I use WordPress for every site I create where its purpose is to provide content.  With each of those sites I generally have core plugin’s that I’m familiar with and know are reliable.  I’d like to share my list with you.

Last updated April 23rd, 2015

  • Advertisement Management

    NOTE: Might be soon replaced with Advertising Manager below.
    This is another Google Adsense manager that will place ads throughout a post or page at a designated location; it’s configurable to your preference. This plugin is ideal for automated Ad placement however is a bit more restrictive to that of Insert Adsense.

  • Advertising Manager

    It has been suggested to me this plugin is a good replacement to that of Advertisement Management. What makes it a potential replacement is that it is currently maintained. I haven’t looked it over yet; I will have to follow up with that later.

  • Akismet

    If you have comments enabled this will be your saving grace by blocking and allowing the admin to review those spam comments. You’ll need an Akismet account to get your unique API Key.

  • All IN One SEO Pack

    I highly recommend this one as it will help you with Search Engine Optimization.  For example, at a minimum you’ll want one Title tag, one H1 tag and each image having alt text. All In One SEO Pack will help with these and more.

  • Broken Link Checker

    In thinking about SEO, as we all should, we should ensure no links are broken within the site. Notifications are either through the dashboard or received via email.

  • Contact Form 7

    Easily create contact page or other forms.

  • Crayon Syntax Highlighter

    Crayon Syntax Highlighter is a must have for developers and adds the ability to format code snippets in various languages and mixed languages within the same code snippet. To say this plugin is feature rich is truly an under statement.

  • Duplicator

    Easily move a WordPress site from one location to another. WordPress Duplicator is perfect for moving a site to a new hosting provider or from a development environment. Check out the overview video at either below link and you’ll see how great it really is.

  • Google XML Sitemaps

    Have a Sitemap created and dynamically maintained as you add and remove pages or posts. This Sitemap can be submitted to search engine so they know your site exists. You’ll need a Google account and a Microsoft account.  With the Google account you’ll set up Google Webmaster Tools and with the Microsoft account you’ll set up Bing Webmaster Tools (includes Yahoo search).  In doing so, your site will be submit to the three largest search engines.

  • Insert AdSense

    Incorporate Google Ads on your site for monetization. You’ll need a Google account along with Google AdSense. The advantage this plugin provides is the ability to associate a Google Ad with a shortcode which can then be inserted wherever you choose within any page, post or widget.

  • Limit Login Attempts

    NOTE: This plugin has not been maintained since 2012. Although still functional I’m looking into Login Security Solution below.
    This one is essential as it protects your site from brute force login attacks by limiting the number of failed login attempts within a period of time. When a the threshold has been met the account is temporarily locked and a notification is sent to the site administrator.

  • Login Security Solution

    I’m considering this plugin as a replacement to that of Limit Login Attempts previously mentioned. Nontheless, it’s absolutely important to protect your site by brute force attacks and that all begins with plugins similar to these. Not only does this plugin limit the number of failed login attempts but also allows for the administrator to implement security policies for the site. A few examples are Password Complexity or Password Ageing.

  • MailChimp for WordPress Lite

    I absolutely encourage asking people to sign up for a newsletters, resource updates, etc.  You can use MailChimp or a few others for free (MailChimp, Constant Contact or AWeber) with limited functionality; which is more than enough for the up and comer.  Whether you start one anytime soon or not it’s important to start collecting people’s information immediately.  Generally people will only visit a website once or only as needed so it’s important retain methods for re-reaching visitors.  If you do start collecting information you’ll need ‘Terms of Use’ and ‘Privacy Policy’ pages.  There are tons of examples or generators all over the internet.  Grab one and make it your own.

  • Meta Slider

    Meta Slider is a slideshow plugin. Unlike others this one is SEO friendly and is a responsive design. Responsive design means for the various screen sizes from computer to smartphone the website will resize and move stuff according the viewer’s screen size. This plugin is ideal for banner slide shows or picture slide shows. Upgrading to the Pro version adds a large number of new features including video slides or HTML slides to name a few.

  • Pretty Link Lite

    Pretty Link Lite gives the option to create short links with tracking. For example, you have a link to an external site that has a very long link and to tell share with becomes impossible. With this plugin you can share a link that is like http://www.MyDomain.com/MyShortName. Another nice feature is the tracking the number of clicks to determine the frequency of use. This becomes a super nice is if you are using affiliate marketing by directing views to an affiliate through a Pretty Link. In doing so you’ll have an immediate measure of the links performance. Another very nice feature is the ability to change the URL for a page. Pretty Link Lite performs these actions Permanent 301 and Temporary 307 redirects. More importantly this will tell the search engines the new URL for the page and they will eventually update their search data.

  • Remove Category URL

    Remove Category URL adds ability to use category urls without the category folder in the path. For example, this plugin changes http://www.MyComain.com/Category/MyCategory/ to http://www.MyComain.com/MyCategory/. However the issue here is urls which might clash with links or, for example, those created with the Pretty Link Lite plugin.

  • Social Sharing Toolkit

    Social Sharing Toolkit gives the option to add social sharing capabilities to the site pages or posts. Configured share buttons can be rendered on pages, on posts, on both or in widgets automatically. Another nice feature is the option place the buttons anywhere using the shortcodes.

  • Sharebar

    Sharebar gives the ability to add a fully customizable and nicely formatted vertical box to the left of your blog posts that contains your links or buttons to social networking sites.

  • TablePress

    TablePress is another great plugin allowing the easy use of creating tables. This is not an editor enhancement but rather tables are created outside the page or post and is then called using a shortcode.

  • UpdraftPlus – Backup/Restore

    Just that, backup and restore and save files on file system, to email, google drive, dropbox, ftp and much more. There are a few key ideas here. The first is the obvious and that is the importance of backup. For some of us these sites are our bread and butter but more than anything we all have had moments we wish we could take back. Next is the ability to store the backups remotely; not on the server which they are hosted. If the host lost my data I can install WordPress, restore the site and be back online in minutes.

  • W3 Total Cache

    W2 Total Cache is a suite of options to improve overall sight performance. To say this plugin minifies, compresses and caches site data would be a huge short coming. With SEO beginning to consider site performance as a ranking factor performance is becoming more and more important. W2 Total Cache with compress and cache information in memory, on disk or on a CDN.

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