20 Most Commonly Used Plugins on WordPress Blogs
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.
useful information… thank you
Great list. I have a list of ten plugins that attract traffic on my blog at http://www.paulpetch.com that may help a few folk out.
What plugin do you use to generate the “about the author” info? It looks great,
Kudos to the author of this article. You just clued me into some top notch plugins that I was not aware of. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.