One of the perks of WordPress.org is the plugins, these are mostly free and easy-to-use programs that enable you to enhance or customize your website.
Some plugins come with the WordPress default installation, such as Akismet, one of the best plugins against spam. But really, the choice is endless. The WordPress plugin directory currently has more than 15,000 plugins available for download.
Here are eight neat WordPress plugins you should test!
Broken Link Checker
This plugin monitors your blog looking for broken links and flags them. I recently spent a few hours going through all the broken links it found on my blog. I had more than 100! If you link to news websites, government websites or simply other bloggers, you most certainly have broken links. Broken link checker give you several choices, such as updating the link or deleting it.
Clean Archives Reloaded
When this blog began to grow, I looked for a good way to create an archive section. Clean Archives Reloaded is the best plugin I found. It organizes all your articles sorted by month with the number of comments for each post. You can collapse and expand the months. You can see it in action on my Archives page.
Flickr Gallery
If you have a Flickr account and would like to show your pictures on your blog, look no further. This plugin is perfect! It’s easy to install and highly customizable. There are tabs for your photo stream, your sets, your collections and your most popular shots. And when you click on a picture, it displays in a pretty framed box.
Contact Form 7
This is one of the best plugins for your Contact page. You can choose the fields for your contact form and receive emails directly at the address you provided. No need to put your email address anywhere on your blog! Besides, the form is easy to implement and looks very professional.
All in One SEO Pack
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of techniques that can help website visibility and web traffic. Most of us know some basics but really, it’s an art. This plugin will help your website’s SEO and you won’t get a headache, I promise—it works out of the box. For instance, it optimizes your titles for search engines, avoids duplicate content and much more!
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
This is a feature I believe all blogs should implement. The idea is simple—a list of related posts is presented under each article, and encourages visitors to read more about subjects they are interested in. This plugin does a great job and the list, populated automatically, is usually very relevant. Besides, it’s a great way to show your older posts!
WP-PageNavi
This plugin makes readers’ lives so much easier. Instead of having two links at the bottom of pages, such as “older posts”/”newer posts,” this plugin offers an easy way to navigate by page number. You can see it in action on my homepage for instance. It currently says “page 1 of 93” and you can go to any page by clicking on the appropriate page number.
Xhanch – My Twitter
I’m not that active on social media websites because this blog takes me enough time. Besides, there are so many social media platforms that it’s easy to spend many unproductive hours just reading junk. But I somehow got into Twitter, mostly because I chose to integrate my latest Tweets in the sidebar of the blog. Xhanch is a perfect plugin for that, and I love the clean customizable design and the funky Twitter bird icon (different ones are available!).
Do you know any great plugins that could be added to this list? Did you try some of the plugins listed above?
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Perhaps I should try WordPress? I’ve returned to the world of blogging and I’m having a devil of a time with new Blogger gadgets! Technically challenged – that’s me…
Welcome back! I think WordPress.com isn’t as good as Blogger… so if I were you I stayed on Blogger, unless you want to use WordPress.org and self-host your blog, but that’s a different adventure and it is only worth it if you plan to blog a lot.
Salut Zhu,
Thanks for the list! I didn’t know the WP has this directory.Some of these were new to me so, this was nice to see.
I have gone from Blogger to WP, and I have enjoyed the change.
I just added the Flckr photostream a few weeks back, but have not done any of the others.
Bon dimanche.
Hey Barbara,
WordPress seems complicated at first but it has many many features that make it a great platform. If you need help, you can always ask me!
Merci beaucoup ! J’ai pris les related posts et les nombres de page (que c’est pénible, les newer/older) ! Ca rend bien !
Comme toi, je déteste les “new/older” surtout que j’ai tendance à lire plusieurs pages d’un blog quand celui-ci me plaît. J’ai crié victoire quand j’ai trouvé ce plugin! Contente qu’il te plaise aussi 🙂
Hmmm…The WP Page Navigator sounds a great pluggin. I think I’m gonna get it too. 😛
Give it a try, it’s very easy to implement!
I have often trouble with plugins: they don’t want to work with me and it’s annoying to update. After many headaches, I decided to only use askimet and hypercache (to save memory).
Hmmm…
I use some plugins for same purpose as you’ve mentioned but not the ones listed here.
Besides these, I think I can suggest one more. i. e. for comment subscription.
Ah yes, comment subscription is a good one! I have this option build in my theme now, so I don’t use a plugin anymore. Great tip!
Je me rends compte que Another related posts n’est pas du tout performant chez moi… Il ne m’affiche jamais grand chose ! Y’en a t’il un autre plus intéressant ?
Est-ce que tu utilises les tags? Je sais qu’il y a plein d’autres plugins mais je ne les ai pas testés. Peut-être que tu peux voir dans les options de “another related post” si tu peux affiner les paramètres. J’utilise YARPP: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/yet-another-related-posts-plugin/installation/.
Du coup j’en ai trouvé un que je trouve plus efficace, celui que Cynthia (bleudemer :p) utilise ! Linkwithin!
Super! Tiens, peut-être que je le testerai aussi…
I use some plugins for same purpose as you’ve mentioned but not the ones listed here.
Besides these, I think I can suggest one more. i. e. for comment subscription.