It seems these days everyone is using WordPress to handle their blogging needs. And why not? It is one of the easiest to use, highly customizable web applications in existence today. For this week’s list I’m going to share with your 5 WordPress plugins that I use on this website here.
- 5) Future Posts & Enhanced Post Management: Yes, I know these are two separate plugins, but they are written by the same person, Michael Mancur. These two plugins alone help me track my future posts (since I write my Mon., Wed., and Friday posts about 1 week in advance on average) as well as modifying the post management page to make things a little easier to maintain. Great, simple plugins.
- 4) Google Sitemaps: This plugin is almost essential if you want Google to index your website accurately. You simply need to install it, set a couple of options and you are sending sitemaps to Google. Also, since Yahoo! and Microsoft have agreed to use this particular sitemap standard, there is no better time to install this plugin.
- 3) Feedburner Feed Replacement: When it comes to modifying files located on the server, I am of two minds. Part of me likes to do it myself, so that I can learn the inner workings of things. However, there are certain things where my mind tells me to let the computer do it. My RSS feeds is one of those things. Since RSS is one of the new ways to show you how much traffic you are getting, I wanted the most accurate numbers possible. This Feedburner plugin, has one textbox and that is it. Doesn’t get any simpler than that.
- 2) WordPress Cache: Speed counts when you run a website. The faster your page loads the happier the readers are. WordPress Cache makes it easy to cache pages on your site for a length of time that you determine. You simply tell it how long to cache a page for and this plugin does the rest.
- 1) OpenID Registration: I have been on an OpenID kick lately. I really like the idea of a single login/password combination. I also think that OpenID has the potential to succeed where Microsoft’s Live ID fails. This plugin allows you to set up OpenID registration on your website so that people can use their OpenID when registering to leave comments. While installing the plugin in the comment form can be a little difficult for a beginner in PHP/HTML, the payoff is worth it. I expect that OpenID is going to make a ton of headway now that AOL and Microsoft have announced support for the platform.
Well there you have it, some WordPress plugins that I use on this website. None of these probably come as a tremendous shock, but they are good plugins that should at least be given some focus. Do you have a WordPress plugin that you love? Tell me about by leaving a comment or emailing me directly.
Michael Koby 