5 Essential WordPress Plugins
ByI added this in response to a blog comment elsewhere on the site, but thought I should make it a post as I’m sure it’ll be very useful to anybody setting up their first WordPress blog.
These are part of a basic blog toolkit, and you may or may not already be aware of some or all of them.
All in One SEO Pack: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
# Optimizes your WordPress blog for Search Engines
# Automatically optimizes your titles for search engines
# Generates META tags automatically
Comment Luv: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/commentluv/
# This plugin will visit the site of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve a selection of their last blog posts, tweets or digg submissions which they can choose one from to include at the bottom of their comment when they click submit.
# It has been found to increase comments and the community spirit for the thousands of blogs that have installed it. With a simple install you will immediately start to find new and interesting blog posts, tweets and diggs from your own blog and community.
Google XML Sitemaps: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
# This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog.
# With such a sitemap, it’s much easier for the crawlers to see the complete structure of your site and retrieve it more efficiently.
Sexy Bookmarks: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sexybookmarks/
# SexyBookmarks has proven time and time again to be an extremely useful and successful tool in getting your readers to actually submit your articles to numerous social bookmarking sites.
Akismet: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/
# Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s “Comments” admin screen.
Your suggestions for additional plugins
Subscribe to Comments: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments/
# Subscribe to Comments is a robust plugin that enables commenters to sign up for e-mail notification of subsequent entries. The plugin includes a full-featured subscription manager that your commenters can use to unsubscribe to certain posts, block all notifications, or even change their notification e-mail address!
Hopefully these tips have been helpful. What do you think?
Facebook comments:
Hello Paul:
I really like blogs, because with one single plugin you can do a lot of thing inclusive update your blog.
I belive you have a great blog, and we all can find useful tips on the posts.
Just to show you my appreciation I will put a link bak to your blog on mine.
Best Regards
Hector
Hector Jayat´s last [type] ..7 Easy Ways To Incease Your eBook Sales
[Reply]
Paul Teague Reply:
August 21st, 2010 at 10:00 am
Hi Hector, thanks for the post and the backlink.
I agree with you – and there’s nothing quite like WordPress for a superb plugins community.
All the best, Paul
[Reply]
Hi Paul,
Thanks for the list. You always give such valuable tips!
Lesley
Lesley “Wes” Klatt´s last [type] ..Week 3- Generating Traffic
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Hey Paul
I have just come for a visit to your site. How are you going?
Yes it’s Mark and I am following my students as they post on other peoples blogs. They don’t know that I am always checking to see they are getting results. I am passionate about helping them achieve and then they are able to make some money online exactly the same as I am doing. It is not really difficult as long as they are willing to put in the effort.
Always pleasing if I can see some of my students have posted comments. Keep up the good work.
Regards
Mark
Mark * Coaching Newbies* Terrell´s last [type] ..Coaching Newbies 20 Launch
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Hi Paul
I just love WordPress and but I have never heard of the sexy bookmarks. I will have to investigate.
A little about me – My name is Sue McDonald and I am a student of Mark Terrell and I am actually going through the course a second time – by invitation. I love it and know if I do all he says, I will be successful. I am Australian but the US is my second home as I have family there and visit quite often. This is why I started Internet Marketing so I can travel whenever I want and have the money to do what I want.
Well I hope you are doing well and you become very successful. I would love you to come visit my blog and leave a comment.
Kind regards
Sue
Sue McDonald´s last [type] ..Week 3 of the Newbies Course
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Hey Paul,
Thanks for the list, 4 out of 5 I am using. Sexy Bookmarks here I come.
Pete
Pete Carr´s last [type] ..Underground Traffic Blueprint
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Hi Paul,
Many thanks for this great post mate.
WordPress and I are not the “best of mates” as unlike everybody else I think the WP platform is a pain in the ….. as I always have trouble doing the basics.
It might take me 30 minutes to an hour to create a post and then another 4 hours of multiple tries and lost posts to finally get it posted!!!
Anyway I am gradually getting used to it and even though I have a few of them already installed, I noticed a few really interesting ones that should be a great help to me – so far that I am very grateful.
Peter Beckenham´s last [type] ..My First Product Creation…This is My Plan-
[Reply]
Paul Teague Reply:
July 4th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Hi Peter, I’m surprised that you’ve had so much trouble with WordPress, I’d say that it’s a pretty impressive tool these days.
Keep plugging away at it, I’m sure that you’ll ‘come around’ eventually.
I tried a few blogging platforms before settling, and I honestly believe that WordPress takes some beating.
Best wishes, Paul
[Reply]
hey paul great post, im currently adding plugins to my blog so ill make sure ive got these installed.
I think the all in one seo pack is a fantastic plugin.
talk soon mate
Yours In Success
Jonny Balfour
jonny balfour´s last [type] ..Focus Focus Focus!
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Hi Paul
I totally agree with your choice, I Have been trying out Platinum SEO in place of All in one SEO and it is bringing some really good results.
I’d love to get your opinion on it
All the best
Andy Phillips
Andy Phillips´s last [type] ..Clay Shirky – How the web can change history
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Hey Paul,
One suggestion for the way I use this is to have it sent to your email address each day. In my email client I have it so that it sorts the incoming emails from all my WP installations each day as being read, and then it sends them to an email folder called WP Backups.
Every couple weeks I just delete all the back copies because I have so many sites that I’ll end up with 400-500 emails. So once it is set up you never have to think about it again.
Peter
Peter Antonio´s last [type] ..Google Slaps Again!
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Hi Paul,
I agree with all of your WP Plugin Essentials. I have one suggestion that literally saved my a$$ once before and I never set up a new blog without it. It is wp-db-backup.
You can set it to backup your WP site each day and have a copy emailed to you. In case of database corruption or a hacker attacking your site you won’t lose any of your data and can be up and running in no time.
Thanks,
Peter
Peter Antonio´s last [type] ..Google Slaps Again!
[Reply]
Paul Teague Reply:
June 14th, 2010 at 7:20 am
Thanks for this tip Peter, I’ve been using Backup WordPress for this, but whilst I ued to get on with it very well, it’s become a bit overcomplicated for my tastes.
I will try out wp-db-backup and see how I get on with it.
Best wishes, Paul
[Reply]
Paul:
Nice list of essential WordPress plugins. I would add the Google Analyticator plugin to the list. Google Analytics is a must to see where your traffic is coming from and Google Analyticator provides some of this information on the WordPress Dashboard.
I am having some problems with the Sexy Bookmarks plugin. Like Michael mentioned earlier, this plugin is showing series of vertical dots just below the body of the post. The plugin was working fine for a couple of weeks but now this has started to happen.
- Rick
Rick Byrd´s last [type] ..A Personal Note to the MarketingWithAlex 3.0 Students
[Reply]
Paul Teague Reply:
June 7th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Thanks Rick, I use Google Analytics on this blog, but haven’t used that plugin before.
I’ve installed it now and I’m taking it for a test drive
Thanks very much for the suggestion, Paul
[Reply]
Hey great plugin tips really helpful thanks i did a post like this i find these ones helpful
Odiogo Gives your blog a voice. Adds ‘Listen Now’ button to your blog so readers can listen to your posts and download podcasts.
This one is really cool WP-Polls Adds a poll to your blog post or page. Customizable via templates and css styles
hope you find them helpful
Thanks
Davy Norton
[Reply]
Thanks Paul. I have all but #4 active on my site. I have noticed that sexybookmarks sometimes renders as a series of vertical dots just below the body of the post (as it is right now in my browser on this post). I wonder if that is a Firefox thing or the graphics taking too long to load?
In any case, can I add #6 to your list and that is “Subscribe to Comments”. You see, before I added that plugin on another blog I used to run, I experienced a whole lot of single-shot comments. I used to wonder why comment authors were not returning to read and participate in the comment thread. It was not until I discovered that there is no automatic email sent to comment authors when the blog owner approves the comment or more people add their thoughts. There are a number of email plugins that will automatically send emails to comment authors but Subscribe to Comments is like an autoresponder that maintains a mailing list for each and every blog post and it even includes a one click unsubscribe link in every email it sends out.
By the way, I want to subscribe to your blog but I cannot see where to enter my email. Is it the box under the title “RSS Updates”? I do not want it in a reader, I am after email updates. Thanks, Michael.
.-= Michael Pedzotti´s last blog ..What is the value of a comment? =-.
[Reply]
Paul Teague Reply:
June 6th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Michael, thanks for this comment, that plugin you recommend is excellent and have now added it to the main post.
If anybody else has some ‘essentials’ to add to the post, please let me know.
Paul
[Reply]
Hi Paul,
Great post on wordpress plugins, it reminded me that I hadn’t added the google sitemap plugin on my blog which I meant to do and i have now done as soon as I read your blog post. Will also be adding the other two on my blog that are not there.
Thank you.
Elizabeth
.-= Elizabeth ´s last blog ..The Importance of an Online Business Plan =-.
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Paul,
Great list of WordPress plug-ins. I found this post to be very useful and informative.
Thanks for sharing it with us! I’ll def have to check some of these sites out.
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Hey Paul, thanks for the list of plugins, commentluv is my absolute favorite one, and sexy bookmarks live up it to it’s name, it looks kinda sexy!
Will go through your list and make sure I have them all, Sally
.-= Sally Neill´s last blog ..Meeting Alex Jeffreys Changed My Life =-.
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