8 Essential Plugins for your WordPress Website
Let me start this post with a friendly message of warning – DO NOT install plugins just because someone else uses them! As I said last week when I wrote about How to Install a WordPress Plugin, you are going to find thousands of plugins and likely more than enough lists of the plugins people use on their own sites. Every site is different and will have different needs for the visitors. Only install a plugins you need… save yourself some headaches!
What is a WordPress Plugin?
A WordPress plugin is a page, or many pages of php code, designed to work within the parameters of the WordPress system. The benefit to plugins is that in most cases, they are drop and play! Meaning, you upload them to the plugins directory, browse to your wordpress admin > plugin page, activate them and start using them! Some do require you to add a small snippet of code inside your template system in order to call the functionality, and most of the time, there are clear instructions on how to get them working. Get used to words like codex, loop, etc…
Essential Plugins for ALL WordPress Sites
The list below represents a small group of Wordpress Plugins that I install on every single blog I run! They all have a specific purpose that either increase the usability of wordpress, remove risk of losing visitors or data, or make the administrative tasks easier! This is not ALL of the plugins I use, just those that are essential!
Askimet – You won’t need to download this one, it is installed as part of the WordPress build and helps to control spam on your blog. You need a free API keyin order to use it, but the process is simple and easy! On this blog, Askimet has blocked 21,710 spam comments in just over 1 year!
All in One SEO Plugin – We discussed this plugin last week. It really picks up where wordpress left off and gives you the ability to optimize your WordPress website, using basic SEO strategies.
Installation and Configuration in this video. Click Here :: Video Length: 9:20
Google XML Sitemaps- This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO
Redirection for WordPress- Having this redirect plugin gives you the ability to handle current and future changes to your site. It logs ALL 404 errors and provides a very user friendly area to manage 301’s for your site pages.
WordPress Automatic Upgrade- It couldn’t get easier than using this plugin! While I am guilty of not keeping my own blogs updated all the time, this plugin turns a feared practice into a point/click/done process!
RSS Footer- This plugin adds a small snipped to the bottom of your RSS feed. Every time you publish a post, this snippet is inserted with a permalink back to your site. It is NOT visible to website visitors and comes in most handy when people scrape your content. Heck, I don’t mind someone copying my work, as long as they link back! This plugin takes that out of the equation and automatically provides the link back for you!
WordPress Database Backup- You MUST have a daily backup of your work! If your server fails… pardon the french, but your f**ked! I have mine setup to automagically backup every morning at 3am and email the database to me in my gmail account! At worst, I lose one days worth of info on the site!! This plugin ONLY backs up your data and you always keep local copies of themes, images etc, on your site.
WP-Cache- Hopefully, you will have a post that gets hit up on Stumble, Digg etc, and gets 10,000 visitors in an hour! If you don’t have the cache plugin in place, only the first 1500 will see it… the rest will get the dreaded 500 error when your hosting account dies a painfully fast death due to the traffic overload! Install it and forget it… your pages are cached on the server and your visitors are delivered mock-static content, completely in the background! After you activate this plugin in WP, make sure you visit the settings page for the plugin and click on the “Enable” button to turn it on.
What About Other Plugins?
Over the next few days, I will post some additional plugin lists as well. One of those will revolve around the Popshops post that some of you saw when it posted on Saturday afternoon!! Great teaser huh? :-)
What additional WordPress Plugins do you consider “Must Have” plugins for your sites?
Previously Published Articles You May Like to Read:
- WordPress Update to 2.9 – Check Your Plugins
- 9 Tools or WordPress Plugins Every Affiliate Needs!
- Adding the First Pages to your WordPress Website
- Using Popshops to add Full Product Pages to your WordPress Website
- Build a Review Website with WordPress!
- Adding your First Plugin to WordPress
- Days 13 & 14 of my New WordPress Website
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I have been doing my part to "Build the Internet" since 1994, when I built my first website! Since then, I have built hundreds of niche websites for myself and many others, focused on design, applications, ecommerce, search optimization and internet marketing.
Just a note to be sure you have the latest version of WordPress Automatic Upgrade! I went through some tense moments recently when I was in the process of upgrading a very old site to the latest and greatest.
The issue was simple enough to work around, had to do with the WPAU plugin having capitalized folder names and the function using the folder names was looking for non-caps!
Just make sure you have the latest … I’ve used it since it was updated with no issues.
Good List
I also like Share This …
Jeff
Thank you, thank you, a thousand times thank you! I started my blog on Google’s blogger.com (blogspot.com) – well actually I started on Squidoo but quickly tired of writing code – but I noticed that many guru’s, like yourself, were using Wordpress. I did not know what the upside of WP was over blogger but thanks to watching your well done videos I see the advantages (I can add pages!). I registered with WP but wasn’t sure what to do next and didn’t know if I could add advertising (adsense, ebay, amazon) to the page. I didn’t see any options for that (although I didn’t do any indepth looking) . I am new to the blogging world and appreciate the info provided. And I’m wondering why is hosting necessary?
@ Blue –
Welcome and thanks for the comment!
I prefer and use a self hosted blog for several reasons, most importantly, the amount of flexibility it provides to “Do your Own Thing” on your site or sites.
Also – nothing tells the world you are serious about what you doing like your own domain. ie: http://www.lowes.com is much more powerful than lowes.blogger.com.
Hostgator (Linked above) allows you to host unlimited websites for only $9/month and right now the first month is only a penny, using the disco code of “wordpress”.
Installing the platform is a single click process and you are done as well!!
Thanks again,
Mark
Thanks Mark! I didn’t know about WPAU plugin, works great.
I have alot of plugin that I like and put on all of my blogs, here two:
DDAddSig: automatically add a signature to the end of each post. I use this to suggest visitors visit my store area and give them an easy link to get there.
cForms: I use it to produce my contact me page.
Bob
I prefer the Headspace SEO plugin over the All in One option.
@ Bob –
Thanks! I use the cForms plugin myself but have found a different one I will talk about before the end fo the week as well.
@ Dannie – I have heard of the headspace plugin but never used it. Please share more – and Welcome to the blog…Thanks for commenting!
Mark
I really have to stop slacking and grab WP Cache, and I think I will go ahead and do that right now.
If I could add 1 more to the list it would be Semi Logic’s Google Analytics plug in. Awesome to use, and easy to set up!
Couple of questions.. when using the XML-Sitemap plugin, you have to get a Yahoo application ID to use the Yahoo updated notification. The form that needs to be filled out is kinda confusing to me. Can anyone shed some light on it?
also, for the sitemap content options, is it best to leave it at the default which is homepage, posts, static pages, or should we check all the options?
thanks!
@ Elijah –
Damn dude… I forgot to call you again today! Ive been crazy interested in this wall street debt flip here in the states. My solution is quick fix to the entire economy!!
If its going to cost approximately $11,000 per US worker, why not just send us all the $11k each? I’ve got 5 in my house that are working age, thats 55 grand into our local economy that would surely add some jobs, house buyers, etc. I know… another story! LOL
@ Jeff –
I usually use the default options. Regardless of pinging the search engines with the sitemaps, you STILL have to go into your webmaster accounts and submit it there as well, its the only way they will share index info on your sites.
I recorded the install for it already – just not posted yet. Here is the link.
Mark
WPAU I was looking at this for a few days now and I’ve noticed that people are having problems upgrading from 2.6.1 to 2.6.2. Anyone else having this problem? I’m thinking about holding off a bit on this one.
Jason Michalek
I took the plunge after backing up my site. It worked flawless.
One essential plugin you forgot was the one click install plugin. This helps so you don’t have to open your ftp program alot :)
Jason Michalek
I’m not sure when it is coming out, but WordPress 2.7 is going to have automatic upgrade included. This is just one of the many cool new features that have been confirmed.
From what I’ve read, there are several features coming that will eliminate a few plugins. I’m waiting with baited breath.
Mark,
Great “must have” plugin list and reminder not to try every plugin we think might be “cool.”
It’s imperative that each of us take a look at what we’re trying to do with our sites and decide if that hot plugin is really necessary.
Case in point, Mark helped me diagnose a problem with my blog this morning that was due to a plugin I installed way back before I had any idea what the hell I was doing with WordPress that went Kablooey with the upgrade to 2.6.2 and took my categories and tags offline. I deactivate it and all is fine now.
I will be going back over every installed plugin to make sure I need it and that’s for sure.
Jeff
It’s really easy to get too many plugins and lose track of what each one does.
Psychic Search is not an essential plugin but it really helps me when I am brainstorming topics to write on.
Bravo Mark! There were a couple of new ones on your list I added to my plugins – especially the backup one, I never really gave that much thought (but I guess I should…). But what does it mean that it backs up just the “data” for the site? Does it mean all my posts, pages, and articles I write? I’m not sure what is considered “data.”
I just wanted to mention a couple of things…Mark’s use of Dreamweaver is awesome, but I have to say that there is a more simple and direct way to download and add plugins for those of us who aren’t at that level. Your simple FTP program will do the job just fine, and its FREE! I use CoreFTP Lite, and I know that BANS recommends CuteFTP which is another freebie.
You just download the plugin into your WP Plugins folder on your hard drive, use your unzip (free) program to extract it there. Then you connect to your Hostgator ftp site thru CoreFTP or CuteFTP, select the domain you’re working with and go to the Themes folder, find the Plugin folder for that theme, and then just drag the plugins from your hardrive Plugin folder to the Hostgator plugin folder for that domain/theme.
Go to your WP site, open up the Plugins area, and you’ll see your just-uploaded plugins ready to activate. Configure as shown in Mark’s video. So easy even I can do it!
One comment I have on the auto update. I’ve found with some of my sites that the mods used can screw up an easy update. I didn’t even know some of my sides had been modified, by certain themes or plugins, until I’d get an error saying WP couldn’t be updated because certain files were modified. I had no clue what to do, and obviously I didn’t do the update. So there’s that little possibility lurking out there.
Another problem is that the plugin writers can’t possibility keep up with WP when it comes to updates. So plugins that work great in your old version of WP suddenly aren’t compatible with the new one. That’s happened to me.
I hate updating just for updating’s sake. I want to know a good reason why I should grab the latest update, and I want to know what will STOP working once I install it. I’m just naturally suspicious having lived thru several disasters with updates that trashed my sites. Which gets us back to that backup thing, but I don’t want to talk about that. ;-)
Also, if you find a plugin that is really great, don’t forget to put a couple of bucks into the guy or gal’s tip jar. These little apps are such huge conveniences, and I think they should be paid for their efforts. I usually wait and try the plugin out to see if I’m going to keep it. If I am, I go back and contribute a few dollars. It’s money well spent! And its the right thing to do. :-)
Excellent, thanks for that list, I especially like the RSS Footer and cache plugins.
@ Alice –
In regard to the “Backup Data” message of the wp-backup plugin, your entire wordpress website is really nothing more than a mysql database, which holds 99% of your website content, and then the template, which wraps around that database content and displays it on your site.
So… when you backup your database (with wp-backup) ALL of your content is saved in a backup sql file that can be emailed to your nightly. The only other thing you really need to keep backed up manually or through your cPanel backup utility are the “files” on your site like templates and the uploads directory for images you may have uploaded through the WYSIWYG editor.
A good practice is to setup cPanel to run a backup on your public_html
wp-contentdirectory each day as well. This way your database is backed up and emailed, and your content is backed up and saved ont he server.Mark
Great list! CommentLuv is one of my ‘must haves’ it is a fantastic way to get more commenters!
Nice one Mark. Some plugins I’ve never heard of (or would even have known of their significance without you mentioning them). I was aware of Akismet, All-In-One-SEO and Google Sitemaps but not the others.
As ever, mega useful stuff. With regards to other plugins I saw one last night that seemed to be of some use but I’ll not do anything with until your verdict. It was one called Duplicate Content Cure. Does anyone know if it’s any good?
As an aside I used the head-checker and checked one of my domains with the http://www. and with the http:// and got the same responses for both. I’m not sure exactly what the message says but it mentioned something like 301 redirect or something like that.
Anyone know whether the response should be the same for both versions?
Regards
Frank
I have a question about permalinks – not sure they belong here, but I always do my permalink setting and plugins at the same time…except on my mail website where I obviously forgot!
So the permalink url’s are the ugly ones, not the normal date/post name I usually use. What would happen if I changed the permalink format to the “pretty” one after all this time, and the ugly ones have been indexed? Do I need to do redirects for all the pages/posts that I change?
Arrrghhh!
@ Alice -
Yes. If you change your permalink sturcture AFTER the site is well indexed, you will need a way to handle the redirects.
Using the redirect plugin, I believe there is an option to auto-create the 301’s if the post permalinks are changed, so it could be a simple trigger setting in the plugin and all will done for you as they occur.
Not 100% sure on the automation of the 301’s, but I am 100% sure they will need to be done.
Mark
Have to say I hate that redirect thing, you need a degree to understand the instructions so I give up on that.
But I love the others, use them all the time, didn’t know about the rss footer one, great.
That’s what I was afraid of… Oh well, fortunately the site is fairly young so there aren’t a million posts.
How do I check to see if my site is indexed? I saw that posted once, but can’t find it now, of course!
A while ago when we were discussing plugins, someone posted a very helpful post on deactivating the Limit Posts plugin, which totally screws up the home page if there are pics or links that display in that snippet.
I need to get rid of this plugin on the rest of my sites asap! The problem is I can’t find this post (the search tool here only looks in Mark’s posts,not comments) and of course I didn’t save it. Just deactivating the plugin doesn’t work. You also have to remove a piece of code from one of the files. This is the info I need to finish the job.
Does anyone remember this who can help me out?? Thanks!
@ Alice –
On your index.php file of the WordPress theme, the plugin uses the_content section to reform the length.
Look for the following code:
php the_content_limit(750, “more”);
It is on line #25 of an unedited version of the BANS-WordPress theme.
Replace it with:
php the_content(‘Read more »’);
Which is the wordpress default setting.
Mark
@Mark
Thanks, but I think that was too much of a good thing! Instead of the garbled up snippet of the post, I now have NO post. Just the clickable title and RSS links etc. I wanted the one that shows the unabridged post….
@ Alice –
Yeah – it looks like the comment was converted to html by seeing the >> at the end.
Just open one of your other theme index.php files, and find the section that is outlined above. ie: If you have the default or classic themes in wordpress still, open the index.php inside THAT theme folder and copy the code for the: “php the_content” portion, all the way from the < ?php "code here" to the closing ?> tag.
Paste it over your theme code and it will be fine.
Mark
I don’t have the WP update plugin or the redirect plug, yet. Thanks
I don’t always do my WP updates when I should and I didn’t realize there was a redirect plugin.
Just wanted to add one more plugin to the list. “Caffeinated Content Management” There is a fee for this plugin (sorry, don’t remember the price) but it’s well worth it. I just did four posts on four different blogs in a little over an hour. Just plug in your keyword and it will come back with question and answers to your keyword that only takes a few minutes to rewrite a unique and informative post.
@ Bob -
Great plugin for sure!! I posted a Caffinated Content tutorial about it a few weeks ago.
Any reason the redirection plugin for WP couldn’t be used instead of a cloaker program? I’m trying to shorten my affiliate links on my site by using redirection. Anyone else using redirection plugin for this purpose?
Bob -
I prefer my own homegrown page for affiliate links. If you use the redirection plugin, you end up 2 bad scenarios…
301 redirects – which will suck all the pagerank from your page and pass it to the link you are sending to.
302 redirects – which eventually bloats your site with the dreaded 302 cloak-a-like errors that flood all affiliate sites!
I have a directory I keep on my site, blocked from all spiders in robots.txt AND a meta-noindex tag, and in there… I setup the redirects.
Mark
These are very valuiable to me, primarily the RSS Footer. Thanks for posting this helpful information. I’m going to check into putting some of these to use.
Mark,
I found this plugin referenced on:
http://www.askapache.com/wordpress/htaccess-password-protect.html
The plugin will password protect, among other things, wp-content,and wp-admin directories and prevent unwanted bots from traversing your internal wordpress files. THe above link gors into more detail regarding its function. YOu can download from the link below:
Also, take the time to look at a few of the articles at askapace.com. They have some great tutorials on using .htaccess optimize and speed-up your sites and help with SEO.
http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/askapache-password-protect.4.6.5.zip
Ooh – I’m really excited about Caffeinated Content – hooray!
Ooh – I’m really excited about Caffeinated Content . I think I got some result.
Thank you here.
Good List
I also like Share This … and Online Word-press Themes Making Website mine …check it.
[...] tot his is that you DO NOT ACTIVATE the Google Sitemaps, or Redirect plugin Yet! Here is a list of 8 plugins I use on almost every site… however, the Automatic Upgrade is no longer [...]
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