Great WordPress Plugins
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In many online conversations I’m asked what my favorite WordPress plugins are. I’m always a bit reluctant to answer that questions, because I only use a few of the many available. So my advice on this topic is limited.
Yet exchanging experiences with plugins is what makes me select them or not and I read a lot of good advice about plugins before I use them.
Therefore it might be a good idea to list my favorite plugins here and see what you think of them and if you can add other great ones.
So here goes.
One of the plugins I absolutely adore is WordPress Automatic Upgrade.
Every time my WordPress dashboard indicates there’s a new version, which happens quite often lately, I had to download the new version and then upload it to my server.
That’s not necessary any more. With this plugin I have a new WordPress version installed within a minute! Honestly, it takes less than a minute and it never has failed.
Another great plugin is WP-DBManager. For some reason I’ve had database problems in the past. It was cluttered and needed to be optimized and repaired. Which meant I had to login into my Cpanel and use PHPMyAdmin to repair the database.
This plugin allows you to do this automatically without going into your Cpanel and PHPMyAdmin. You don’t even have to know what these things are! Oh, and as a nice bonus, I’ll have it send a backup to my email account every day.
For SEO I was using All In One SEO plugin. I’ve replaced that one a couple of months ago. Although it worked very well and I was satisfied about it, I found that Headspace gives me more flexibility.
Under ‘Settings’ there’s an extra tab for Headspace. This is where the power of this plugin is. You can set default Meta Tag values for a lot of different pages and under ‘Site Modules’ you can automatically include a lot of services.
Under the ‘Mange’ tab this plugin allows you to check all meta tags like Title, Description, Tags/Keywords and so on.
A new plugin that I’ve installed is Yoast Breadcrumbs. As the name says, it inserts breadcrumbs to your pages which allow your users to easily navigate your site and allow search engines to determine the structure of your site more easily.
I’ve also installed PagerFix. I’ve put it on my home page, just outside the loop, so that all my pages can be easily crawled by the search engine robots.
And then there’s a little plugin that does some great work called SEO Slugs. It removes common words like ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘in’ from post slugs to improve SEO. You still have to keep an eye on your slugs, but these stop words are deleted automatically.
Well, there you have them. My favorite WordPress plugins.
What are yours? Post them in the comments.
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My favorite plug-in is the dofollow plug-in, It opens up new opportunities for linking, and also draws an audience to your blog.
Headspace, Joost Analytics, SEO Slugs AND redirection best wordpress plugins for SEO.
@ Payday Loans
I like the dofollow plugin. But once I had it installed on my blog, I got a ton of crazy commentators saying whatever just to get a link from me. My pr was getting out of control. It’s great for attraction though
I am using WP to build a travel site on Prague. I don’t have much php skills, I am learning. But I reckon that WP is able to be used for a large site – about 1000 plus pages – but only if I can get a way to make the menu open and close, and I get more control over what it can do.
I have saerched the plgin for something like this – nada – I would quite happliy pay for it also – just putting the thought out there should anyone decide to take on what is quite a lrage task.
Leslie Gilmour
I found the SEO Slug really useful. Saves the hassle of editing the permalink trying to get rid of extra words..
Ben Pei
One of the most valuable plugins I use is wp-backup from ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup, I set it up to email my database backups to a gmail account I use specifically for that purpose. Then I only need to remember to backup the themes I have customized for my sites.
Donna Miller
I also used some SEO Tools before but its really hard to find a good one. And if you start new pages/blogs it gets harder and harder these days to get some high quality visitors. Seo Tools maybe help but you must use the right one
the automatic upgrade plugin is really cool and I have been using it for quite some time now.
I am new to wordpress, but so far I have liked the Spam Karma 2 and EasyTube plugins. First one helps to avoid spams, and the second makes it easy to embed videos on the blog.
I am currently trying to use some Seo tools, so that my blog’s SEO enhances.
SadekJake
I find the most useful plugin to be Disqus. This tool improves blog commenting and makes it interactive.
I saw a few blogs using Seesmic video comments. Gravatar is a nice tool as well. It associates your email address to your uploaded image. Backtype is not a plugin but it finds all your comments across the blogosphere and aggregates them into one feed.
Great list of wordpress plugins. I really like the breadcrumb and slugs one. I didn’t know these even existed. They will really help out my blog. Thanks.
Thanks for the great resources. I have been searching for some great plugins. Great site and a great read!
Cheers
Sean
Headspace looks interesting I have been using Platinum SEO Pack, but I think I will look into headspace.
Thanks for the info
Thanks for all the comments.
A few notes:
I use the DOfollow plugin, but it’s a lot of extra work to weed out all the spammers that come from DOfollow lists. Just to let you know!
Therefore I use Spam Karma because I read “Akismet False Positives & Spam Karma Configuration“.
But it’s not supported anymore and that’s why I didn’t mention this plugin. It still works great though.
Disqus is not a plugin, but a comment system. While it’s a great tool, using it means giving away control over your comments completely. I don’t want that.
Interesting to hear about Headspace, the alternative to the All in One SEO plugin. I wasn’t aware of it but will definitely take a look.
Thanks for the info Case, I downloaded 4 of the plugins and will give them a try. As for the dofollow plugin, I have not tried yet. Does Akismet stop the spam from that?
I will give it a test to see.
Thanks again
Great list. I really like the idea of automatic upgrades. I just finished upgrading all of my blogs and then I wake up to version 2.6.3.
I’m very nervous about messing around with databases but having a backup emailed each day will save me about an hour a day. I can’t wait to try these two plugins.
I just started another brand new blog this weekend. I installed WP-PostRatings and WP-PostViews (both at lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/) and I really like
they way it looks on the posts. To see it in action you can go to my
new blog but I have to say there isn’t a lot there yet. It’s ezinepress.com.
I prefer all-in-one-seo pack or even the platinum-seo instead, which is where all-in-one-seo left off basically.
Headspace is also really great, but once you put it up on a site with a lot of posts (I have one with 24k+ posts) it REALLY takes a toll on your site.
Thanks for the links. Really appreciate it! I also like the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin. Saves alot of hassle for me.
Thank you for the interesting post. I´ve never heard about SEO Slugs before, but it worth a test. My favourite plugin is called “Related Post” and it shows related articles from your blog under your blogposts – good for your clicktrough-rate.
My problem is there is several versions of seo plugins and it is hard for me to tell which ones are worth the effort and which are not.
Another vote here for the All-In-One-Seo plugin.
Also, “Similar Posts” should be standard for any blog. I find it keeps my readers on my site longer. In fact, my bounce rate decreased significantly right after I installed it.
Steve
i use “Zina” plugin which helps me uploading and managing my audio files on wordpress
The dofollow plugin can be rather annoying because it attracts lots of spammers to your site in a short period of time. However, coupled with a few anti-spam plugins, this can be solved too.
Rif Chia
I used to be a fan of Semiologic because it offered a tested suite of plugins that worked together, but much of what it offered are now integrated into the basic WordPress package and a couple of simple ones like SEO slug that it’s just as simple to do yourself.
Great list. I’m loving the wp automatic upgrade too. I haven’t tried the others. Very interested in Headspace. Thanks again for the list.
Thanks for the Headspace review.
I always use the All in One SEO Pack but it’s good to know that there is a more flexible alternative should I need it.
Regards,
Andy
Comment Luv and Ajax Commen Edit are another two useful wordpress plugins that further assist the inetractivity. Blogs are all about interaction so these are useful. Another one is do follow plugin if you into that.
A good list of must have plugins there. I also use robots meta plugin, which gives you a bit more control over pages to be indexed and followed. Also redirection which is useful for managing 301 redirects from within wordpress.
Did anyone mention the basic socialize plugin that displays the social icons on your post to make it easy for your audience to bookmark your content. A must have plugin.
bd
is there a point to installing a plugin such as bsuite stat or search term logger if they are not good for heavy traffic sites?
bd
I think the commmentluv plugin is pretty awesome, gott be honest though some of the ones you mentioned I had never heard of. Thanks for this though.
Richard.
@ Richard: That is the great things about reading blogs like this you gain from other peoples knowledge and experience. Try some of the suggestions out and see how they work for you.
bd
@ Suet Bird Feeders: I would be interested to know what limitations you find with the SEO all in one plugin.
The SEO slug in theory should work, but I do not know of anyone that have tested it and found significant improvements. The theory is the less dilution surrounding your keywords in a header places more importance on those keywords.
Has anyone had any improvements using this plug?
I’ll have to take a look at Headspace. I’ve been using the SEO all in one as well, but its got a couple of limitations that I’d like to stop working around.
Do you really think the SEO slugs is necessary?
Jay R