My Favorite WordPress Plugins

If you are familiar with my blog, then you should know that I’m an avid WordPress user. Naturally, I decided my latest blog entry will be about one of the fun parts of blogging – the plugins (drool). Below is a list of my favorite WordPress plugins that I use on a daily basis.

All in One SEO Pack is a very simple tool to optimize your blog posts and pages. This is a great tool to improve your rankings in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Your title tag, meta tags, and meta descriptions are covered with this tool and you can automate these tags or manually add them in yourself.

SEO Slugs is another tool for optimizing your website. Use this tool to get rid of the excess words like is, are, an, the, etc…that means nothing in terms of keyword optimization. This WordPress plug-in allows for your permalink to be shortened for only the important keywords that will show on your web address.

WP Super Cache allows your WordPress site to load faster making the user experience a much more pleasant one. They don’t call it super for nothing. Remember that your website’s load time now affects how you rank in the search engines so this is a great tool to have for better SEO ranking.

Google XML Sitemap allows all the pages on your site to be indexed on the search engines that include Google, Yahoo, and Bing without you having to do much. All you need to do is download and install the plugin and the magic happens. The WordPress plugin automatically submits the sitemap to the search engines. This will help improve your rankings in the search engines and thus is another great SEO tool.

FD Feedburner is used to direct all RSS feeds to Google’s feedburner without you having to change any code. Just download the plugin and all RSS feeds are recorded in Google’s Feedburner, which provides analytics such as the number of subscribers, reach, and clicks. It gives you an understanding of which blog post is most popular in order for you to better focus your blog topics.

SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam protects your computer from those pesky bots from leaving their droppings, aka spam on your WordPress site, so to speak. Any user who wants to leave a comment on your blog post will have to fill in a specific CAPTCHA code or a code with letters and/or numbers.

Akismet is another great spam fighter for comments and trackbacks. It also provides analytics of your spam and ham (the legit comments). You will need to obtain an API key at WordPress.com to get Akismet running.

WP Google Analytics allows you to monitor your traffic using Google Analytics. This plugin integrates with Google Analytics so long as you have a Google Analytics account, which is free to obtain. Rather than adding the analytics code to the backend of your website, you can just install this plugin onto your site, paste your code that you are given when you sign up for Google Analytics, and voila you’re ready to go. You can track every page on your site through Google Analytics.

WPtouch iPhone Theme makes your WordPress site look aesthetically pleasing on the iPhone, Android, and any other touch based smartphone. The WordPress plugin converts your website user interface to a mobile user interface that is simple and easy to view. The Pro version is coming out soon, but the regular version is free.

WordPress Related Posts displays your related WordPress blogs based on your tags. This is a great way to get your readers to stick around your site for a little longer to read other blog posts that they may be interested in.

Thank Me Later sends those who generously comment on your blog a thank you email. Here is your opportunity to show your readers how much you appreciate them. Also, you can reach out to them and inform them of other ways to engage with you on WordPress or in the social networks even.

Digg this Button, TweetMeme Retweet Button, WP Google-buzz, Like are all WordPress plugins that are great for keeping up with your social media activity. The creators make it is way convenient for your readers to tout your blog posts. I know there are plugins that have the all-in-one social media buttons, but I like using the singular buttons more because the buttons appear less cluttered.

Post Ideas+, although conceptually a really simple WordPress plugin, is in fact really useful and necessary. Here you can list out all your blog ideas and add tags, links, and priority to it. The list shows up on your dashboard so you always know what’s in the horizon. This is a great organization tool.