Hello. I am playing around with my new wordpress blogs and really do not know what plugins will actually be benifical. Eventually the blog will have higher amounts of traffic and hundreds of posts. I am will be adding an SEO plugin and a plugin for adsense and affiliate banners to start. Is there a plugin to show the latest posts on my forum? What are some other plugins that are recommended? Please describe what they do as well. Thanks
Hi Shieldsty (& All) - I currently manage 3 WordPress CMS (beyond a blog) websites. As to plugins, I am going to give you my top ten, links to their websites, and refer you to some how to articles (sometimes they come with their own "learning curve"): AdSense Manager - A must if you run Adsense ads on your blogs Configurable Tag Cloud - If you like tag clouds (and find your readers do), then the stylistic control this plugin gives you is great for design integration Dagon Design SiteMap Generator - This creates a sitemap you display (not the secret one you show only to Google) Google XML Sitemaps - This creates the secret map that only Google sees and is updated each time you post HeadSpace 2 - A sort of Mega SEO plugin with a lot of control over Meta data, titles, descriptions, stylesheets and other goodies (take a good look at the "other goodies"). Overview Tutorial. OneClick Installer - Install plugins AND themes with one click! This is a plugin and a Firefox extension that work together to make your life a lot easier -- no FTP required. Installation requires chmod work -- see tutorial. Popularity Contest - Learn which posts you write are the most popular... a great way to get automatic feedback for future blog story ideas. You can display the most popular in a sidebar widget. Sphere - Here's a plugin that ties you into "sphere" of influence with well known bloggers and new agencies, by related content. See overview article. TIP: Once you install Sphere, use it yourself to find out who's writing similar articles, then visit those blogs and make comments -- what goes around, comes around... in the Sphere. WordPress Automatic Upgrade - I've used this one several times... and it works great. Make sure you do ALL the steps as presented, and backup as you go. WP Cache - This plugin helps speed up the user experience at your WP blog by caching pages. You have good administrative control of what gets cached and when. Of course there are a lot more, and I look forward to other recommendations here. Best of success to you - Scott Scott Frangos, Managing Editor WebHelperMagazine.com
OSwebmaster thanks a bunch for taking the time to overview some of the best plugins. That is exactly what I was looking for. Rep points given!
For SEO I recommend the All-in-one SEO plugin. And you can just use an Adsense-ready WP theme to have Adsense on your blog.
Thanks OSWebMaster! WordPress upgrades always concern me - I'll check out the WordPress update plugin. The Tag cloud one interests me too. Still figuring out the web 2.0 stuff...
A couple of other useful plugins are: anarchy_media http://an-archos.com/anarchy-media-player/ Play all kinds of media on your site. sem-dofollow http://www.semiologic.com/software/wp-fixes/dofollow/ Make your blog do follow. wp-contact-form http://ryanduff.net/projects/wp-contactform/ Contact form for your site.
Had a similar question a few weeks ago and found this list: http://www.digitaltalks.com/?page_id=23 Hope it helps.