The Next 5 Essential Plugins for All New WordPress Blogs

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The list of plugins available for WordPress is practically endless. With so much out there it's very easy to get bogged down and overwhelmed.

While WordPress plug-ins are a great way to enhance your blog, running unnecessary or too many plugins can clutter it up and slow down the performance of your WordPress site.

Below is a list of the "next 5 plugins" I install on all new WordPress blogs.

This is Part 2 in a series called "5 Essential Plugins for All New WordPress Blogs"

You can read Part 1 here…

6. Simple Tags - by Here With Me

This is the best plugin I've found for managing tags in WordPress 2.3

Some of the features include:

• Administration
  • Auto Tags !
  • Auto Link Tags in post content
  • Importer for Embedded Tags
  • Type-Ahead input tags / Autocompletion
  • Auto Suggestion of Tags (admin tag cloud)
  • Click tags
  • Tags Management (rename, delete, merge, search and add tags, edit tags ID)
  • Edit mass tags (more than 50 posts at once)
  • Possibility to tag pages (not only posts) and include them inside the tags results
  • Embedded Tags () for compatibility with old plugins
  • Easy Configuration ! (in WP admin)
  • Meta keywords generate from tags in your header's blog
  • Technorati, Flickr and Delicious tags
  • Dynamic Tag Clouds with colors with Widgets (random order, etc)
  • Add Related Posts Inside RSS
  • Extended the_tags function (outside the loop, technorati, etc)

I created a video of how to install and configure Simple Tags. You can view it here…

• Download Plugin
• Simple Tags Documentation

7. Do Follow Plugin by Dennis de Bernardy

You may not know this but, WordPress, out of the box, is not very friendly to those who would comment on your blog. In an effort to reduce comment Spam WordPress by default adds NO FOLLOW to the website link of someone commenting on your blog.

Why is that bad?

1. It doesn't really help reduce comment Spam. I talk about a better way to do that in Part 1 of this series.

2. It discourages people from participating in your community. One of the main reasons Web 2.0 savvy people comment on blogs is so they will get a link back to their own website. If I know you're not going to allow the link in my comment to be followed then I'm not as likely to comment on your blog.

So, DO FOLLOW links in comments. It encourages participation and it's the right thing to do.

If you want to get really crazy with comment link following then check out the Comment Luv plugin instead of the Do Follow plugin.

• Do Follow Download and Documentation Page
• Comment Luv Plugin and Documentation Page

8. Full Text Feed WordPress Plugin by Cave Monkey

WordPress 2.1 introduced a nasty “feature” to feeds. Instead of abiding by your feed preferences, WordPress will truncate your feed’s content anywhere you insert a <!––more––> tag. Full Text Feed undoes this functionality, allowing your feeds to contain the full text regardless of <!––more––> usage.

Whether to use a full text or partial RSS feed is debated among many bloggers. I posted about that debate here.

If you do decide to to use a full text RSS feed then this WordPress plug-in will come in very handy.

Here's a WordPress Training Video I created on how and why you would want to use the Full Text Feed WordPress Plugin

• Full Text Feed Download and Documentation Page

9. WordPress Database Backup by Filosofo

This is a handy utility WordPress plug-in that does exactly what it says. It creates a backup of your WordPress database. If you're not doing it all ready you should backup your WordPress database on a regular basis or before installing plugins, importing / exporting tags or upgrading WordPress.

• WordPress Database Backup Download and Documentation Page

10. Broken Link Checker by Janis Elsts

The email that all bloggers and webmasters hate to get: "Hey dude, I was on your website and I clicked on a link and it didn't work."

I won't admit how many times that has happened to me. It's embarrassing.

But, it won't happen anymore. The Broken Link Checker WordPress Plugin monitors all the links on my blog and convieniently reports all broken links in my WP Admin Dashboard.

• Broken Link Checker Download and Documentation Page

I welcome your comments and questions below.

1Cat.biz Tags: WordPress plugin, WordPress Training Video, WordPress Tweaks