Top Wordpress Plugins Every Blog Should Have
- 41 Comments
- By Zac Johnson on March 3rd, 2010
I’m always working on new projects and half of them are new blog sites, usually in niche markets. When setting up a new blog, I have a separate folder I use for uploading all of my important wordpress plugins. I’m always on the look out for ways to improve spacing, loading times and reader interaction, and many of the plugins do just that. Here is my breakdown on wordpress plugins that every blog should be using.
Stop Spam with Akismet
This one is a given, but it’s still a necessity. Without Akisment, managing your blog and comments would just be a pain. The bigger your site traffic the more comment spam you will get. You may be getting comment spam on your new blogs before even getting a real comment. The bottom line is, Akismet is your first line of defense for cutting down comment spam.
- Download Akismet for Wordpress
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)
You spend a lot of time writing your blog content, don’t let your old posts die and get lost for ever. Once a reader gets to the bottom of your post, instead of seeing just a comment form, add in the YARPP plugin and show a list of your older related posts as well. This is a great way to bring new traffic and attnetion to your older posts.
- Download YARRP for Wordpress
Improve Your Chances of a High SEO Listing
Bring your blog’s search engine power to the next level by adding the “All-in-One SEO” plugin. This plugin is at the top of many designers lists as a must have. All in One SEO allows you to add in your own meta description, title tags and keywords for individual blog posts and pages.
- Download All in One SEO for Wordpress
Threading Your Comments is a Must
It wasn’t til recently that I set this blog up with threaded comments. Before then, it was a mess and very annoying to respond to someone, as it would set all comments out of order. The blog is now running of Brian’s Threaded Comments plugin, which keeps everything clean and organized, while actually increasing your blog commenting activity.
- Download Brian’s Threaded Comments for Wordpress
Bring in Free Viral Traffic with Twitter
There are a lot of different options to choose from when adding social media buttons to your blog. I’ve been using TweetMeme for a while now and have been happy with it. In short, this plugin will create a short redirect link and allow other Twitter users to “retweet” your post in a single click. This is great for bringing in free viral traffic.
- Download TweetMeme for Wordpress
WP Super Cache to the Rescue
Any digg, resource or social media related blog already understands and appreciates the value of WP Super Cache. This plugin is responsible for saving a ton of downtime and server crashes for blogs overloading with traffic. WP Super Cache plugin increases the page/post loading time and reduces the resource consumption on your server.
- Download WP Super Cache for Wordpress
Is Your Blog iPhone Ready?
Last year I finally got my hands on the iPhone and there is no going back. Unfortunately many sites just didn’t look that great, or where overwhelmed with content. I came across a plugin called WPTouch, which make your blog completely accessible and easy to read through the iPhone. This plugin is definitely worth checking out. (I also did a full post on this plugin a while back)
- Download WPtouch iPhone Theme for Wordpress
Other top notable wordpress plugins on my list include; Contact Form 7, Subscribe to Comments, Wordpress Automatic Upgrade, Wordpress Backup & Google XML Sitemaps.
There’s hundreds of amazing plugins out there, and I’ve only mentioned a few. Feel free to leave a comment with your favorite wordpress plugin that isn’t on the list.
- Posted in Blogging
"With great power comes great responsibility".... my Uncle Ben told me that. Haha, just kidding! I'm Zac Johnson and I've been making money online for over 10 years now. In short, I started making money online while I was in high school... but my passion for marketing and making money goes back way earlier than that. I created ZacJohnson.com to help motivate you to start making money online, and live the life the you always dreamed of.
I keep forgetting to get around to getting an iPhone plugin. Let’s hope I don’t get that many iPhone readers.
ReplyI was having some serious performance issues with some of my Wordpress installations. I found a post online that YARPP made a ton of calls to the database and reduced performance significantly. So I switched to a different related post plug in and my performance issues went away.
ReplyI’ve been using All-In-SEO plugin for years and it works well with my blogs but only basic features are incorporated with this plugin.
Yet-Another-Related-Posts plugin is for your internal linkings if you want an automatic way of internal cross linking of your related pages within your website.
ReplyGood comprehensive list Zac. I’ve used all these on every blog I’ve ever started and agree they’re must-haves.
ReplyAll In One SEO is not programmed very good. It is even forbidden on some hosts. It also got a bunch of security flaws that got plugins based on it removed from the WP.org systems. AIOSEO was left in there though probably due to its popularity.
There is a another plugin that is based on it called Light SEO by Alden Torres. Light SEO is faster and leaner than AIOSEO. You can read about it on Aldens blog.
For caching another good plugin is W3 Total Cache. Don’t know if its faster or equal to Super Cache but it got a lot of cool features that SC don’t have. It feels faster but thats not very scientific.
ReplyGood list Zac.
Bear in mind though that you don’t need a plugin for threaded comments. It became standard on WordPress in version 2.7.
Tweetmeme has to be my favourite on your list, just because it’s so effective.
ReplyThis was a good update for wordpress. I haven’t updated a bunch of my older blogs with the latest version yet, so I’m still running the plugin elsewhere.
ReplyEasy Privacy Policy is another great plugin. Automatic creates your privacy policy page in a few clicks.
ReplyI like the All in One SEO plugin, but the Meta Robots plugin is a pretty good one as well.
ReplyThe Identify External Links plugin is a great one too.
All of those plugins are good. But I like more Platinum SEO than All in SEO pack. ShareThis is also a plugin that I like
ReplyI haven’t tried the the threaded comments plugin . It would definitely help to organize my comments, but I’d be interested to see if it spurred conversation on my blog.
As Kevin mentioned there’s a setting in the latest version of WordPress (2.9.2) in Settings | Discussion | Other Comment Settings. I checked the box “Enable threaded (nested) comments 5 levels deep” You have the option to choose how many levels deep.
Thanks for the list!
ReplyHey cool list of wordpress plugins, there were a few I wasn’t aware of there. Askimet is the one I always reach for, I found this sitemap generator doesn’t seem to hurt when submitting to search engines http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
Reply@:
ReplyTotally agree with Inner Game about the sitemap generator.
Finally! because of your very informative post now I got this Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) which I’m looking for a long time ago. I always see this plugin on blogs and I don’t know what it’s name. Thanks!
Replyakismet and All in one SEO Pack is my favorite plugin in Wordpress..Love it..
ReplyHi Zac, this is a great post! I’m using almost of this plugins especially SEO pack and YARPP. This is a helpful blog. Thanks. Keep up the good Articles.
Till then,
Regie
ReplyThe user could also retweet your post using the plugin Addtoany.
ReplyAll of those plugins are good. But I like more Platinum SEO than All in SEO pack. ShareThis is also a plugin that I like
ReplyI need to get YARPP and TweetMeme, but the rest I have – all great recommendations.
ReplyWhy do you need wp automatic update, when the latest version of wp lets you update on the fly?
ReplyStatpress, Auto Update plugin, retweet, subscribe2 plugin are really useful plugins too.
ReplyYou aren’t going to find a theme that has these features. You can, however, create a theme of your own easily if you know css and can play with javascript a little (you will need this for onClick changes to your menus).
ReplyI’m with Laptop Tamiri, I like Platinum SEO Pack better than all in one.
And I wish more plugins worked as well and seamlessly as YARPP. I love that one most of all lol.
Reply…did I really just agree with a bots opinion? Saw that “laptop tamiri” and all4internet” have the exact same comment…new spam bots out there?
ReplyGive few list of word press plug in.
Reply“All-in-One SEO” plugin is pretty good for my seo, works well.
ReplyI think “Visitor Maps and Who’s Online” is also good plugin, so you can know your visitor better…
ReplyAwesome! I use almost all of these plugins but have not been using Brian’s Threaded Comments for Wordpress. It will make my blog look so much nicer and more professional too! Thanks!
ReplyI also love the Google XML sitemap plugin and SImilar/Latest posts, it helps indexing better all the posts!
ReplyThe all in one seo dont work on my wordpress blog maybe Its my theme stopping it from working. The tweetme works just great though
ReplyI downloaded the all in one seo from here its great, cant believe I didnt know about this.
Reply@:
Replythanks zac for this list
Thanks a lot, I was already using most of them but threading comments is a great idea!
ReplyGreat idea on threading comments
ReplyZac,
Great post.. would only add the google xml sitemap to this list
Jim
ReplyAkismet has been very essential on my blog due to using commentluv. Spammers try their best to get their comments but the plugin has done a wonderful job so far to stop them.
ReplyThe “all in one SEO” plug in is so simple and very effective. I’ve seen it get a lot of people to the first page of google
ReplyThanks, I’ve just added those new plugings to my wordpress. Not really sure how all of them work and if the will be compatible with all sorts of themes?
Thanks for this
ReplyThanks for the list, I am using a few of these plugins now and am really liking them.
ReplyI have been using Akismet and so far it has worked pretty good.
ReplyThanks for the information about the Akismet and YARPP plugins. Help stop spammers!
Reply