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11 Top WordPress Plugins Every Blog Should Have

WordPress in itself is a decent system but it can be made into a rock solid blogging beast. Adding plugins can make WordPress into the Swiss Army Knife of blogging: just pull out whatever functionality you need for your specific blog!

Many people have asked me for my list of top WordPress plugins. Of course I've written quite a few WordPress plugins myself, but I'd thought I'd share with you what I think are the best WordPress plugins out there.

FeedBurner FeedSmith
I use and love FeedBurner, even though it goes awry every once in a while, and the best way of using it is with FeedSmith, which I've been using since before it was "acquired" by FeedBurner. Just install, enter your FeedBurner ID and activate. That's it, you're done.
HeadSpace2
Anyone who has been following me for a while knows I'm a huge fan of John Godley's plugins especially HeadSpace2 and Redirection. HeadSpace2 takes care of all my meta tags and inserts my Mint code. If you don't need fancy things you can use it for Google Analytics and other trackers too!
Lighter Menus
The WP 2.5 and 2.6 backend is a bit "heavy", lighter menus turns the menu into a drop down and saves a LOT of space in the top part of the interface. Check out how cool my admin looks now (click for larger image):
pageMash
My site uses a lot of pages, and sometimes you want to move around some pages. The default WordPress way of doing that is hard (you have to give each page a menu order by hand) but pageMash is excellent for that, with a nice Ajaxy interface in which you can just drag and drop pages. Have a look (click for larger image):
Redirection
WordPress doesn't do any 301 redirections by itself when you, for instance, change the slug of a page (the part of the URL that identifies the post). Redirection does do that for you though. You can also add your own redirects in the very user friendly admin panel, that's why it takes care of all my redirections, and does so wonderfully.
Search Excerpt
WordPress Search by default sucks. Fixing it takes a bit of work, but the heavy lifting is done by this plugin. If you want to know what I've done with this blogs search pages, read my post on improving the WordPress search function. The results are very cool, as you can see in this search, for instance.
Wordpress Automatic Upgrade
WordPress upgrades quite often. Which is both a good thing, and a pain in the backside because of all the work involved. This plugin takes care of that, and even though I've heard of people having problems with this one, for me, it has always worked amazingly well. I've used it to upgrade all of my WordPress blogs and sites to the latest version for at least 6 months now.
WP-DBManager
Not only is this plugin perfect for doing automated backups, it can also do things like database optimization and the admin pages for it allow you to do the occasional query from within WordPress!
WP Security Scan
Even when you update to the latest version all the time, there's still this slight chance of you getting hacked. WP Security Scan helps you minimize this chance by pointing you right at all the vulnerabilities in your blog.
WP Super Cache
I can't imagine running this site without caching, although I have it turned of 98% of the time, I do turn it on whenever I'm about to hit Digg / Reddit / StumbleUpon, and it has saved my "life" a couple of times. WordPress has a tendency of becoming slower when you make your themes more complex, and when you add a lot of plugins. This plugin allows me to still have both and keep my readers happy.
MobilePress
While the majority of your site's visitors will be using a normal web browser, you do want to make mobile users as happy as possible too. This plugin helps you do that, by serving up a cool interface for iPhone and iPod Touch users and other mobile phone users, that looks approximately like this:

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008
Cats: WordPress Tags: WordPress, WordPress Plugins

44 Comments to “11 Top WordPress Plugins Every Blog Should Have”

CubeWarrior Oct 2nd, 2008 at 18:10

WOW I'm going to have to look at that iPhone plug-in. That looks very cool.
Using Feedsmith now and personally I like:
Dagon Design Sitemap Generator
RSS Footer
Patrick K. O'Brien Oct 2nd, 2008 at 19:02

I'm making use of most of these plugins, but you managed to introduce a few new ones that I'll have to look into. Thanks!
Matt Oct 2nd, 2008 at 19:11

Great list! I always try to keep the plugins I use to a minimum but the ones youÂ´ve mentioned here are really indispensable. IÂ´ve noticed that IÂ´m using different plugins for the same functions (e.g. wp-db-backup, instant upgrade). IÂ´ll check out your proposals as they seem more flexible.
Nathan Rice Oct 2nd, 2008 at 19:29

Jooste,
Great list! I actually was looking for a plugin that does what the pageMash plugin does. Very good find indeed.

I wrote a similar list a while back, but I obviously need to do an updated post. Some of the plugins that have come out recently have really blown me away.

I would add though, things like the XML-Sitemaps, Akismet, and Subscribe to Comments are still pretty valuable.

I'm also happy that WordPress 2.7 will be incorporating many of the popular features that plugins have handled in the recent past. Way to go WordPress!
Young Oct 2nd, 2008 at 19:41

I don't think so, since i use none of them.
Jeremy Duffy Oct 2nd, 2008 at 19:51

I'm not a fan of that search. I actually prefer mine. Try these:

http://www.jeremyduffy.com/?s=crime

and the advanced search:

http://www.jeremyduffy.com/advanced-blog-search/?jsearch_terms=%2CSpy%2C&jsearch_cats=%2Cconsumer-groups%2C&jsearch_tags&jsearch_cat_andor=and&jsearch_tag_andor=and
Mark Oct 2nd, 2008 at 20:05

Thanks, Joost. You are truly a WordPress Warrior. Not heard of lighter menus... going to give it a whirl.
archshrk Oct 2nd, 2008 at 20:48

I already use most of these plugins or don't need them but I think you're mistaken about WordPress not handling 301 redirects, at least in your example. I have, in the past, changed a page slug after it was linked to from outside and visitors were directed automatically to the correct post.
Nathan Rice Oct 2nd, 2008 at 20:53

@archshrk:
Redirection and 301 redirects are 2 different things.
Ã–nder Oct 2nd, 2008 at 23:03

i will try them and after that we can see the result.
Brent Oct 3rd, 2008 at 01:20

Cool list! Lighter Menus makes wordpress a lot easier to use!
John Sullivan Oct 3rd, 2008 at 05:44

I'm going to try that page mash
cool list thanks
Kevin Oct 3rd, 2008 at 06:17

A few questions:

1. Why would you use WP's search with Search Excerpt plugin when you could just use a Google custom search engine?

2. What's the differences between the plugins Redirection and Objection Redirection? http://www.biggnuts.com/objection-redirection-WordPress-plugin
Inge Janse Oct 3rd, 2008 at 07:57

With Kevin. I've implemented Google custom search last month, and it works like a charm. The order of results is way better in terms of importance, and the look and feel - although somewhat different from the blog itself - is immediately recognisable - and thus usable - for visitors.
Johnny KrogsgÃ¥rd Oct 3rd, 2008 at 10:16

Hi Yost,

Great post, I'll install Lighter Menus and pageMash ASAP!
Penko Penev Oct 3rd, 2008 at 12:35

I think Wordpress do redirect 301 without need of any Redirection plugins.
WPJunkie Oct 3rd, 2008 at 15:20

Thanks alot! I have been having trouble with a different cache plugin on my blog and have been looking for an alternative. I have a few of these already but the others I will most definitely have to get
Susan Oct 4th, 2008 at 05:36

Feedburner Smith is a MUST have.
Apostolos Oct 4th, 2008 at 10:19

Hey very interesting article! I found the security and DBs plugins a must!
Thanks!
Jonathan Wong Oct 4th, 2008 at 11:00

Have you actually gotten WPTouch to work with WP Super Cache?

I thought any of the mobile themes (others include WP Wireless and WP PDA) were fundamentally incompatible with the way WP Super Cache worked?

I would love to hear if you managed to get the two working together, because I had to abandon WP PDA because it didn't work with WP Super Cache.

Good list though - it had a few plug-ins that I wasn't aware of.
Omar Ha-Redeye Oct 4th, 2008 at 15:55

And the One-Click Plug-in Installer, so that you can easily add everything listed here.
Steven Oct 4th, 2008 at 19:05

Thanks for this great list. I stupidly changed my permalink structure a while back and have had tones of 404 errors in webmaster tools since. I installed the Redirection plugin and now have started to fix them. I had no idea how to fix this mistake. Thanks for you help.

Steven.
Christopher Oct 4th, 2008 at 19:55

I just installed the iPhone theme on my site a couple days ago and love it. Even if you're not a Mac fan, catering to this growing portion of the population is super easy with this great plugin.
Joost de Valk Oct 4th, 2008 at 19:58

@Jonathan Wong: No I have not. I have to shutdown WP Super Cache when I'm running normally to be able to run the iPhone thing, which bugs the hell out of me.

To Jonathan and all others: thanks for your great feedback!
Amit Oct 5th, 2008 at 17:43

Very nice list you have got there. I want to add a few.
1. Platinum SEO plugin
2. XML Sitemap generator plugin
Poppstar Oct 5th, 2008 at 21:30

Whats about the SMO Plugins link:

1. WordTwitter - Twitterplugin for Wordpress

Regards

Mario
Torley Oct 5th, 2008 at 21:51

I didn't know it was even possible to do the iPhone-theme thing! Thanx for this list.
Sander Oct 6th, 2008 at 22:37

Great list Joost, thanks for sharing.

For those who are wondering about using the wptouch plugin and cache. Just install wp-cache (instead of super cache) then add in the wp-cache admin with Rejected UA strings the words iphone and ipod. This way the visitors using a mobile (i)phone will see the un-cached version. Check my blog with a (i)phone to see the effect. I believe super-cache support will be available soon.
top 10 Oct 8th, 2008 at 09:55

Joost - once again, a top post, many thanks.
seosurvivor Oct 8th, 2008 at 17:45

Hello again Joost,

This post along with the 10 things you need in a wordpress site is enough to get anyone started! Awesome!!
John Oct 8th, 2008 at 19:34

I can't get enough wordpress plugins....I can't keep up with all the latest releases and updates. It's almost overwhelming.
cool gadgets Oct 9th, 2008 at 06:10

I would also add the all in one seo to the list. I'm looking forward to WP 2.7. I think it's great to see some of the plugins being incorporated into WP as it means full support.
moserw Oct 10th, 2008 at 04:10

Some I have used, some I have just come across. Good list and thanks for sharing. Going to try them out.
Stu McLaren Oct 10th, 2008 at 14:05

This is an excellent list and I appreciate you sharing. I too give a high five for Redirection as it's extremely easy to implement. I often thought it would be a neat feature to add a "split test" function into it so that it would redirect the traffic to two (or three) different pages. That way you could test which page was more effective.

Anyway great list. Thanks!

Stu
Frank Hellerup Madsen Oct 10th, 2008 at 22:34

Hi Joost,

Thanks for the list. Another good reason to have your feed in my reader.
I haven't dared use the automatic upgrade plugin yet, but I will have to give it a spin on a blog or two. For some reason I have never gotten around to installing a database backup plugin, so I might just try the one you recommend.
Lasse Heindorff Oct 11th, 2008 at 01:25

Excellent list, indeed. There's so many plugins out there and so little time to go through them using the typical 'trial and error' method. The WPtouch Iphone theme is amazing. Thanks for sharing!
nick Oct 11th, 2008 at 07:42

Thanks for plugins.
Roger Oct 14th, 2008 at 23:39

Alot of great plugins I cant live without. At least IMO :)
skateGREAT Oct 21st, 2008 at 18:51

love this site - it is transforming the way my site is - ur the best - as soon as I get money ill donate some to say thanks ;)
J.J. Toothman Nov 4th, 2008 at 18:28

Great post. Thanks for allowing me to discover Mobile Press.
Search Everything is a plugin I'd add to this list.
GaMerZ Nov 4th, 2008 at 18:29

Thanks for featuring my WP-DBManager plugin =D
Brad Hart @ A DoFollow Blog Nov 9th, 2008 at 00:02

Thank You! It is about time I start seeing other bloggers promoting Headspace 2. I am sick to death of all the praise for the all-in-one-SEO Pack which is simply regurgitation of years of wordpress religious dogma. Even when the developer announced he wouldn't maintain the plugin any longer there were people telling us how freaking great it was and that it would be the only SEO plugin we would need for all eternity. Now that it has a new and lesser developer it is still getting that sort of unwarranted praise. Thank you for actually researching the plugins you recommend before putting them on a page. It is nice to know I am not the only one.
James Rosenstein Nov 10th, 2008 at 03:08

you should also check out the WebPurify profanity filter plugin. It flters swear words from your users comments.

http://www.webpurify.com/profanity-filter/wp-plugin.php
JosÃ© Feliphe Nov 17th, 2008 at 14:45

Great plugins

Thanks!

http://www.snesbr.com