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In a world that is stuffed with Wordpress plugins, it can be quite a job to find just the plugin you’re looking for. It will turn out in a few minutes of searching with Google, when you don’t know the (exact) name of the plugin.
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Everyone can name their favorite plugins, so do I. But the trick is to name the plugins that really are worth installing, that add something usefull to the blog. Plugins tend to slow down a Wordpress blog, so it’s good to keep an eye on your performance.
There are a few plugins that came up in my mind instantly, when I thought about this list. Those plugins are so valuable for each blog that it’s not the question if they will be one the list, but how high on the list they will be.
The list of plugins
Off course, these plugins don’t make your blog professional, but they do add some important features to your blog. You can concentrate more on your content, which makes it easier to keep the level of your posts high.
Must-have plugins
Plugins that should be installed on all blogs, no matter what their about. These plugins provide functionalities that should be in Wordpress, by default. I’m glad they can be installed fairly easy.
The plugin that prevents your comments being flooded by spam comments. And if there’s anything that doesn’t look professional, it’s spam comments. WP-Super-Cache
Once a post hits the frontpage of Digg, you’re sure to recieve lots of unique hits. This plugin stores a static file of each page, which is easier to show than dynamic posts. It will, if configured right, prevent your blog from being killed by the Digg frontpage. All in One SEO Pack
Getting bored by adding descriptions by yourself? Let this plugin handle this (and many more features) for you! A must-have plugin for all blogs, professional or not.
Plugins for SEO & analytics
Off course, we want to stay informed about the amount of visitors and we want to be found by Google and other search engines. Time to add some tools to keep our analytics up-to-date and our blog indexable!
The most commonly used Analytics package, easily combined with the most commonly used blogging software, this is the perfect match! Blog Metrics
Perhaps you want to keep track of the statistics that normal analytics applications can’t track. This plugin tracks data like; average posts per month, average words per post, average comments per post (excluding your own) and many more. Meta Robots
It’s never been easier to add meta robot tags to pages or posts, within Wordpress as it is with this plugin. Google XML Sitemap Generator
Search engines and especially Google, love sitemaps. This plugins produces a XML-sitemap, that is highly configurable.
RSS plugins
Plugins that add features to your RSS feeds, or change the working of the standard Wordpress feed.
Blogs that are running on Wordpress have the singularity to cut of the text of the RSS-feed, once <!–more–> is used in the text. Most bloggers do this, to create excerpts of the posts on the frontpage of the blog. This plugin ignores the <!–more–> text and shows the complete text in the RSS-feed. Feedburner Feedsmith
Each and every link of the Wordpress blog to the RSS-feed will be pointed to the, once submitted, Feedburner feed. Besides that, it’s a great recommendation to use a Feedburner feed, instead of the standard Wordpress feed.
Comment plugins
Standard, the comments are pretty easy to manage, and with the Akismet plugin you are safe from spam. But there are a few plugins that make the management of comments, just a little easier.
This plugin gives you the ability to move a comment from one post to another. Easier than deleting and posting it again, once it’s been placed at the wrong post. Subscribe to Comments
People need to be informed. Once they comment on a post, this plugin allows them to choose, if they want to receive notifications on new comments on that post, or not. Quoter or Threaded Comments
I suggest you don’t use both, because it can result in some confusing comment threads. The first is to allow people to quote other comments. The second one allows comments to be as a reply to another comment and will be displayed in a threaded comment-tree. Official Comments
Allows you to make your own plugins look different than all the other comments, to make sure people read them and let people know that it’s a comment from someone special. Includes many more features, but this is the most important.
Miscellaneous plugins
Plugins that give great features, but just don’t fit in one of the other categories.
Shows a number of posts that relate (according to matching keywords) to the post that is on the screen. Makes it easier for visitors to take a look, what the blog is posting about. WPAds
A nice and versatile plugin that allows you, as a administrator on a blog, to show and rotate ads on your blog. It can show lots of different banners, from AdSense to text and images.
There’s always room for improvement
There’s always room for improvement, so let me know if you think a plugin is missing, or if a plugin doesn’t deserve it’s spot in this list.
A few thoughts aside
Don’t eschew a cheap web hosting deal if it is not hostmonster. There are other dedicated servers like startlogic too, that contribute significantly to the web development.
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Off course, most of the plugins are installed on this blog, including a few other plugins.
I already noticed the threaded plugin. You use it to provide comments to specific users.
To be very honest, I would prefer the quoted comments. The threaded thing makes the comment section very chaotic with several lines of discussion.
In large discussions, if used properly, threaded comments are much more effective. It’s easier to determine to who a user is responding.
Quoting seems to be quite hard, I’ve tried it on several blogs, but the most of the users just don’t seem to get it. Perhaps people don’t want to take time to learn how to quote, or are just lazy.
That’s why I choose to use threaded comments, above quotes.
I think the decision about quoted versus threaded comments depends a lot on how your readers use your site (or how you want them to use your site).
For example, slashdot.org has posts that are intended to spark discussion and obvious “me too” posts get down-modded quickly. The threaded model is perfect for them.
For many blogs, however, lots of people will leave a comment and then not return to that particular post (unless alerted). For authors too, it’s difficult to foster community and discussion when trying to blog several times a week. So the linear, quoted model is often more appropriate for smaller blogs.
I discussed the different formats that some sites use to display quotes on my blog.
Nice article Andy and I totally agree with you. I’ve chosen for the threaded comments instead quotes because on all blogs I’ve implemented the Quote Plugin, it just doesn’t seem to work.
Threaded comments give visitors the abbility to respond like they normally would and people who like the threads can use threads. But I like the threads far more, because of the ability to instantly reply on a specific comment, without having to use constructions with @username…
Thanks Coen, I agree with you that threaded comments offer more for visitors - can’t comment on the merits of WordPress plug-ins, as I’m not using on my site.
A quick question about how you’ve found threaded comments work with your blog:
Do you ever get to conversations so deep that they indent too far to the right? I know you use nested DIVs but at some point they will be too narrow to be readable. Any experience of that?
Since the comments have a maximum level that they will nest, they wont nest any further than this comment. This is configurable with the plugin!
That’s cool feature, and one that I’d not really thought of before.
Also - you have a super-fast turn-around responding to comments on your blog!
Yeah, I tend to hang out too much at my computer and I do get an email for each comment, so I pick them up quite fast.
Blogging is hard work, but someone’s got to do it!
Interesting plugins. I didn’t knew about some of them but i’ll try and give them a go…
Good luck! Keep us posted with your progress.
Thanks - I will try out the All in One SEO Pack.
That’s a great plugin, I use it on all my blogs. All in One SEO Pack truly adds a few features on a blog, that professional blogs can’t go without!
very nice article. and cool list of plugins.
thanks.
Nice work here. I enjoyed looking over the list and will take a trip and check the SEO pack out. Thanks !
Good luck, keep us posted!
Good list. I’d like to use that “Official Comments” plugin but every time I try the link I get an internal server error.
Yeah, I see. It’s too bad the plugins site is down. Hope that someone else has a link for you (and for me), so you can enjoy the plugin!
It looks like the plugin is downloadable again!
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I was hoping for a “WP Shopping Cart” plugin that accepts major credit cards instead of just PayPal.
Not all professional blogs are actually selling stuff. That’s the reason why I kept focus on the more general plugins.
I could form a list with plugins for commercial blogs…
Although many Fortune 500 companies have blogs for PR, smaller mom-and-pop store fronts are most interested in retailing. The best plugin I have found so far is WP e-Commerce. Unfortunately, it relies on PayPal instead of accepting major credit cards.
i have some of these
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[…] 15 WordPress Plugins That a Professional Blog Should Install - In a world that is stuffed with WordPress plugins, it can be quite a job to find just the plugin you’re looking for. It will turn out in a few minutes of searching with Google, when you don’t know the (exact) name of the plugin. […]
The word press statistics plug in available form their website works better than Google analytics as it provides useful statistics taliored for blogs e.g. how many other pingbacks, blog comments on other websites linking to the blog and many other useful statistics that are not available via Google analytics.
Excellent job by preparing this list for us. Thanks. I Wrote a post which I’ve even introduced your list here:
What WordPress Plugins do Most Bloggers Like to Use?
By the way, did you turn off your trackback system? For some reason it failed to track my post.