Today I will take a look at all the best WordPress plugins I currently use on HowToMakeMyBlog.com. I will list them in order they are found in the WordPress 2.7 Plugins section. I will link to each of them and will explain why I use them and why I would recommend you to use them as well.
See step-by-step instructions on how to install WordPress and see also how to do the initial blog setup and customization.
Remove spam comments
Akismet – If you are listed in search engines and have a lot of traffic, you are bound to get massive amount of spam comments. This plugin makes your life much easier and saves you a lot of time. You need to get your free Api-key for this plugin.
Remove broken links
Broken Link Checker – Search engines do not like broken links. Your visitors do not like them either. This plugin scans your posts automatically, shows you broken links in WordPress dashboard and lets you easily unlink them.
Create contact forms
Cforms – If you need a contact form on your site, this plugin is simple to setup and works great. I use it for all contact forms on my blog, see it for example in my about Marko Saric page.
Thank commentators
Comment Redirect – I use this plugin to redirect visitors when they make their first comment on my blog. I redirect them to a thank you page where I thank for the comment, explain about my blog, and ask the reader to subscribe to my RSS newsfeed. Write a comment to this post, and see this plugin in action.
Remove unnecessary code
CSS Compress – I am not much into technical side of WordPress and CSS but I was told that this plugin removes all the unnecessary lines in the WordPress theme code, and that way makes the blog smaller and faster to load.
Combine all RSS subscribers
FeedBurner FeedSmith – I used the original WordPress RSS feed at the beginning of my blog, but then I moved over to Google services. So now I use this plugin as it detects all the old RSS subscribers and redirects them to my new RSS feed.
Make Google happy
Google XML Sitemaps – Google loves sitemaps and indexes sites/articles much quicker if you have a sitemap and you have it submitted to Google Webmaster Tools. Nice and simple way to ensure that Google finds and indexes your blog.
Optimize ping updates
MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer – WordPress automatically updates all your ping services, even if you just update or edit your article. If you edit your articles a lot, your blog risks of being banned from ping services for excessive pinging. This plugin solves the problem by only pinging your post when you publish it.
Confirm the unconfirmed subscribers
Notify Unconfirmed Subscribers – If you are using Feedburner email subscribe option, you know that some subscribers never confirm their subscription. This plugin lets you easily notify all the unconfirmed subscribers and inform them that they need to take additional step to approve their subscription.
Welcome your visitors
Referrer Detector – This plugin detects where your visitors are coming from and automatically displays the coresponding greeting. So for example when somebody visits my blog via Google.com, they get this message:
Welcome Googler! If you find this page useful, why not subscribe to the RSS feed for more interesting posts in the future?
Track what your visitors are looking for
Search Meter – This plugin tracks what your visitors are searching for in your “search” field. This way you can know what your visitors are looking for and what they find. Tracking this might help you make your blog design more usable and give you some topics to write about.
Notify visitors of new comments
Subscribe To Comments – This plugin allows your blog readers to subscribe to the comments on articles. Each time there is a new comment they will get an email notification. It helps getting visitors to return, getting more comments and building community around your blog posts.
Make Thesis easier
Thesis OpenHook – This plugins allows insertion of Thesis content hooks without editing the theme files. It is only for Thesis theme users. Read more on why I have chosen to go for a premium WordPress theme Thesis.
Remind new visitors to subscribe
What Would Seth Godin Do – This plugin displays a message to your new blog visitors. On howtomakemyblog.com I use it on the bottom of each post as a reminder to subscribe to my RSS news feed. Like this:
If you want to learn more about blogging please subscribe to HowToMakeMyBlog RSS feed or via email to receive all the latest articles!
List your most popular posts
WordPress.com Popular Posts – I use this plugin in the sidebar to show the 10 most popular posts on my blog. It is avery good way of showing your visitors your most popular posts, and it does improve usability of the site, plus improves your stats like pages viewed per visit, time spent on site and bounce rate.
Get your blog stats
WordPress.com Stats – I use this stats plugin because the WordPress.com Popular Posts plugin takes the data from this plugin to show the most popular posts by number of views. It does not count the views of logged in users, so your visits to your pages will not be counted. You need to get your free Api-key for this plugin.
Never lose any of your material
WordPress Database Backup – This plugins helps you keep a database backup of your blog. It is very simple and easy to use. You can set the plugin to make a regular backup of your blog and send it to you via email automatically. This way you will never lose the articles and archives you have written over the months/years in case of hacker attack or any other security vulnerability.
Speed up your blog
WP Super Cache – Another technical plugin. It will improve your blog’s loading time and will speed up your blog significantly. It helps your server handle a higher load without crashing, which can help in case you hit front page of Digg.com and start getting tons of traffic. Unfortunately the Digg.com part I still haven’t tested.
Create a Twitter field in comments
WP Twitip ID – This plugin adds another field to your blog’s comment form so your readers can add their Twitter ID’s when writing a comment. See this plugin in action on my blog in the comment field at the end of this article.
Show related posts
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – I use this plugin to show a list of related posts from my blog archives after each article I write. It improves the user experience and increases the time user’s spend on site, pages viewed per visit and bounce rate stats. See it in action after this article where it suggests you what to “see more”.
Top Twitter Plugins
See my article on top 5 Twitter plugins you should install to your WordPress blog.
Extra plugins for those who do not use Thesis
Thesis WordPress Theme that I use on my blog has the following functions automatically built in, so I do not need to use plugins. But if you are using other themes, the following plugins will give you a similar look/effect.
- All in One SEO Pack – This plugin makes it easy for you to optimize your article titles and other meta tags.
- Google Analytics – This plugin makes it easy for you to insert your Google Analytics code and start tracking your blog visitors.
- WP-Note – This plugin lets you insert notes in your article to make them stand out. Kind of similar to the yellow colored notes I have twice in this article.
- WordPress Gravatars – This plugin lets you display Gravatars of your readers in the comments section and can put your Gravatar on top of your article to show who the article was written by.
Hopefully this list gives you enough plugins to research and experiment with. Good luck with your blog optimization!
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If you liked this article, you may also like:
Why I run my blog on Thesis Wordpress Theme
Thesis theme gives my blog a professional, clean, easy-to-read layout and SEO friendly design. Thesis makes it simple to make your own blog unique. See more details and get your own Thesis today.
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Thank you. Very helpful, indeed. I start on the path of the blogger today… wish me luck. You just made it easier!
What a great list! There are a few here I’ve never been able to find — searching on the wrong keywords, I suppose. I’m in for an evening of blog tweaking, for sure.
Thanks for a really meaty blog.
@Julie Gomoll – Thanks! There were some problems between my server / Tweet This / Tweetburner so that’s why links suddenly stopped working. It should have been fixed now. Thanks for the support!
FYI, I used your TwitThis link, and it generated a bad link…
Marko!
Congratulations! I am building my blog on your knowledge and nobody said it will be easy at the beginning but this site is one of the most valuable sites I have been to.
Marko its me again…
which wp plugin can you suggest for bookmarking?
I am thinking about something flexible where I can add bookmarking sites and icons (not english)
thx
@ziben – I use the Tweet This plugin on my blog. I have already blogged about it at http://www.howtomakemyblog.com/twitter/how-to-automatically-add-tweet-this-to-your-blog-articles/ . It not only features Twitter, it also features Stumbleupon, Digg etc.
Great list. I see some here I didn’t know about and highly recommend most others.
Interesting list you had. Haven’t seen some that you have listed above- ping optimiser etc.. am going to add some of them to my blog. Hope that they improve it’s performance.
I love all the advice featured on this site including this list of very convenient plugins, but I wonder how much of this applies to a company blog? I understand on a personal basis how this may be helpful, but can the same approaches be taken by a corporation?
@Eddie – Definitely, same approach can be taken with a corporate blog. It just depends on you analyzing the situation, analyzing your audience, where they spend their time online, what they expect from your blog… and then taking the neccesery steps, with help of plugins and other tips here, to create the best blog possible.
Wow!! There is so much information here that I wasn’t aware of and I’m glad I’m reading it. This will certainly help me as I dust off my writing skills for future blogging. Cheers.
Very useful list of plugins. The backup one alone is worth the read
I just happened to get here thru your link on Twitter and find these plug ins very useful. I’ll have to try some of them out and see how it goes.
Great site in general and very useful information on this post. Some times you just want to know what other people are doing and why.
Hey, this is a super useful post and I’m happy to have discovered your site… it’s so clean and helpful.
I also want to see Comment Redirect in action! Thanks for the awesome list. Thesis openhook is also fantastic, I hate hacking php stuff too.
Great stuff here, I am working my way up to moving a blog or 2 over to WP and these post will be a great resource.
Hey this is cool..
But can any buddy help me out and tell me some wordpress plugins for the external wordpress blogssss..
Plzz ..
Regards,
Neil
Just wanted to test your comment functions.
I just stumbled on your site and have been reading article after article. I have recently got into blogging and twitter etc. and this site rocks for someone of my level of experience. Great info! Thinking about getting Thesis myself. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for this. I have a webdesigner doing most of my work so this is good to know for myself. I am going to bookmark and twit this now.
Very interesting collection will have to add a few of these interesting tools over at my site,
Many thanks, cp
Thanks for the information! Your writing style is clear and concise. I’ve bookmarked your site and will be back again.
Lorelei
Thanks so much for this post!!! I will be adding several of these plug-ins. I have some already.
I have had a terrible time with my blog taking forever to load and some of these look like they may help with that problem.
Thanks for the list. It is always great to see what others are using. I use many of these but it gave me a few new ones to try.
Great stuff, can’t wait for tomorrow, my day off…to implement a few…I’ll be subscribing!
Very helpful — I found several here that I wasn’t using or hadn’t understood before. Thanks!
Hi Marko,
I am glad I found your site/blog! Just started using Wordpress and you’re site already has proven to be very valuable to me. I’m following you on Twitter too and saw you’re one of my followers now. Thanks! Keep up the good work.
Kind regards,
Fieke Bazelmans
Thanks for the great tips and magazine layout
Thanks fot this list
Thanks so much!
Great information and links. Thanks so much. This was a great jumpstart for my blog.
Just discovered your website and immediately implemented many of the suggestions listed here. Keep up the great work!!!
Eric Rudd
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