Recommended Wordpress Plugins

Once you have your blog running, the next task would be to install some plugins to your blog to enhance design, usability, and security. While Wordpress itself is a great blogging platform, you can’t really do much without any plugins installed.

Below I have listed my recommended Wordpress Plugins. If you need help with installation, here’s How To Install Wordpress Plugins.

1. Akismet. This plugin automatically check all comments and trackbacks people leave on your blog for spam. It comes pre-installed with your default Wordpress and it runs automatically, so you don’t have to do anything (if you don’t want to). You do however need an API key to activate it. You can get one by signing up at wordpress.com.

2. Feedburner Feedsmith. This plugin converts all of your RSS Feeds, to your custom feedburner feeds, so all of your subscribers are subscribed to one feed therefore you get the most accurate count of your subscribers.

3. WordPress Database Backup. Wordpress Database Backup is important for a number of reasons. First of all, you can never tell when things go wrong. Secondly, the plugin provides a peace of mind to bloggers, knowing that they have the latest backup to fall back on, just in case their blog’s data got wiped out. It happens to me once. No kidding.

4. WP Super Cache. This plugin makes a copy of your web page on the server and by doing so it decreases the page load time and reduces the resource consumption. When is the last time you wait for more than 5 seconds for a site to load? I thought so. This plugin helps reduce the possibility of losing traffic due to your blog taking forever to load. Highly recommended!

5. All-in-One SEO. The plugin allows unique meta description, keywords and titles to each page of your blog and blog posts, to rank well in search engines. Unless you are using Thesis Theme, this plugin is a must!

Recommended reading: SEO guide for Wordpress

6. Google XML Sitemaps. This plugin generates a XML sitemap of your blog each time you write a new post and lets Google and other search engine know of new content. Without Google XML Sitemaps it could take Google weeks to make your new article findable from their search engine. Highly recommended.

7. Google Analyticator. Google Analyticator allows you to use Google Analytics to track visitors to your blog without having to add the tracking code manually to your Wordpress blog. It’s convenient.

8. CommentLuv. Want more comment on your blog? You sure could give some incentives to commentors. With CommentLuv, you can encourage more readers to leave comments as the plugin allows your commentors to put link of their latest blog post at the end of the comment. I use this plugin for the first few months in one of my blog to encourage comments, and it works great.

9. Subscribe to Comments. Yet another great plugin to increase your comment counts. This is a plugin that allows your users to subscribe to the comments, so they can be notified when the next comment is posted. This encourage comment participation and help build relationship with your audience.

10. AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget. Every blog needs to have at least one social bookmarking widget to help spread your articles to major social media site. It can be AddThis or any other plugin. Well, to be honest, I’m not really a big fan of AddThis. For some reason, I’m not really fond with the design, but that’s just me.

So, this “Every blog needs to have at least one social bookmarking widget” coming from me may sound like a hypocrite, but if you must know, the reason I don’t have one is because I don’t intend to make this blog looks like a blog. It’s all about strategy…

11. Contact Form 7. When running a blog, it’s best to allow your users a way to contact you. This is the best contact form plugin till this date. It makes everything easy.

12. Tweetmeme. This plugin is awesome to spread your articles in Twitter. If you take into account the popularity of Twitter, it’s a good thing if you can make it convenient for your readers to share your articles to their followers. Highly recommended!

13. Stealth login. Call me paranoid, but I wouldn’t enjoy the thought that anyone could get access to my login url (default login url being www.yourdomainname.com/wp-admin). With this plugin however, you can change your /wp-admin to just about anything you want! Sweet.

14. User locker. The default Wordpress installation is vulnerable to brute force and dictionary attacks, because there is no limit how many times user can use invalid password before finding the correct one. This plugin closes this security hole by introducing maximum number of invalid login attempts. It’s always nice to enhance your blog’s security.

15. Thesis Openhook (for Thesis user only). This is a must have for Thesis Theme users. This plugin allows Thesis users to easily customize Thesis via a new “Thesis OpenHook” panel in the Design area of your blog administration. To learn more about Thesis.

16. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. One of the many ways to increase your blog’s subscriptions is to increase your visitor’s time on site. The longer you can keep them, the higher the chances of them subscribing to your blog. So what this plugin does is it gives you a list of posts related to the current entry, introducing your readers to other relevant content on your site, at the end of each post. Highly recommended!

17. Popular Posts. It took me awhile to learn that Popular Posts is very important in building audience and keeping your new readers attached to your blog. Simply add this widget to your sidebar and fill it up with great contents.

So that’s all for my recommended plugins. Make sure to check them out. Happy Blogging!