Top WordPress Plug-Ins

As of right now (February 2013), I am in the middle of revamping my website.  Time has passed and my tastes have changed.

While working on my new site, I made sure to bring over my favorite WordPress plug-ins since WordPress is THE way to go.  If you’re not familiar with WordPress, there are two different WordPress sites – wordpress.org and wordpress.com.  The “.org” WordPress is, according to their website, “web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.”  The “.com” WordPress site is a blogging platform very much like Blogger.  A majority of the websites you visit on the web are built on WordPress templates and themes (including this one).

Just about every business owner I know has a website through wordpress.org.  In my opinion, it’s the most social-friendly of the website programs out there.

Enough about why I love WordPress.

For those who are new to WordPress, plug-ins are programs you can install on your website to enhance it and there are literally thousands of them out there that will do just about anything.

Here are seven plug-ins I cannot live without….

Tweet Old PostThis plug-in takes your old blog posts and tweets them out on a schedule you set.  That way posts don’t get forgotten.  Twitter is my #1 traffic driver to my blog and I can give credit to this plug-in for that.

FacebookWhat’s cool about the Facebook plug-in is that your content automatically posts to your Facebook page or profile.  Like buttons are included and you can set up an optional recommendation box that pops up on your site with other blog posts that are similar in content to whatever the reader is reading.

AkismetThis is THE best spam blocker.  It catches spam comments and blocks them from posting on your site. 

All in One SEO/Yoast SEOI listed both of these because they are the two most popular SEO plug-ins.  Type in your title, your keywords and go!

DisqusDisqus is a commenting plug-in.  I love it – it’s very easy to use and read.  You can see it at the bottom of this post.

pageMashDo you have a page you want published but not visible to the public?  This plug-in is for you.  The plug-in’s site says it has been updated in 2 years, but it still works fine on my site.  pageMash lets you hide pages from the public that you don’t want to be seen.

ShareaholicHaving social links to share your content is very important for any blogsite.  Shareaholic’s plug-in gives you many platform options to share on and it’s very easy to use.

If you have a WordPress site, what plug-ins can you not live without?  I’d love to check them out!