One of the strengths of WordPress is that it can be easily adapted to meet a wide range of different needs. As I write this, there are over 7800 plugs available in the WordPress Plugin Directory.
This is the “official” plugin repository, and there are probably another couple of thousand plugins available which are not listed here.
The plugins which are listed in the WordPress.org directory can be installed with a couple of mouse clicks, from within WordPress. It’s become easier and easier to install plugins, and even those which are not listed in the directory can be installed from within WordPress – no FTP program is needed.
For any specific task, you will probably find more than one plugin which will do the job. All things being equal, one way to decide between similar plugins is by checking how recently the developer has updated the plugin. There are many plugins in the directory which were most recently updated in 2007. They may very well still work, but WordPress has been through a number of major revisions since then. It’s usually best to see that the plugin has been updated to keep up with the latest changes to the system.
Ultimately the decision to use one particular plugin or another is down to personal choice. I’ve experimented with a wide selection of plugins over the years, and the following is a list of the plugins I keep coming back to (in no particular order):
An SEO plugin is pretty much essential to alter the way WordPress creates the Title and Description tags for your posts. Since these two tags are often used by the search engines as the basis of your listing, they are very important.
All-In-One-SEO Pack is a ‘quick ‘n dirty’ solution, which doesn’t require a deep understanding of SEO. Greg’s High Performance SEO provides a much better solution from a technical perspective. It’s worth installing just to read the comprehensive explanation of SEO for WordPress. However, it is much more difficult to set up.
WordPress comes with Akismet pre-installed. This is an excellent plugin for preventing comment spam. However, I use WP-SpamFree for two reasons:
1. It doesn’t require a WordPress API key. When you’re building dozens of WordPress sites, removing one or two steps (however simple) is a definite advantage.
2. It includes a simple spam-protected contact form. This is usually enough for affiliate marketing sites. If you need complete control over the forms on a blog, use Contact Form 7.
Security is a concern for any website which is accessible to the public. The Antivirus plugin scans your WordPress installation every day and emails you if it it finds any suspicious files.
If you’re using Google Analytics, you need to insert a snippet of Javascript code on each page you want to track. You can do this manually, but if you change themes, you have to remember to do it to the new theme. A Google Analytics plugin does this for you automatically. I like Google Analyticator because it displays a summary of your Analytics results on the WordPress dashboard.
If you look at the home page of this blog, you’ll see that the first post is displayed in full, and the other posts are shown as extracts. The only place where a blog post should be displayed in full is on its ’single post’ page – the page you get to by clicking on the post title. This plugin allows you to display the older posts as extracts, with the most recent post being the only one to be displayed in full.
This is the only plugin I use regularly which is not included in the WordPress directory.
One of the differences between a blog-based content publishing system like WordPress and a static site is that WordPress includes the infrastructure to automatically notify a number of blog directories every time you post something new. This plugin modifies the default behaviour of WordPress by preventing it from repeating the notification when a post is edited. It also stops WordPress from sending a notification when a post is scheduled for a future date.
This plugin is extremely useful when you’re creating a new WordPress installation. It lets you paste in a list of plugins to be installed, and then automatically installs them for you. It’s much faster than doing each plugin one-by-one, and easier (and faster) than using an FTP program to upload the plugins from your computer.
Sociable creates a row of social bookmarking icons at the end of each post, which makes it easy for your readers to bookmark or vote for the post at their favorite social media sites. There are tons of these plugins available, but this is my favorite, partly because it includes some South African sites like Muti and Laaik.it
Backing up your database is very important, and this plugin takes care of it for you. I set it up to automatically email the backup to my GMail account once a week (you can do it more often if you prefer).
The list of plugins you’ll end up with depends on the purpose of your website. Don’t be afraid to experiment. If you can imagine doing something with a WordPress blog, someone has probably created a plugin to do that.
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Affiliate Marketing 8: WordPress Plugins
One of the strengths of WordPress is that it can be easily adapted to meet a wide range of different needs. As I write this, there are over 7800 plugs available in the WordPress Plugin Directory.
This is the “official” plugin repository, and there are probably another couple of thousand plugins available which are not listed here.
The plugins which are listed in the WordPress.org directory can be installed with a couple of mouse clicks, from within WordPress. It’s become easier and easier to install plugins, and even those which are not listed in the directory can be installed from within WordPress – no FTP program is needed.
For any specific task, you will probably find more than one plugin which will do the job. All things being equal, one way to decide between similar plugins is by checking how recently the developer has updated the plugin. There are many plugins in the directory which were most recently updated in 2007. They may very well still work, but WordPress has been through a number of major revisions since then. It’s usually best to see that the plugin has been updated to keep up with the latest changes to the system.
Ultimately the decision to use one particular plugin or another is down to personal choice. I’ve experimented with a wide selection of plugins over the years, and the following is a list of the plugins I keep coming back to (in no particular order):
All-In-One-SEO Pack
An SEO plugin is pretty much essential to alter the way WordPress creates the Title and Description tags for your posts. Since these two tags are often used by the search engines as the basis of your listing, they are very important.
All-In-One-SEO Pack is a ‘quick ‘n dirty’ solution, which doesn’t require a deep understanding of SEO. Greg’s High Performance SEO provides a much better solution from a technical perspective. It’s worth installing just to read the comprehensive explanation of SEO for WordPress. However, it is much more difficult to set up.
WP-SpamFree
WordPress comes with Akismet pre-installed. This is an excellent plugin for preventing comment spam. However, I use WP-SpamFree for two reasons:
1. It doesn’t require a WordPress API key. When you’re building dozens of WordPress sites, removing one or two steps (however simple) is a definite advantage.
2. It includes a simple spam-protected contact form. This is usually enough for affiliate marketing sites. If you need complete control over the forms on a blog, use Contact Form 7.
Antivirus
Security is a concern for any website which is accessible to the public. The Antivirus plugin scans your WordPress installation every day and emails you if it it finds any suspicious files.
Google Analyticator
If you’re using Google Analytics, you need to insert a snippet of Javascript code on each page you want to track. You can do this manually, but if you change themes, you have to remember to do it to the new theme. A Google Analytics plugin does this for you automatically. I like Google Analyticator because it displays a summary of your Analytics results on the WordPress dashboard.
Google XML Sitemaps
This plugin automatically generates an XML sitemap for your WordPress site, updates it when you add a new post and notifies the search engines.
Homepage Excerpts
If you look at the home page of this blog, you’ll see that the first post is displayed in full, and the other posts are shown as extracts. The only place where a blog post should be displayed in full is on its ’single post’ page – the page you get to by clicking on the post title. This plugin allows you to display the older posts as extracts, with the most recent post being the only one to be displayed in full.
This is the only plugin I use regularly which is not included in the WordPress directory.
MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer
One of the differences between a blog-based content publishing system like WordPress and a static site is that WordPress includes the infrastructure to automatically notify a number of blog directories every time you post something new. This plugin modifies the default behaviour of WordPress by preventing it from repeating the notification when a post is edited. It also stops WordPress from sending a notification when a post is scheduled for a future date.
One Click Plugin Updater
This plugin tells you if there are pending updates for any of your plugins, and lets you update all of them with one click.
Plugin Central
This plugin is extremely useful when you’re creating a new WordPress installation. It lets you paste in a list of plugins to be installed, and then automatically installs them for you. It’s much faster than doing each plugin one-by-one, and easier (and faster) than using an FTP program to upload the plugins from your computer.
Sociable
Sociable creates a row of social bookmarking icons at the end of each post, which makes it easy for your readers to bookmark or vote for the post at their favorite social media sites. There are tons of these plugins available, but this is my favorite, partly because it includes some South African sites like Muti and Laaik.it
WordPress Database Backup
Backing up your database is very important, and this plugin takes care of it for you. I set it up to automatically email the backup to my GMail account once a week (you can do it more often if you prefer).
The list of plugins you’ll end up with depends on the purpose of your website. Don’t be afraid to experiment. If you can imagine doing something with a WordPress blog, someone has probably created a plugin to do that.