe me, this plugin could save your a** some day.
• WP Dash Note – This is another obscure plugin, but now that I’ve used it, I don’t think I could ever run a Wordpress blog without it. All it does is add a text entry field on your dashboard. You can type whatever you want into that field – notes, reminders, post ideas, grocery lists, etc. – and they’ll always be displayed in the “Right Now” module of the Dashboard. It comes with a crinkled paper background, but I edited the CSS for the plugin and took it out. You can also adjust the height of the box, background color, and other attributes. It’s a simple plugin, but I’ve become dependent on it.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on these plugins, and suggestions for any other plugins that you feel are “Must-Have”.

Tagged as: Blogging, customization, plugins, wordpress