30+ Must Have Wordpress Plugins

By Chris, BUSINESS 2.0 PRESS
Published: February 23 2009, 10:36 pm EST

wordpress 128 30+ Must Have Wordpress Plugins

Here is the most comprehensive list of all the Wordpress plugins you need as of today to maximize the potential of your own blog. For months, I’ve been able to bookmark hundreds of plugins, and now I’ve done all the work for you by sorting the best plugins you only need to truely leverage Wordpress! In no particular order, here they are!

All in One SEO Pack
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
Optimizes your Wordpress blog for search engines by Automatically optimizing your titles and META tags.

IntenseDebate
http://intensedebate.com/
Replaces default comment system with advanced commenting, threaded replies, karma points (not for individual comments), Gravatars, RSS, ability to reply to comments from email (great to reply from your Blackberry), all in one management from the website for users. It also comes with the optional Intense Debate Top Commentators sidebar widget to display your top commentators, great to encourage commenting (however, the Disqus one below is a lot more comprehensive).

Disqus Commenting System
http://disqus.com
Replaces your comment template with the more advanced Disqus comment system. Disqus is also the only system to support Facebook Connect out of the box. I’ve contacted IntenseDebate directly and they told me there is no current plan to support Facebook Connect. Disqus also features RSS, Gravatars, threaded comments, comment karma, and lets you easily see comments made by the same user on other sites. I prefer Disqus as it offers Facebook Connect support out-of-the-box that could help you tap into the Facebook community. Disqus also features top commentators, recent comments widgets. Also, with Disqus you can enable video comments with seesmic.

Digg Digg
http://www.mkyong.com/blog/digg-digg-wordpress-plugin/
Adds Digg, Reddit, Yahoo Buzz buttons with counters for your readers to easily vote for your posts from your page. I was able to contact the author who also told me Stumble Upon support is on its way as well.

Sociable
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sociable/
Automatically add links to your favorite social bookmarking sites on your posts, pages and in your RSS feed. You can choose from 99 different social bookmarking sites including Digg, Reddit, SU, Mixx, Propeller. You can also add e-mail and print buttons. It also supports TwitThis, but the plugin can be made easier by using TinyURL (or another URL shortening service) and automatically logging the user into Twitter with the URL and Title already shown.

Google Analytics
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/
Google Analytics provides highly advanced website tracking and management information free of charge. Use this plug-in to easily add the code so Google Analytics can immediately begin to track all of your pages

Lifestream
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/lifestream/
Lifestream displays your social feeds and activity from many social sites. Includes support to display your Flickr photos, Facebook feed, Friendster feed, Youtube videos, Twitter updates, any other RSS feed, from your other blogs, etc.

DB Backup
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/
Easily backup/restore your posts and entire Wordpress database. Download or send your back to your email.

WP Greet Box
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-greet-box/
Displays different greeting message to your new visitors depending on their referrer URL. For example, when a Digg user clicks through from Digg, they will see a message reminding them to digg your post if they like it. The plug-in also includes out of the box support for getting messages from users coming from Reddit, SU, Facebook, Google (shows searched keywords as well), Mixx, etc. You can also easily add your own custom greeting from people coming from any site you choose.

WP-SpamFree
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-spamfree/
An extremely powerful anti-spam plugin for WordPress that virtually eliminates comment spam, including trackback and pingback spam. I find the plug-in works surprisingly well by eliminating all automated spam. It does somewhat use a bit of bandwidth sometimes.

WP Super Cache
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/
This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts. Some people have complained about compatibility problems with other plugins, so exercise some caution here and follow the instructions carefully. However, the plugin is very good and can save you a significan amount of bandwidth.

Google XML Sitemaps
http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/
Generates a XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog. This format is supported by Ask.com, Google, YAHOO and MSN Search.

Category Posts Widget
http://jameslao.com/2008/04/18/category-posts-widget-13/
Displays any amount of posts you want from a specific category in your sidebar

Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form
http://green-beast.com/blog/?page_id=136
Lets you create a very secure contact form with custom fields so your readers can easily contact you.

Popularity Contest
http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress
Shows your readers your most popular posts based on views, comments, pingbacks, among other criteria. You can also change the weight of each criteria to determine the most popular post.

WP Since Last Visit
http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress
Indicates with a small “New” picture beside your post to users who have not yet seen your post from their last visit. Also works with comments.

Twitter Tools
http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress
Allows you to pull your tweets into your blog (as posts and digests) and create new tweets on blog posts and from within WordPress.

Wordpress Download Monitor
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/download-monitor/
Download Monitor is a plugin for uploading and managing downloads, tracking download hits, and displaying links.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
http://mitcho.com/code/yarpp/
Gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site

WP Page Numbers
http://www.jenst.se/2008/03/29/wp-page-numbers
Adds pagination to your Wordpress navigation, good for search engines.

WP-PostRatings
http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/#wp-postratings
Allows your readers to vote on how they liked your article. You can also display your highest or lowest voted posts on your sidebar.

WP-PostViews
http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/#wp-postviews
Allows you to display the number of times your post has been viewed.

AdSense Manager
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/adsense-manager/
Lets you add Google AdSense, Yahoo, AdBrite, among other ads, to your sidebar or anywhere else on your blog.

Smart YouTube
http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/wordpress-plugins/smart-youtube
Allows you to easily insert Youtube videos in your post, comments and in your RSS feed

Video widget
http://www.nikohk.com/plugin-wordpress-video-widget/
Easily display videos from many different video sharing websites on your sidebar or blog, including from YouTube, DailyMotion, Google Video, Metacafe, Reever, MySpace, Blip.tv, Quicktime, Windows Media Player, among many others

FlickrRSS
http://eightface.com/wordpress/flickrrss/
Lets you easily display your Flickr photos on your blog, comes with a sidebar widget. Note: Lifestream plug-in also supports this so you may not need this plugin.

Facebook Connect Community
http://www.sociable.es/facebook-connect
Allows your users to sign in with their Facebook account. It also supports comments to be sent to the users news feed, which can draw you some good viral traffic. However, it does not work with IntenseDebate. I just contacted IntenseDebate and they told me they do not plan to offer Facebook Connect support, which is unfortunate because that would make life a lot more easier, especially for people who want all the advanced features of IntenseDebate but also want the ability for comments to be sent to the Facebook newsfeed.

DropCap First Character WordPress Plugin
http://www.rc.au.net/blog/2006/07/27/dropcap-first-character-wordpress-plugin/
What it does is it makes the first character of the post BIG in a magazine style.

Front Page Excluded Categories
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/front-page-excluded-categories/
As the title suggests, it blocks categories you don’t want from displaying on your home page

Subscribe-Remind
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-remind/
Invites your readers to subscribe to your RSS feed below each post

Exec-PHP
http://bluesome.net/post/2005/08/18/50
Executes PHP code in posts, pages, or your sidebar.

Did I miss a plugin? Drop a comment and I might just add it.

And remember, to truely leverage your site, ensure you have your custom domain (not you.wordpress.com), a good and reliable blog web hosting company, a good clean theme (see here, here, and here), and of course, most of the plugins above.

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Questions about this post? Please contact Chris at chris@business2press.com

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  • Great list, I'll try some plugin listed here, thank you:)
  • JoeAnne11
    I don't really like wordpress, there are other blogs that outrank it, from my point of view.
  • Hey, which platforms do you think are superior?
  • Nice list
  • I suggest to use free PHP IDE Codelobster PHP Edition with special WordPress plug-in.
  • lortech
    thanks for the great list!
  • Some great plugins here, that's for sure, thanks for letting me know.
  • Great list. It's a shame we still need plugins to change page and category orders.
  • Cool plugging. I will try some of them on my blog. Most of them are not necessary, but I liked few of them I didn't use before.
  • nice list.....i m using few of them.
  • Would you believe I've just been looking for a popular plugin summary! Excellent thanks!
  • great list,but for the readers i just want to mention that seo platinum is also a good plugin instead of seo plugin.
    thanks
  • Chris
    Hey Alan page order can be managed with the my page order plugin.
  • Hey Chris! what's your plugin URL?
  • Great compilation of cool plugins, I was really searching for some of them. Thanks again.
  • joe
    "Sharethis" plugin. it's pretty good.
  • You missed the Thank-Me-Later plugin.. :)
  • Hi Hercules,

    I work for Frontier Marketing in Duluth, Georgia. We have an offline newsletter called the Internet Marketing Dirt that circulates to 3,500+ subscribers.

    Is it OK to add this great article in our March 2009 addition? You can have a resource box with your URL or whatever you want.

    Please let me know ASAP! =) You can reach me at jasonatfrontier [at] gmail.com

    Thanks,

    Jason
    Frontier Marketing Intl LLC
  • aybecker
    Pretty nice post here, really relevant and up to date. I personally try to only use a limited about of plugins as i think that if u start using to many of them they can negatively effect productivity when in reality they are meant to save time. here are some of the wordpress plugins i'm adamant about. WP Plugins

    i guess what i'm saying is focus more on writing quality content and getting decent back links over getting every plugin ever created.
  • hey! great list you got there too :)
  • Anderson
    Among all plugins i tried to only use a limited about of plugins as i think that if u start using to many of them they can negatively effect productivity.. so choose the some that suits your blog and helps to improve its look..
  • I am using some plugins mention in this list. But i will try to use some more plugins. "All in One SEO Pack" is a good plugins
  • Facebook connect u have listed have tons of prob while installing. so disqus is the better choice and it rocks :)

    - Robin
  • Thnx for the list dud
  • This is a great list of plugins to use for your wordpress blog. we use quite a few of these ourselves so we knwo they do help.
  • Excellent list here of the best wordpress plugins to use.
  • nice list there.
    thx for sharing.
  • Great Plugins. You might wanna check out http://www.memberwing.com/184.html too if you need some sort of a membership plugin.
  • princevasquez
    Do you know of a plugin that sets your Top Navigation into instead of pages, but categories?
    Let me know if you do.. thanks.
  • You can just do this

    <?php wp_list_categories('title_li=') ?>

    but you'lll have to add your own styling.
  • princevasquez
    Thanks. One more thing, do you know of a plugin that offers a flyout sidebar menu? (please not the one on pixopoint.com)

    Thanks
  • Nice list... I really the commenting system of disqus...
    I am using it for two months and I love using it...
    Great post..
  • alwayswordpress
    This is a great post, and I hate to "piggy-back", but I just published a piece that shares the plugins that we've been using as professional bloggers for three years. A few of the 7 we discuss include FeedburnerFeedsmith, Wordpress.com Stats, and Google XML Sitemaps.

    You can find the post here: http://alwayswordpress.com/blogging/7-best-word......

    Thanks!
  • Hi,

    Thanks for providing such a helpful list. I will install some of the plugins that I don't have. AddThis Button is another great plugin.
  • Great post.. this is really a great information..This will be useful post.. I will comeback for more..

    Cheers,
    sain-web.com
  • Some good links there, definitely agree with Smart YouTube and YARPP. However, it's a shame your list was created before my plugin was released!

    I've created a mobile plugin for wordpress written in WAPL that means every single device in the world works perfectly when viewing your blog. You get to retain your brand identity from web to mobile as well as being able to customize every single element on the site.

    It's called the Wapple Architect Mobile Plugin for Wordpress and there are a ton of features in the latest version. If you fancy checking it out, here's the homepage: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wapple-arch...

    It'd be great to hear what people thought and if you need any help get in touch at http://mobilewebjunkie.com
  • WOW you really did that one, well I have to check it out for my self it sounds very interesting
  • cool! i using few plugin from your suggestion ! just leave a msg to thank you.
  • Great to hear! Which ones r u using?
  • I will try some of them on my blog. Most of them are not necessary, but I liked few of them I didn't use before.
  • Looks like Intensedebate has added Facebook Connect now. I just went to their web site (thanks for the recommendation) and saw it in th feature list.
  • Thanks for the list.
  • Hey!
    Excellant Entry I found the facebook plugin quite interesting to include on my wordpress!!!

    I've just done a post with top 10 plugins for this year if anyone interested? If so follow this link:

    http://www.kinocreative.co.uk/resources/20-usef...

    From Tony Simpson :D
  • Let's not forget the cforms plugin for easy to create forms with database tracking and customizable options you can dl it here: http://www.deliciousdays.com/cforms-plugin
  • there are many link to be downloaded given in the blog.I would like to download many theme related software vary fast.
  • ashokeban
    Great Information. These posting really helps.
  • alllenooctave
    Nice post, thanks you
  • thanksssssss
  • Thank you.
  • Nice list, thanks bunch!
  • I have most of these so I know they are good plugins but one of the best plugins I have found is called Pretty Link.

    Go to your control panel and click on plugins, then click add new plugin, type Pretty Link in the search bar, then install it.

    What it does is takes a long url or affiliate url and gives you back a link that has your website address in it. Take for instance I have an affiliate link http://marketerscry.magneticsponsoringonline.com and I add it to Pretty link and it comes out like this http://imfreedomcoaching.com/magnetic

    Not only does that look better, when you click on it the link will stay that way in the browser so it's masked.
  • I have most of these so I know they are good plugins but one of the best plugins I have found is called Pretty Link.

    Go to your control panel and click on plugins, then click add new plugin, type Pretty Link in the search bar, then install it.

    What it does is takes a long url or affiliate url and gives you back a link that has your website address in it. Take for instance I have an affiliate link http://marketerscry.magneticsponsoringonline.com and I add it to Pretty link and it comes out like this http://imfreedomcoaching.com/magnetic

    Not only does that look better, when you click on it the link will stay that way in the browser so it's masked.
  • Great list. I was looking for that wp greet box thing, forgotten what it's called. Thank a mil.
  • I have to install Simple Tag plugin for my blogs. This plugin has feature to link word in your post which match with your blog tag. Thanks for this list. I'm searching something new interesting plugin for my blog, but actually I have installed all of plugin do you list.

    thanks again.
  • Great list! Here are two that I'm digging:

    One of my new faves is Apture, which is like an embedded Zemanta for adding links, pics and more. Been using it for a bit now and it's really slick.

    I'm also a fan of Wibiya (www.wibiya.com) which creates a floating bar at the bottom of your page that allows people to tweet (and follow you), search your site, become a fan on facebook, and subscribe without being taken off of your page. They were invite only when I added it, but may have opened up to the public by now.
  • I use a plugin called "Datafeedr Random Ads V2" It allows you to simply and easily show random ads anywhere in your template files or using widgets.
    you can add Images, Javascript, Adsense code, etc..
  • I was trying to implement adbrite on my blog , and then I came across your post and I have implemented Advertising Manager (updated version of Adsense Manager)
  • Thanks for the great collection of wordpress plugins. Thank you so much.
  • The list is superb and i agree with them, I like the post. Thanks for sharing you blog.
  • thanks for the tips, I didn't know about google analytics plugin - it's very useful!
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