In my last article I discussed selecting a theme for using WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS). What themes give WordPress for the look of a website, plugins give in usability. Plugins ad functions or special features to your WordPress based website. There are plugins that accomplish a multitude of tasks. In fact, as I write the the wordpress.org plugin page shows 3,776 plugins available to download. If you are setting up a new website you are going to want to install some plugins that will make your site work well for the start.
First, there are a few plugins I recommend for every WordPress installation. Here is a little about each.
- Askimet, Kills comment spam. Askiment requires an API key from wordpress.com (the free wordpress site place). I use it on all my sites and very little comment and linkback spam gets through.
- WordPress.com Stats, Not as powerful as some other stat packages, WordPress.com stats gives you a quick access to usuable stats from your Dashboard. Requires the same API key that Askimet does.
- Google XML Site Maps. This plugin builds and automatically updates a site map that is search engine friendly.
- All In One SEO Pack. The most popular plugin to make your website search engine friendly.
Now a few plugins that a blogger may not need but are very useful to a WordPress based website:
- cforms II – Contact Form. You will need a contact form on your website. cforms is popular for its power and flexibility. I have been using the WP Contact Form-Askimet Edition on all of my sites even though the home site says it does not work on WP 2.5. I like it because it filters the email through Askimet. Try it at your own risk.
- CMS Navigation. Allows top and sidebar navigation menus with children (drop down). Also provides breadcrumb trail .
- Absolute Links. Avoid those busted links when you changes names and urls.
- WP E-Commerce. If you are selling stuff from your website you need the E-commerce plugin.
- FAQ-tastic Lite. When did you last see a website without a FAQ. Free version of FAQ-tastic comes with a lot of support.
This list of plugins should get you started. Of course, as your site develops you will find you need specialized features. A google search with wordpress in the phrase or using the wordpress.org plugins page should help you find what you are looking for. I have several sites in completely different niches and each has its own set of plugins that make the site work the way I want.
If you are using a plugin in you CMS WordPress site and find it invaluable please share in the comments.
Subscribe via RSS
Follow
[...] of Plugins that are a must have.So, again I reference you to go to ICanLocalize’s site for his list. I fully support it. ‘Building a Website with WordPress’ has their own list as well, [...]
Hi,
I’m very interested in WPML as a solution for a client’s bilingual Web site. We’ve been looking, in particular, for a solution that would allow us to map different domain names onto different language instances (been trying to kluge this together with qtranslate and domain mirror up until now with little success).
You mention two critical plugins in this post that we use that I’d love to be able to continue to use with WPML:
Google XML Site Maps and FAQ-Tastic Lite
The former is really critical for my client’s SEO goals, but I’ve found no simple way (with any plugin/hack) to easily create multple sitemaps based on language (I’m about ready to resort to a non-WP, third-party solution). This doesn’t seem like it should be too hard to add to a plugin like WPML. Any plans to do so?
As for FAQ-Tastic, I know the issue here has more to do with the original developer of that plugin. But I’ll be anxiously awaiting any news of compatibility. Til then we’ll probably just develop different question groups and solve the language switching on the template side of things.
Thanks for a great plugin!
I don’t think there’s an easy solution for generating sitemaps for multiple domains. Google sitemaps generator works fine for multiple languages in the same domain, but you would need different sitemaps on different domains for your setup. The Google Sitemaps Generator plugin just doesn’t have any configuration for something like that.
Maybe you can get in touch with the author and propose adding support for multilingual sites. If he’s interested, we’ll be happy to support that.
Hi there, in your post you cited the eCommerce plugin. However I thought it is was not compatible with WPML. Could you please update us about their integration?
Cheers,
Marga