One of the best things about the Wordpress platform is the extensive list of plugins available to extend and add new functionality to your site. Let’s take a look at the 20 most commonly used plugins on Wordpress blogs across the web, including those that provide additional features, to those that simply alleviate the simple tasks of running a blog.
All in One SEO Pack
The All in One is a super handy plugin that instantly transforms your Wordpress blog into a search engine friendly site.
Google XML Sitemaps
The Google XML Sitemaps plugin creates an auto-updating sitemap for the spiders to feast on, ensuring your latest contest is indexed by the search engines.
Akismet
Akismet is the daddy of spam capturing, keeping thousands of blogs clean from unscrupulous robots and individuals aiming to tarnish your site with their comments and links.
Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is a simple but flexible contact form solution for Wordpress blogs, easy to install and set up, and includes Captcha and spam filtering features.
GD Star Rating
Give users powers to vote and rate the articles and content on your blog with the GD Star Rating plugin. Especially useful for your design gallery website.
Add to Any: Share/Bookmark/Email Button
Allow users to share, bookmark and email your articles with their friends to increase traffic and gain higher visibility in the social media world.
Random Pages Widget – For Visitors & SEO
Have a widgetized sidebar? Use this Random Pages Widget to display a list of pages and posts to allow users to dig deeper into your sites content.
NextGEN Gallery
Who doesn’t love lightbox galleries? The NextGEN Gallery allows easy insertion of fancy javascript image popups to Wordpress through a single plugin.
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
There are plenty of related posts plugins out there, but this particular version is packed full of options and customization settings.
Google Analytics for WordPress
Easily insert your Analytics tracking code and keep an eye on stats from links, comments and your blogroll.
Easy AdSense
Easily insert revenue generating Google ads to your site, and benefit from a range of helpful features with the Easy AdSense plugin.
WP Super Cache
WP Super Cache protects your site from large traffic influxes by loading static files in place of the dynamic pages. Highly renown for defending against the Digg effect.
Sociable
The Sociable plugin is packed full of social bookmarking sites, allowing you to instantly add various buttons through one simple plugin file.
Broken Link Checker
The Broken Link Checker does exactly what it says on the tin, monitors your Wordpress blog and informs of any links getting lost in cyberspace.
Google Analyticator
Google Analyticator is another super handy plugin providing instant analytics tracking. Additional features include admin dashboard with detailed stats.
WP e-Commerce
Transform your blog into an e-Commerce system with this great plugin. Complete with elegant and easy to use features typical of any full blown cart solution.
Twitter Tools
Twitter is everywhere, including your blog with the Twitter Tools plugin! It allows easy integration between Wordpress and your Twitter account.
Youtube Brackets
Forget complicated embed codes, with the YouTube Brackets plugin simply post videos to your articles with easy bracket codes.
WP-PageNavi
Easily add more page navigation functionality to your blog with the WP PageNavi plugin. Allows custom page numbering and wordings amongst more.
WordPress.com Stats
Discover interesting metrics about your blog with the Stats plugin, covering the most popular requests such as pageviews, popular posts and traffic stats.
Great post, a few plugins I hadn’t seen there before so might give them a go in the future. I only use 4 of them ;)
A plugin for backup is needed. I use “WordPress Database Backup” and it does a great job. http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup
Excellent Post. I do use most of these, but I am anxious to try the Random Pages Widget – For Visitors & SEO…
Thanks!
A few here that I didnt have, I’ll be installing them now. Haha, nice work.
Thanks for this post. A few I am interested in. I often use plugins that allow a feed from one page to appear on the home page, like a news feed.
Great plugins, i just wait to use them.
Thanks!
Chris
Thanks. Navigating the plug-in waters just got easier thanks to this post. Another plug in I would add to the list is the WP -> Twitter
Thanks,
R.W.
nice collection, i am going to try the ad sense one.
Great list! A nice collection of plugins to reference when creating a new Wordpress site.
A quick not on the XML sitemap generator tool, this tool may not be the best way to create an XML sitemap. Yahoo actually banned it once because it was considering its updates as spamming the engine. A client of mine got banned for a few weeks cause of this plugin. Dynamic sitemap generators are few are far between and to find the right one is very hard.
If creating a sitemap by hand is not in the cards, I’ve found this one to be decent.
I use or have used almost all of these, but I hadn’t heard of Twitter Tools and it is exactly what i was looking for! Thanks!
pouyanabavi
I’ve had most of these installed for a while now, and have always wondered if there are better ones out there. I’m guessing these are the most popular for a reason.
Tanks, Chris!
Nice article, very useful, think i will have to try out some more plugins from the wordpresssphere. Some of them are well know, others not. Thank you! =)
Best regards
Florian
I personally use half of the following plugins. Some I have used as an experiment, like sociable, and they are great too!
Nice list of plugins. I any use, but not all. Thanks
Its really been impressive for me
Great!
some i didn’t knew. But i used most in my last project :)
Nice. Thanks, Chris.
a must have collection of wordpress plugins :)
much love chris, like a pannini sticker album I went through it saying “goddit” or “niddit” but wonderfully comprehensive and very,very well presented
I use most of these. Looking for the All-In-One SEO pack to work well for me.
I am in the process of moving my static site, wordpress. These look like some very helpful plug-ins definitely going to take a look at a few of them.
It’s obviously a great addon to everyones blog… thank you so much! (of course, I will add some of it to muy own blog)
nice post, I am using most of these already
this is a great list. thanks for posting
Very nice post!
I´m already using almost all listed plugins in my blogs.
So, probably your post title could not be better: “20 most commonly used plugins on Wordpress blogs” – ; )
Greetings from Brazil!
Only one I think is missing would be pagemash
i have 43 active plugins i didnt realise most people only have 5-6 i was lioke a kid in acandy store added all of teh above couldnt get the star ratings to fucntion – add to any is wicked but takes time to load
i have a new site too just thought i’d mention : )
Very nice list of plugins
not to sure about 1 or 2 of them
but most are of great use to every
wordpress blogger out there..
will be putting a list of plugins together
that are the best of the best on my site soon.
This is really a brilliant list, thanks a lot for putting through a brilliant list.
Nice list!
Thanksss 4 sharing!
Excellent site, keep up the good work
Great list, I think the plugins are one of the best things about Wordpress.
Thank you, excellent list! But where is Samsarin? I would be dead in the water without Samsarin!
Excellent List! This is a very informative group of helpful tools all in one place. Very Well Done. Keep up the great work.
Some great and not so great pliginns here. A few of them I find almost impossible to use and keep the site looking good. Could be the free themes I guess
A great page and some helpfull comments on plugins
Hello, it really interesting, thanks
LoL I use almost all of those. Great list too. :D
buen dato, nice,
very much helping list you showing with description, i am using some of these listed and now getting more for further needs. thanks
Great Post!!
thanks
cool, i already use half of them :D . The other half is quite useful :))
Excellent post I use quite of a few of these.. but there are a few that I have never heard of before. Thanks for the time put into this list.
I missed 1 or 2 of these, but I had most of them on. Great to know that I’m heading along the right lines!
Thanks for the tips!
I use most of these, but I missed a few. Great to know I’m headed along the right lines.
Thanks for the posts and the tips.
I use most of these, but I missed a few. Great to know I’m headed along the right lines.
Thanks for the posts and the tips
Chris Spooner is a designer who has a love for creativity and enjoys experimenting with various techniques in both print and web. Check out Chris’ design tutorials and articles at Blog.SpoonGraphics or follow his daily findings on Twitter.
interesting information thank you
this is real awsome u are so freaking genius man thanks for the help i realy need this thank you i hope u will get what deserve i am sure if you are helping people u are succeed in your life