To pass some time while the $30 to make me laugh contest goes on here’s 6 of the best WordPress plugins no Blogger should be without. I use all these here and I wouldn’t make money Blogging without them, they make my site what it is. I use other plugins as well but these are the most important in my humble opinion.
1. Akismet
The most popular anti-spam plugin that comes with the WordPress install package, make sure this is turned on, it’ll save you hours of time filtering spam manually.
Lets you re-arrange your sidebar easily with a drag and drop interface. Saves a lot of time when you want to make changes.
3. All in one SEO Pack
This lets you specify uniqiue titles and keywords for every post, very handy for search engines.
Does what it says on the tin, very useful. This will generate a XML-valid document for Google and notify them whenever it’s generated. Currently supports homepage, posts, static pages, archives and categories but external pages can be added as well. Posts are prioritized by the number of comments it has.
WordPress does not include a contact form by default and this is a easy way to add one. I use this myself and can vouch for it.
Very handy, lets you display posts related to the one currently being viewed based on keywords. You can see a demonstration at the end of this post. I’ve set it to display 5 but you can choose any number you like.
July 7th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Great list, can’t live without these tools. I wonder if WP will ever integrate some of this stuff.
July 7th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I’ve wondered the same thing myself but they pride themselves on being ‘lean and light weight’ which would change if they started including all sorts of plugins, it would also ruin the traffic plugin makers get to their websites.
July 7th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Re: plugin # 5;
It’s actually called “Contact Form ][”
July 7th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
You’re quite right Chip, I changed it incase it confused people, but it’s only right it be given it’s proper title. Thanks for the heads up it’s been changed
July 7th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Wordpress already includes sidebar widgets…
December 11th, 2007 at 3:31 am
The latest versions do, you’re right, but those with older installations may not have it, although i hope every has upgraded to the latest!