10 More Essential Plugins Every WordPress Blog Should Have
Posted January 14, 2010 in Tools/Resources, Web Design 63 Comments »
WordPress is known for being one of the most powerful open-source blogging platforms today. Not only does it work great for blogs–it also functions as a regular content management system, which also makes WordPress one of the most popular platforms.
One of the reasons that makes WordPress so popular is the free plugin community. Plugins are downloadable add-ons that enhance WordPress’s functionality.
We’ve discussed WordPress plugins before, and now we are ready to share even more WordPress plugins with you. So what are these essential plugins?
1. Theme Switch and Preview
Theme Switch and Preview is great for developers testing new themes on their own or their clients’ sites. It allows you to view new themes as an admin, with your regular site still up and running. If you need to allow your clients to view the theme as well, it also offers an option to allow visitors to view the test theme via a passcode.
2. Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is the easiest form generator I’ve found so far. Far more useful than just contact forms, you can create any kind of form that’s emailed to you as soon as it’s filled out. It’s also fully customizable on the backend, which allows you to change how the email that’s sent to you is structured as well.
3. Multi-level Navigation
For sites that require a dropdown menu, Multi-level Navigation Plugin is great for saving time. It works dynamically by pulling your parent/child pages and even allows complete control over what goes in your menu, including allowing blog categories and archives.
The plugin is in completely valid CSS and only uses JS on older Internet Explorer browsers. The only drawback to this plugin, is that they have a messy CSS section you have to use in the plugin’s settings. Luckily, they produce a link to a quick generator, so you can easily copy and paste the new code.
4. Feed Statistics
Feed Statistics is an extremely useful plugin for tracking RSS subscribers, clicks on posts and even which feed each user is subscribing too, such as comments or individual post feeds.
You can choose to display your feed stats anywhere on your blog or with a widget, or choose to keep it completely in the backend for your eyes only.
5. HITS- IE6 PNGFix
Fix your PNGs in IE6 quickly and easily with HITS- IE6 PNGFix. While this works as soon as it’s installed, it actually allows you two switch to different PNG fixes to best fit your situation. The default PNG fix is DD_belatedPNG.
6. ShareThis
Everyone knows the best form of marketing is by word of mouth. Encourage them to share your articles or pages with the ShareThis plugin.
ShareThis allows your readers to submit your links to social media sites or by email. It also remembers your social media login info if you have an account with them. It will post your post’s title and shortened URL to the user’s account.
7. Twitterposts
Twitterposts automatically sends out a tweet from your Twitter account as soon as you publish a new post. While settings can be changed, the default sends out a “New Post” + the title of the post + a shortened URL to it.
This plugin is especially helpful if you have multiple social media accounts, like Facebook and LinkedIn, connected to your Twitter account as this will update all of them. This saves you a lot of time, plus some readers may prefer to “subscribe” to your blog’s updates by Twitter instead of using RSS feeds.
8. WordPress Automatic Upgrade
WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin is essential to have because we’ve all heard the horror stories of people upgrading their blogs to find them broken and/or gone.
This plugin takes you through several simple steps that download, backup and install new versions of WordPress. It also checks to see if your database needs to be upgraded.
9. WordPress Related Posts
One of the best related posts plugins I’ve found, WordPress Related Posts gives you lots of great customizable options and is easy to style. It even includes the option to have a short summary of the recommended post.
Related posts is a great plugin for readers to find similar, but older, posts to the one they just read. This ensures all of your content is still being seen and used, plus it offers more information to the reader.
10. WPtouch iPhone Theme
WPtouch iPhone Theme is probably the most usual “visual” plugin I’ve found. It works on almost all touch screen smartphones, not just the iPhone.
Basically, it speeds up the loading time and increases readability by replacing your blog’s theme with a clean mobile theme. This can be easily turned off and the full site loaded by pressing a button in the footer of the mobile theme.
This plugin is also useful for sharing, as it adds some social media sharing options as well.
So Many Plugins!
While there are many more great plugins, many are site or theme specific, or for visual purposes only.
I’m usually not a huge fan of installing a lot of plugins, as it often speeds up your site just to add some of the functionalities yourself versus installing a boggy plugin. However, these plugins are very useful and not very boggy to the site at all, and some plugins, like the mobile theme, actually speed up your site while others work exclusively in the backend.
Your Turn
Have you found a plugin you consider essential for every WordPress blog? What is it and what does it do?
Image by stickergiant
About the author: Amber is a freelancer with over 10 years of experience and specializes in clean, semantic and valid 1.0 Strict XHTML, CSS and Wordpress development. She also writes a web development blog on her portfolio at www.amberweinberg.com.
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63 Comments
Tommy
January 14th, 2010 at 8:24 amJust a few I couldn’t live without:
All in One SEO Pack. The title kind of says it all.
NextGEN Gallery. If you have a need and/or a client to display a lot of images, this is the solution. Also includes a pretty slick Flash-based viewer. Almost unlimited ability to customize.
WP-Polls. I’d rank this up their with Contact Form 7 as something I just couldn’t live without. As a similar interface, well even a better interface. You can start creating detailed polls that look “nice” in seconds.
There are others, but these along with a few you mentioned are included in every WP install I do for a client.
Andy
January 14th, 2010 at 8:31 amNice post, I’ve added Twitter Posts and Automatic Upgrade already. One I do use that is pretty cool is WP–Typography: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-typography/
Among other things, it prevents widows—very nice.
Tom
January 14th, 2010 at 8:42 amI use contact form 7! And Agree with Tommy, All-In-One-SEO is priceless!
Mark @ Alchemy United
January 14th, 2010 at 8:56 amThanks Amber, there are a couple there I’d like to check out. I’m with Tommy on the SEO Pack. There’s also a WP DB management and auto-backup that I like. Sorry, I don’t have the link handy. Also, I like MM Forms. Fairly easy to use but certainly a step above novice.
Finally, can Freelance Folder adjust the letter spacing in this textarea? Please?? In PC FF 3.5.x it’s awful crammed to the point of being a dicey UX. I’d also like to suggest that the font-size also be adjusted to match the text lines for name, etc. Larger and spaced will make it easier for us to proof our own comments. Thx
Nikhil
January 14th, 2010 at 9:36 amNice list Amber!
Google Analytics is also good plugin….
Lexi Rodrigo
January 14th, 2010 at 11:08 amOoh, ThemeSwitch is exactly what I need. Thanks for the recommendation, Amber!
A word of warning about WordPress Automatic Upgrade: that’s what I used and my blog completely disappeared! Had to hire a VA to reconstruct everything. I never do my own upgrades now, and my VA doesn’t use this plugin, either.
julio
January 14th, 2010 at 11:15 amAwesome post! I have must of them on my wordpress site but will be getting more thanks to this post.
Amber Weinberg
January 14th, 2010 at 11:16 am@Tommy I love All in SEO pack as well, but it was already listed in the first Wordpress plugins post, so I didn’t want to repeat it :)
@Mark I’ll bring the font changes to the admin and see what they think. Thanks for the suggestion.
@Nikhil I don’t use Google Analytics plugins because it’s quicker for me to just copy/paste the regular google code in the footer…plus I have to check regular Analytics daily for the rest of my site anyways. I guess if the whole client’s site is in Wordpress that might be useful :)
@Lexi That’s weird, I’ve never had a problem with Automatic Upgrade before. Is your custom theme in the default folder? I know mine is and when I do a version upgrade, the files get overwritten by the Wordpress default files, if I ever get the time to move them to their own theme though, this wouldn’t happen. As it is, it takes 5 secs for me to reupload the theme files so it’s not a rush job to me :)
Rick
January 14th, 2010 at 11:45 amExcellent article, some really nice post. I also think all in one seo is essential as is cookies for comments, and/or askimet…. unless you like spam bots.
Oh also Wordpress db backup!
I have been using cforms forever but I will try contact form 7 thanks
Tommy
January 14th, 2010 at 11:51 amAgreed Nikhil. Google Analytics and Google XML Site Map are the first thing I install (along with the SEO plug-in I mentioned above) on every client site. I also install Wassup, which is far more limited then what Google Analytics offers, but you get basic site data (in a chart format) within WordPress. And with many of my clients the data and interface of Google Analytics is just too much for them. Wassup keeps it stupid simple.
There is also a new plug-in I’ve been playing with called Dashboard Post-it. It lets you create a section in the initial Dashboard screen where you can leave notes.
One of the reason I use WordPress as much as I do, instead of straight HTML sites, is I want my clients to be able to post to their blog and add content to their site (i.e. take “ownership”). This allowed me leave notes and instructions on how to do things in they see right when they log-in.
It has been very helpful and/or worked well to this point in getting my clients to take a more active role in their site/blog.
Chris
January 14th, 2010 at 12:01 pmA great list for sure. Here are a few overs that prove reliable in most themes.
MM FORMS:
basic and easy form generator as alternative for self manged clients who don’t need cusom functionality.
TweetMeMe
adds Digg like retweet button to post, pages or both – full CSS customization or simply use presets to make your posts viral like Mashable
OZH Navigation
moves admin nab to top drop down format for easier blog management
linkwithin (site)
creates related posts under your post, but from your blog w/ thumbnails – no ads either!
Sociable
share his will conflict on occasion wih some themes, so I switched to smaller footprint & reliable Sociable – now only if they would default icon settings to facebbok, Twitter, linkedin, delecious, etc. So I don’t have to drag order around after eah set-up (takes 2 minutes to customize – so who’s really complaining)
Simple Facebook share
same as tweetmeme only for fb
pagemash
reorder pages with Ajax like drag/drop – good for large blog sites wih lots of pages
wp-table reloaded
build sortable tables inside any post/page easily. One feature needed is link to new window shortcut for clients who don’t know HTML
polldaddy
simple poll generator
vipers video tag
easiest all encompassing video embedded for WSYWIG users
bm custom login
good for designers who want to modify login screen for their clients ( easy self promotion for your company everytime client logs in – hey see their logo vs default wordpress plus your comapany
takkyu
January 14th, 2010 at 12:50 pmIf you use Adsense, then Privacy Policy is a great time saver!
Broken Link Checker is also a great way for me to make sure that people reading my blog don’t get led into the abyss of broken links and redirects.
Vicky
January 14th, 2010 at 1:10 pmSome others include “Paypal Shortcode” or “Web Invoicing and Billing” which are great if you sell any services or products directly on your site.
Johnny
January 14th, 2010 at 1:27 pmAfter reading Coding Horror’s post on restoring his WP after a server failure, I’d have to say that backups should be the priority and these plugins will do the trick:
Wordpress Backup (for images)
WP DB Backup (for the database)
MileHighFan
January 14th, 2010 at 1:57 pmGreat list of useful plug-ins! These kinds of articles always provide a new tip or two to consider. Love reading them.
One of my favorite plug-ins is: Social Bookmarks – http://www.dountsis.com/projects/social-bookmarks/
All the normal social site icons, but “hidden” (if you wish) for a nice clean look.
Remember that your website’s speed is affected by (too many) plug-ins. Look for ways to perform the same functions you desire via simple code rather than a plug-in.
Also, all plug-ins are not written the same. Some that perform the same task(s) do so in a faster, more efficient manner. Try new ones!
Best wishes,
Russ
Mosotomoss
January 14th, 2010 at 2:26 pmGreat. Thanks so much. We will link this to others. A nice list to have.
Aaron Hockley
January 14th, 2010 at 2:56 pmWordPress Automatic Upgrade is obsolete – that functionality has been build into the WordPress core product since version 2.7.
Jane...***I LOVE WEBDESIGN***
January 14th, 2010 at 3:49 pmIt’s Really Awesome. You have an A.W.E.some list
1. Theme Switch and Preview
3. Multi-level Navigation
4. Feed Statistics
I have to try these. Am very interested in try new things.
Nathan Parikh
January 14th, 2010 at 4:35 pmGood list!
I haven’t used WP Automatic Upgrade much since WP started to essentially include that feature since 2.7 or so. Do you think that plugin offers additional functionality that the now built-in auto upgrade option doesn’t?
Amber Weinberg
January 14th, 2010 at 4:39 pm@Nathan Yes it backs up both your Wordpress files and your database and it also checks to see if your DB needs an upgrade as well. I don’t like to use Wordpress’s “auto” upgrade because it seems like it always gets stuck for me and never works right.
Creative Ideas
January 14th, 2010 at 4:42 pmNice list. Thanks
Lucian
January 14th, 2010 at 5:21 pmYou can also try the more popular plugin: theme test drive – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/theme-test-drive/
It works on 2.9 too.
Maintenance mode – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/maintenance-mode/ is a must have plugin especially in the early stages of development.
Custom field template is something I install almost on every client site – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/custom-field-template/
I like because is not buggy and is much easier to work with than the standard custom fields.
Exclude pages – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/exclude-pages/ is also nice too have, especially when you try out a new page layout, so you can tweak it udner hood before show it in navigation.
paul
January 14th, 2010 at 5:26 pmgreat post!
I use wp-smushit, it reduces your PNG files on the fly.
wp-db manager for backups and db optimizing
wp-minify will reduce http requests by joining javascript files and css files
robots meta controls how robots index your pages, useful for duplicate content
xml sitemaps
widget logic, mysnippets
Louisa Chan
January 14th, 2010 at 8:28 pmWow! Great list. Although I am using some of the plug ins mentioned here, I am going to take time and comb through the list – just to be sure.
Thanks for posting everyone!
Loiuisa
Yoana Pedroso
January 14th, 2010 at 11:10 pmWe’ve got our own top 10 list here too! But I love the Theme Preview plugin and a few others you mentioned above. Great List!
Yoana Pedroso
January 14th, 2010 at 11:11 pmhttp://virtuallyfreeva.com/2009/11/10-wordpress-plugins-you-need-to-have/
Salma Jafri
January 15th, 2010 at 12:42 amAmber, great list! and because of it, I’m going to install # 8 on this list – I’ve been too scared to do my first upgrade for fear of losing it all after all the horror stories I’ve read on the web about it!
A plug in that I absolutely love is called wp-insert (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-insert/) – it makes it so easy to insert ads across platforms just about anywhere in your post, in your widgets, bottom of page, left of content, just about anywhere you want to have ads! It supports AdSense and other networks (e.g. chitika), manages your feeds for you, puts in a privacy policy for your blog/site, puts tracking codes on all pages (e.g. Google analytics), and some other cool functions that I haven’t even tried out yet!
And the thing I like best is you can deactivate with one click if you don’t like the position of the ads or need to turn them off for a while. Then when you’re ready to be back up, just click Activate w/o having to re-paste the code.
Wellington Grey
January 15th, 2010 at 1:08 amThanks for the related post recommendation. I’ve been looking for a good plug-in to do that for a while, but with no luck. I was about to start doing the editing by hand… not so practical for 100+ articles.
Stephen Webb
January 15th, 2010 at 5:08 amThere seems to be a huge range of plugins available for Wordpress, and the choice can seem quite daunting. However this seems to be a great choice of useful plugins that can really help your workflow and design.
As someone who is new to Wordpress and the seemingly endless possibilities it presents it’s intriguing to see just how much can be done. The fact that the platform is so flexible and easy to integrate into existing sites and more make it the best choice for any contents management in my opinion.
I will be bookmarking this page for future reference and certainly be implementing some of these plugins into future developments. I’m looking forward to another article of more great plugsins soon.
Tommy
January 15th, 2010 at 5:40 am@Stephen it is very true there are almost limitless options for plug-ins. I’ve been using WP daily for years and years. I wouldn’t call myself an “expert” per say, but I do know my around the app. Yet there were several plug-ins mentioned here I’ve never heard of. There are two suggestions I have.
(1) Outside my professional, personal, and sites I manage for clients I have a test account installed on my server. This is where I have dozens and dozens of themes I play with and also a lot of plug-ins. I like to “kick the tires” before I use them on any of my sites.
(2) I’ve found the “Star” ranking system at WP is very accurate. I can’t think of anytime I’ve used a theme with four or five stars where it didn’t work exactly as advertised. Less than that, well not so much.
Good luck and have some fun with them ….
Sumon
January 15th, 2010 at 6:06 pmI like those button under the Author -section. Hahmm. Nice!
Tom - marketing tips
January 16th, 2010 at 1:11 pmGreat list! There are lots of fantastic WP plugins out there.
Maxblogpress ping optimizer plugin and WP super cache are very useful as well.
hmu111
January 19th, 2010 at 5:42 amThanks for the related post recommendation.
Maverick
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:10 ami am really in love with WP and am trying to collect whatever useful links possible for a better WP experience. Thanks for the lovely list Amber.
Michelle @ Your Virtual Assistant
January 23rd, 2010 at 4:43 pmOh great list! I just some on your list and did my own post of 20 plug-ins I would die without some time back .
Some that I swear by are WordPress 2 Ping.fm – I have my networks set up on Ping.fm – now when a post publishes it automatically goes out to all the networks defined under Ping.fm
I also swear by CommentLuv, KeyWordLuv and DoFollow.
Other great ones are su.pr (though I don’t use this one too much because of the Ping.fm one).
WordPress Backup by BTE is another that I really like.
Kamal
January 24th, 2010 at 3:18 amnice info thanks
Dave Osmonson
January 25th, 2010 at 2:03 pmHi Amber, thanks for the information, I will plan on implementing a couple of these. And the posts from your readers are very good, so many, but I do agree with MileHighFan on the issues that may occur with having too many plugin’s going. Great information, thanks…
aadil ennia
January 25th, 2010 at 11:55 pmi am using the plugin 2 and 7 i liked them
Robert Shumake
February 2nd, 2010 at 7:06 pmYour blog is so informative … ..I just bookmarked you….keep up the good work!!!!
Hey, I found your blog in a new directory of blogs. I dont know how your blog came up, must have been a typo, anyway cool blog, I bookmarked you. :)
-Robert Shumake
Silver Firefly
March 11th, 2010 at 6:56 amThanks for this list. I’ve bookmarked it for future reference.
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