After using WordPress for a while now on different sites, I’ve come to the conclusion that WordPress simply rocks. I’m not sure I would ever use anything else for a new site, even a non-blog site. In any case, over time, I’ve used the following WordPress plugins and widgets on some or all of my WordPress sites. Of course, there’s the old standards like Akismet, that no one should ever be without, but I’m not including those in the list. Some of these might be ones you’ve never heard of before, while some are pretty popular.
First things first, if you are starting a new blog, choose a theme that is widget-compatible. Whether or not you intend to use sidebar widgets, you’ll eventually discover that you want to. So be prepared in advance. Now, on to the list.
Sidebar Widgets
Adds Sidebar Widgets panel under Presentation menu
Category Cloud Widget
Adds a sidebar widget to display the categories as a tag cloud.
Widgetize Anything
Provides a widget interface for any php code.
Enforce www. Preference
Provides 301 redirects to queries with /index.php and enforces your use or non-use of www.
Link Indication
Adds CSS class attributes to external links and optionally to any other link types such as flickr, wikipedia, imdb, etc.
MyAvatars
This plugin allows you to add MyBlogLog.com avatars to WordPress comments.
Sociable
Automatically add links on your posts to popular social bookmarking sites.
WPVideo
Allows you to insert online videos in your post by providing the video url between the
Link To Me Textbox
This plugin will set up a “link to me textbox” with HTML code in your blog posts and increase your search engine rankings.
Compact Monthly Archive
Displays a compact montlhly archive instead of the default long list. Either display it as a block suitable for the body of a page or in a form compact enough for a sidebar.
Head Meta Description
Insert HTML META description tag: excerpt/content brief for post/Page, description for category, and blog tagline for everything else.
Random Redirect
Allows you to create a link to yourblog.example.com/?random which will redirect someone to a random post on your blog, in a StumbleUpon-like fashion.
Simple Tags
Allows you to create a list of Technorati tags at the bottom of your post by providing a comma separated list of tags between the [tags] tags. You can use it with any blogging tool/method, not just when posting from WordPress itself (doesn’t use custom fields). Supports multiple words within tags. Also allows in-post tagging of words by enclosing them in [tag] tags.
Subscribe To Comments
Allows readers to recieve notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry.
WordPress Mobile Edition
Show a mobile view of the post/page if the visitor is on a known mobile device.
What Would Seth Godin Do
Displays a custom welcome message to new visitors
wp-cache
Cache module for those times you experience the Digg effect
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OK – scratch that MyBlogLog message.
Anyway – these are some of my most favoritiest plugins on the planet! But I would be afraid to install “Random Redirect”. Some of my earliest posts are downright embarrassingly bad!
No doubt we’ve all had some embarrassingly bad posts. That’s ok! Just proves we’re human.
Thanks for sharing your favorites! I love trying out different plugins (even though some disappear into oblivion after I deactivate them).
I’m going to try out the What Would Seth Gordon Do, the Random Redirect, and the Bookmark Widget. Most of the others I already use because… well… they’re my favorites too!
Donna! The “Enforce www. Preference” plugin by Mark Jaquith that you have listed in your database over here has been marked as retired! Please.. Please! PLEASE! What would be an alternative plugin?
Thanks a bunch! =)
Hey Joe, it’s just not needed at all anymore. When you put the blog’s url into Settings / General now, whichever version you use will be the one that is enforced. So just either put www or don’t put www in the General Settings url fields, and you’re good to go. To clarify, if you put http://www.yourblog.com in the WordPress address (URL) and Site Address (URL) on the Settings / General tab, it will enforce www. If you put http://yourblog.com in those fields, it will enforce non-www.
Twitter: DonnaFontenot