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WordPress Plugins

Name a website content management system, I’ve used it. One of the reasons to use WordPress is because of the large amount of plugins that are available. WordPress plugins are very important to the functionality of a WordPress website. Here’s my current top-ten WordPress plugins, the ones I install, first thing on every WordPress site that I build.

Google Sitemap Generator

Google Sitemap Generator creates a google sitemap: an XML sitemap format now used by the top three search engines (Google, MSN, and Yahoo!). The Google Sitemap Generator allows me to configure it like I want it. I can choose which articles on my site receive prominent placement in the sitemap. Available from http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/.

SEO Title Tag

The SEO Title Tag plugin allows you to have one title for human readers and one title for search engine robots. Humans prefer short, witty titles that catch their eyes and tickle their brains. Search engine robots enjoy tasty morsels of keywords. Use the SEO Title Tag to keep both of them happy. Most people use SEO Title Tag to put the post headline in the HTML title tag, instead of the blog name. Available from http://www.netconcepts.com/seo-title-tag-plugin/.

Sociable

The Sociable plugin allows site visitors to easily bookmark and share the link to a post using popular social networks like digg, reddit, etc. Available from http://push.cx/sociable/. My only reservation is that the download size is huge.

Feedburner Feedsmith

This plugin will detect all paths to your RSS feed and forward the subscription feed to feedburner for ease of tracking.

Contact Form 7

The Contact Form 7 plugin greatly simplifies the creation of multiple contact forms, without touching the code. Available from http://ideasilo.wordpress.com/2007/04/30/contact-form-7/.

Subscribe to Comments

The Subscribe to Comments allows website visitors to subscribe to e-mail notifications to new comments on a post. The visitor gets notified when something new is said. You get return visits. Win-win. Available from http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/subscribe-to-comments/.

Akismet

Install the plugin, enter your WordPress API code (acquired when you sign up at WordPress.com) and you’ve got instant comment spam protection courtesy of the WordPress blogosphere. Available from http://akismet.com/.

WordPress.com Stats

The Stats plugin gives you a simple way to see a useful summary of your website usage. Requires a WordPress API code. Available from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stats/.

WordPress Database Backup

Have your WordPress Database automagically backed up and e-mailed to you as often as you would like. What else are you doing with all that free gmail space? Seriously folks, you need this. What would you do if you lost all your wonderful words? Available from http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup/.

wp-cache

Improves website performance and diggability by caching your dynamically built web pages to static web pages. You can configure how often the cache gets refreshed. Available from http://mnm.uib.es/gallir/wp-cache-2/.