Five Essential WordPress Plugins
WordPress is a great blog and web site tool right out of the box, but you have to admit that WordPress Plugins add that extra pop and there’s something for everyone when it comes to WP plugins. It’s like finding your dream girl AND finding out her parents have a house on the lake and season tickets to [insert your favorite sports team here]. Here are five WordPress plugins, compatible with WP 2.5.x, that we highly recommend that you deploy on your WordPress web site before you even think of putting up that first post.
- All in One SEO Pack
- This is the SCUD missile of SEO plugins. It allows you complete control over your tags, meta tags and page titles.
- Simple Tags
- This handy plugin works with WP versions 2.3 and up. It has a mass tag importer, works with imbedded tags, and is compatible with the popular WYSIWYG editors (e.g., TinyMCE, FCKEditor, etc.). Combine this with the All in One SEO pack above and you are well on your way to having a nicely optimized web site.
- QuickPHP
- This is an excellent little plugin by David Chait and it’s been around awhile. It lets you put PHP functions right into your WP Pages without having to create a template with the PHP code embedded in it so you can put PHP right there on the page “on the fly.”
- Secure and Accessible Contact Form
- Not quite as powerful as the popular cForms II, but this contact form does allow you to create complex, custom forms using dropdowns, radio buttons, checkboxes, and more. I think it’s a nice compromise between a drop-in contact form and a full blown forms generator script.
- WP Database Backup
- There’s simply no excuse not to back up that WP database with this plugin. As you know, the heart and soul of WP lies in its MySQL database. Lose that and you have lost all your posts, comments, categories, links, and all settings. This makes it easy to backup the MySQL file and download it to your hard drive or have it emailed to you. And you can even schedule the backup to run any time you want. How cool is that?
So these are our recommendations for plugin must-haves. Feel free to drop a comment with your suggestions for can’t-live-without plugins!
You have some awesome resources and I’m so glad you’re sharing your knowledge about Wordpress with the public. There needs to be more people like you :)
Hello Joni,
I am new at this Blogging thing and had no idea of the importance of “Plugins”. I’m using am older version of WP (2.3.3) and was told by my Blogger Company it is better not to upgrade to the latest version of WP. Now I am confused for sure because I want to add video capabilities to my Blog; but thanks to your post I know I can at least optimize my Blog Site with the 5 suggested Plugins. I’ll be sure to Back everything up before attempting the video additions. Thanks again! Shasme’
Whoever told you that was full of prunes. And I’d fire that “Blogging Company” that told you to stand pat with a known UNSECURE VERSION of WP. Upgrade to at least 2.5.1. There’s a post here on this very blog about a seamless and worry free upgrade. And we do WP upgrades all the time for $35. Contact us if you want help. But I urge you to upgrade since you are running an insecure version of WP that is at immediate risk of being hacked.