I love WordPress! It’s so flexible, and you can choose from over 23,000 plugins to improve the function of your website. But finding the best WordPress plugins that do exactly what you want can be a mission if you don’t know where to look.
In a previous post, I wrote about the 10 Cool WordPress Plugins that Rock My Blog. But since then I’ve added a few more plugins to my stable. Some pretty cool ones here – in alphabetical order.
I hope you find them helpful.
Best WordPress Plugins
1. Broken Link Checker
Yep, this WordPress plugin pretty much does what it says it would.
Whenever you’ve got a broken link, this Broken Link Checker plugin lets you know so you can fix it. You can choose to be notified on your WordPress dashboard, or by email. And you can choose which links you’d like the plugin to monitor. Pretty cool huh?
This plugin has certainly made my life easier and saved me loads of time dicking around – checking every single link. Thanks Broken Link Checker!
2. CommentLuv
I luv CommentLuv!
As you know, getting comments on your site is a great way to connect with your readers. So you want to encourage as many comments as possible. That’s where CommentLuv comes in…
With CommentLuv, if a reader comments on your blog they’re automatically rewarded with a link back to their latest blog post. You can also set the plugin so the commenter can choose from their last 10 blog posts – which shows you luv them even more.
I saw a good increase in comments after installing CommentLuv. You should try it!
3. Complete Central BackUp
Just imagine if your website went down and you lost all your files? OMG, I couldn’t imagine it – I’d be devastated!
I came across this plugin after hearing horror stories about other websites going down. The Complete Central Backup plugin is great for rookies because, unlike some other back-up plugins, no configuration is required. Simply click on a link and your files are backed up. Awesome!
4. EWWW Image Optimizer
This is a handy little plugin I found while researching tools to speed up my website. But why it’s called EWWW is beyond me. lol.
EWWW Image Optimizer automatically compresses the size of your images so your website loads faster and you use less bandwidth. All good stuff!
Through the media panel, you can also optimize individual images, or bulk-optimize all your images with one click.
I’ve reduced some of my images by over 80%! I rest my case!
4. Facebook Like Box
This Facebook Like Box plugin – or something similar – is a must if you have a Facebook profile or fan page and are keen to increase your Facebook fan base. I like this particular plugin because it visually appealing and stands out on my webpage.
Plus it’s much easier to install than Facebook’s own ‘like’ box.
Just upload this plugin like any other WordPress plugin and configure it how you like. Then a visitor to your site can simply click on the ‘Like’ button and voila, they’re connected to your Facebook page.
Get the Facebook Like Box Plugin now.
6. P3 Plugin Performance Profiler
This is another plugin I found while researching tools to speed up my website.
The P3 Plugin Performance Profiler is brilliant because it lets you see at a glance which WordPress plugins are affecting your website loading speed. This enabled me to deactivate the slower plugins and either replace them with less sluggish ones, or only activate them when required.
I’m pretty sure my site is now running faster now. What do you think?
7. Scroll Triggered Box
See that yellow pop-up box on the bottom right of your screen? (If not, scroll down a little bit more.)
That’s called the Scroll Triggered Box, made by the lovely guys at Dreamgrow. Cool isn’t it?
I can’t remember exactly how I found out about this plugin, but the person who reviewed it said he (it was definitely a ‘he’) saw a massive increase in email subscriptions from it. So I had to try it out.
And the result? While I’m not flooded with new subs, I’ve certainly seen an increase. But there’s just one problem. The email addresses you get from the Scroll Triggered Box aren’t integrated with your email subscription system (I use Aweber), which means you have to manually insert every email address that comes in. Hmmph!
I’m sure this can easily be fixed by changing the CSS coding, but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet!
Either way, Scroll Triggered Box is a cool plugin that’s worth a look.
8. Special Text Boxes
Now this is a doozie little number… and its name really doesn’t do it justice.
I found this plugin after hunting high and low for something that’d enable me to highlight content in my blog. And this Special Text Boxes plugin does just that…
You can choose from seven pre-designed templates or create your own. The text box works really well with the Click-to-Tweet feature, a free app that enables a link to make it easy for people to tweet your post – like I’ve done above. Check them both out: Special Text Boxes ; Click-to-Tweet
9. StatCounter Plugin
StatCounter is a web analytic tool, kinda like Google Analytics, but much easier to use – especially for rookies.
The thing I love about StatCounter is you can view it from within your WordPress dashboard, which is super convenient. Saves having to log in every time.
Just sign up for StatCounter and upload their plugin within WordPress.
StatCounter won’t replace your Google Analytics, but it’s really handy for checking your stats on the fly.
So what do you think of these plugins?
Do you already use some of these plugins yourself? And if so, how do you find them? Have you got others you could recommend? Please tell us about them below.
Oh, and don’t forget to check out my previous post about other WordPress plugins I recommend and use: 10 Cool WordPress Plugins that Rock my Blog.
Thanks for visiting!
Until next time,
Lil
Photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via photopin cc
Hey, I'm Lillian Leon, and I'm a copywriter on an amazing journey to discover online marketing.
In this blog, I share with you all the cool stuff I'm learning - from social media and blogging, to SEO, internet marketing and - of course - copywriting. Thanks so much for joining me.
Please also connect with me by clicking on the social media icons below. Awesome! :D
Thanks Lillian! These are great! I’m definitely going to work on implementing most, if not all, on some of my client websites. I develop more using Drupal myself, so pointers on WP plugins are appreciated!
Mike Allton recently posted..Understanding Search Behavior
Yay, glad you found them helpful!
Thanks again for dropping by (and for sharing!). You rock!
Great list thanks. I’m going to try a few especially the image optimizer. I love WordPress plugins!
Yay! I love WordPress plugins too!! Thanks Barbara for dropping by
Great list. I will try CommentLuv out. That sounds interesting.
Andreas Peter Høgfeldt Andersen recently posted..Optinskin – Increase your subscribers with WordPress plugin
Great! Let me know what you think? Thanks Andreas
Thanks for sharing. I’m definitely going to check these out.
My favs are:
All in one SEO pack
Ultimate Tiny MCE
pretty Link
WP to Buffer
Modal Dialog
Ooh… some of yours look interesting too! Will check them out.
For SEO I use Joost’s WordPress SEO, and I find that to be really effective. But I’ve also heard the All-in-one-pack is good too.
Thanks Angie
Lil
Hello Lillian,
Nice list. CommentLUV is certainly a great plugin!
Over time, I have learnt to use less and less plugins, as they tend to slow down blogs.
Cendrine Marrouat recently posted..This week in social media (February 25 – March 1, 2013)
Yes, that Plugin Performance Profiler plugin made me realise I needed to delete some of my less-used plugins.
Cool seeing you here again Cendrine. Have an awesome day!
Thanks Lillian, a lot of these I haven’t heard of, the plugin profiler looks especially neato!
WP is the most search-friendly content management solution period. I love it! My favorite plugins tend to be the most simple, these are two that I use on pretty much every site…
WP Editor – add syntax highlighting to text editors. Full access to your child and parent theme folders through appearence – theme editor.
Contact Form 7 – simple contact form builder. Easy to add CSS classes to style forms to match your design/theme.
also like someone else mentioned…All in One SEO Pack or YoastSEO will save tons of work. And there’s so many more great plugs out there – Akismet, W3totalcache, Redirection – the list goes on.
The wordpress dev community definitely rocks hard!!!
Hey Colin, so cool to see you here again
WP Editor? Wow, that sounds a little techie for me lol. But ContactForm7 sounds good as I’m not very happy with my current contact form plugin.
And I agree. WP totally rocks!
Thanks Colin. Hope you’re well.
Lil
A couple of good ones I hadn’t run across here that I should try including the Special Text Boxes one mentioned. If I might add to the list here, Dashboard Scheduled Posts is superb if you are a blogger who schedules many of your posts a head of time, this puts all your upcoming scheduled posts right on your dashboard so you can see whats scheduled to be published next at a glance. I also recommend Better Recent Drafts which is ideal for multi-author blogs and shows drafts from all users not just your own recent drafts so you can follow up on authors who may leave posts in draft but never submit them.
W3 Total Cache is often mentioned, it is imperative to have caching to help minimize the amount of calls against the WP SQL database, this works well and if you are already taking the time to compress images with EWWW then you should be caching your posts so they reduce load on the database, it also has GZIP compression so all page data is compressed when in transit so pageload times are greatly improved.
WordPress SEO By Yoast is probably the best free SEO plugin, it outperforms AIO SEO and provides helpful tips and checks on how to make sure each post is optimized before you publish it, again for a free SEO tool it outperforms almost all others and it generates your Sitemap as well so you don’t have to have 2 separate plugins for SiteMap and SEO.
Justin Germino recently posted..The Ultimate Twitter Chat Guide
Hey Justin
Thanks heaps for all your suggestions. I will defo check out Dashboard Scheduled Posts because I’m so disorganised!! lol
I already have W3 Total Cache but am not exactly sure how it works. And I agree, Yoast SEO is the best!!
Thanks again for taking the time to share these with us.
Lil
Really cool and amazing collection, i will try P3 Plugin Performance Profiler, and scroll triggered box.
Kathline Clough recently posted..The Truth About Six Pack Abs Review
Yes, both of those were good finds. Hope you enjoy them!
Thanks so much for stopping by Kathline
Broken Link Checker is not so good you have to be careful with that
Marco recently posted..Iron Man in Illustrator and Photoshop
Why is that Marco?
Hello Lillian,
Thank you for mentioning me in your article!
It’s quite a good list. My favorite is CommentLuv of course. WordPress provides you with a good backup tool without the need for a plugin, so I would recommend people use that one as a starter.
Cendrine Marrouat recently posted..TEDTalk: My escape from North Korea (Hyeonseo Lee)
Hey Cendrine
Lovely to see you here – as always
. CommentLuv rocks!!
Re: back-up, do you have a WordPress.com website? Because I think with WordPress.org, the only way to back-up is by use of plugins??
No, WordPress.org comes with the same backup tool as WordPress.com. It’s in the Tools section. You can export all your content from there.
Cendrine Marrouat recently posted..The cost of obesity in the U.S. (infographic)
Oh, I see it now. It backs up all your content. Have just used it. Cool, thanks!
love WordPress plugins! and love all the info in your website. Thanks a lot. every day i learn something new
thanks again!
Yay! I love WP plugins too!
And I’m really glad you’re finding the info on my site helpful. If there’s anything else I can help with, please holler (just email me – details on Contact page).
Thanks so much for your comment Tom! You rock!
i totally agree about comment love – nothing encourages readers more to leave a comment than actually also getting a link back to their own website. i know that shouldn’t be and definitely is not the only reason for me to comment on a blog but it encourages me because it seems to be double worth my efforts
Monja recently posted..LFM002 Podcast: How To Make A Living On Fiverr (Part 2)
Ha, that’s awesome Monja! Love your honesty. Hope you get rewarded with loads of click to your website