One of the best things about WordPress is the availability of thousands of plug-ins that you can use with your blog. WordPress has a large developer community, and there are more than 8,000 plug-ins currently available! That makes it the largest plug-in database of all.
But that doesn’t mean you go out and try out all of them! It’ll be years before you try them all out! (assuming of course that you are not a 24/7 blogging geek :P). And honestly speaking, not all of those 8,000 plug-ins are useful (not to every blogger at least). That’s why we have compiled a list of the top 25 plug-ins in use today. They are very simple yet powerful and efficient. Professional bloggers like Amit Agarwal, Darren Rowse and Zac Johnson use these plug-ins as well (trust them if you don’t trust us :P).
So unless you intend to experiment (a LOT), you can choose plug-ins from this list only.
SEO
WordPress SEO is a nice tool that will help your SEO. It automatically adds meta tags necessary for search engines. It also helps you create better, keyword rich titles. Duplicate pages that have been archived can be blocked from search engine bots.
This tool automatically links keywords and phrases within your site. It also allows you to add attributes like ‘nofollow‘. Search Engines like inter-linking pages. Hence it increases your page rank.
This is a great plug-in that takes care of most of your SEO so you can concentrate on your posts. With it, you can tag posts, change themes, run disabled plug-ins on specific pages, create custom titles, and much more
Generate a sitemap in a single click for your whole blog! Search Engines need sitemaps. So this tool will do it for you easily
Use this if you want to set up any redirect rules, in case a link to any of your posts or pages has changed
This is a database clean-up and optimization tool. You can remove post revisions, spam and trash comments and deleted posts. Hence it cleans up your MySQL database so that it works more efficiently.
Whenever a user lands on a ‘404 Not Found’ page on your site, Bing 404 displays links to relevant pages, so that the user does not exit your site. You can use another service called 404 Email Notifier which will sent you email links detailing where the user got lost and where he came from etc.
Administration
Make your blog load faster! WP Super Cache saves pages as static HTML documents. So whenever a request is made, those html files load up in users’ browsers without processing any heavy PHP scripts. Two other similar plug-ins are also available; Hyper Cache and W3 Total Cache.
This is a very powerful searching tool. Use it to search and replace any type of data stored on your site, including meta data, posts, comments etc.
3. MaxBlog Press Affiliate Ninja
This WordPress plugin massively cuts down on the time taken to promote affiliate products throughout your site. It converts identified keywords, tracks down clicks, and much more. You won’t have to track down your affiliate links as they are already there on the dashboard, doing the work for you.
This little tool makes it easier for users to navigate through your posts without much effort. Is also looks better than plain text links.
Back-up your database either manually, or schedule for automatic back up. Backup files are sent to your email so that your data is not lost.
Using this, you can speed up your blog’s loading time. It looks for queries in your MySQL database that are taking time. It can then make necessary adjustments itself, or you can do that manually as well.
You will love this if you are a programmer or developer. It provides syntax highlighting for code snippets that you may write in your posts. It offers different colrs for more readability. Most popular programming languages are supported.
Security
With this, you can restrict access to your posts so that you can talk about secret things (=D) without being bothered by unauthorized users or even search engines. You can make groupings so that a certain group can or can’t see your private posts.
Yet Another WordPress Anti-Spam Plug-in. But this isn’t any plug-in. It’s THE plug-in! It focuses on anti-bot-spamming, and hence does not allow spam-bots without using captcha! So users can comment freely while bots will have a hard time spamming you!
Social Media
This is your one-stop-shop for forms (except, its free!). You can create any type of forms; contact forms, social surveys etc. It is the best of its kind!
This nice little plug-in creates a sharing button from the top 20 sharing websites. You can put the buttons anywhere; on top, at the bottom, on the side etc.
This tool automatically adds open graph meta tags to your blog header. This makes your posts look nice and just right when shared on Facebook or Google+.
Multimedia
1. Shadowbox JS WordPress Plugin
This a JavaScript media gallery very similar to Thickbox. It views any time of media and not just images. Works with many JS libraries like jQuery, Prototype etc.
Embed YouTube videos with ease! This plug-in lets you easily embed videos through URL. You can add videos in posts, comments or even RSS feeds. The embedded player can be customized and viewed in full screen. High quality videos can also be played.
Regenerate thumbnails with new dimensions. If your posts dont obtain a thumbnail automatically, use Auto Post Thumbnail.
This small tool automatically updates all images’ ALT and TITLE descriptions. Handy if you are short on time or forgot to add alt and title descriptions.
5. ProPlayer WP Plugin
This lets you put videos on your posts from YouTube, Metacafe, DailyMotion etc. It has a lot of features like 27 skins, and supports a wide range of formats.
This is an excellent tool for embedding Power-Point presentations on your site
That concludes the list. Except for one or two, rest of the plug-ins are free! So go and try them out! And do share your opinions with us.
Regards 🙂
Hai Qasim Zaib
pls post article about how to create a blog in wordpress step by step guide like your blog smartearningmethods
@NidhunBreak, thanks for visiting our blog. We have noted down your suggestion and will post such an article soon. So stay tuned 🙂
waiting… bro
LOL i’ve not use wordpress ( as owner / main admin ) till now :p and there are no chances that i can use it as ( owner )
oh my god superb article admin will check your web site at all times
You definitely put a new spin on a subject thats been I have read a few of the articles on your website now, and I really like your style of blogging. I added it to my favorites blog site list and will be checking back soon. Please check out my site as well and let me know what you think.
written about for years. Great stuff, just great!
Nice list of plugins. I have read them before but did not tried all of them. Some of the best plugins are W3C total cache, All in one SEO and XML Sitemaps.