30 Cool WordPress Plugins For Web Publishers

In this article you'll find more than 30 cool WordPress plugins to customize and tweak the performances of your blog site. Do you want more SEO control, embed videos, or track your RSS feed subscribers? Here's some good stuff for you.

Photo credit: egal

There are many blogging platform out there and they all do pretty much the same: get you started to publish your own content. But WordPress is by far the favorite one by bloggers. Why? WordPress has an awesome list of plugins to help you personalize your blog and add extra features.

So I decided to start from the list by Ruchir Chawdhry on TechVivo, and extend it with some kind suggestions from Robin Good and MasterNewMedia SEO expert, Matteo Ionescu. The result is a collection of more than 30 plugins for professional web publishing with WordPress, organized in specific categories:

a) Content sharing

b) Spam Fighting

c) SEO

d) Navigation Enhancement

e) Stats

f) WordPress Admin Enhancement

g) Content Embedding

h) Miscellanous

30 Cool WordPress Plugins For Web Publishers

Content Sharing

• FeedBurner FeedSmith

  The FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin detects all ways to access your feed (e.g. yoursite.com/feed/ or yoursite.com/wp-rss2.php etc) and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber. It will forward for your main posts feed, and optionally, your comments feed as well.

  http://www.google.com/support/feedburner/bin/answer.py?answer=78483&topic=13252

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• Sociable

  Sociable automatically adds links to your favorite social bookmarking sites on your posts, pages, and in your RSS feed. You can choose from 99 different social bookmarking sites.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sociable/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry

Spam Fighting

• Akismet

  Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not, and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s comments admin screen. With the ever increasing amount of spam on the web, you’d be dumb not to get this plugin.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• WP-Spam Free

  Fed up of all that comment spam? Stop wasting time checking and clearing your Akismet spam queue every day and download WP-SpamFree. It will eliminate 99% - 100% of the comment spam you receive. Yep, I’m not joking. And it does it without CAPTCHAS! WP-SpamFree uses a combo of JavaScript and cookies to stop the spambots. Since 99% of the spambots out there can’t process JavaScript, they won’t be able to submit comments. It also doesn’t slow down your blog one bit.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-spamfree/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• Simple Trackback Validation

  The Simple Trackback Validation plugin helps to eliminate trackback spam by performing a simple a simple but effective test on all incoming trackbacks.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-trackback-validation/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry

SEO

• All-in-One SEO Pack

  The All-in-One SEO Pack is the ultimate SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plugin out there. It automatically optimizes your blog for search engines, and has several options for the more advanced users.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• Google XML Sitemaps Generator

  The Google XML Sitemaps Generator plugin generates an XML sitemap of your WordPress blog. Ask, Google, Yahoo!, and MSN support this format. Having an XML sitemap and submitting it to the search engines that support it can really increase your blog’s search engine visibility, especially when it’s new.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• Redirection

  Redirection is a solution to manage 301 redirects. Very useful if you ever need to change the URL of a post / page, Redirection becomes essential when migrating from another platform.

  http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/redirection/

  Review by Matteo Ionescu






• HeadSpace2

  HeadSpace is meta-tag management on steroids. A great alternative to the popular All In One SEO Pack supporting an incredible number of features.

  
  http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/headspace2/

  Review by Matteo Ionescu

Navigation Enhancement

• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

  Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) inserts a list of related posts below each post on your blog, and in your blog’s RSS feed. It’s extremely configurable, and a must-have.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/yet-another-related-posts-plugin/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• TweetBacks

  TweetBacks allows you to search the popular microblogging service Twitter for tweets that link to your blog posts. These tweets are then displayed under the entries on your blog site so that you and your readers know how many people shared your thoughts.

  http://danzarrella.com/wp-tweetbacks-plugin.html

  Review by Daniele Bazzano






• SRG Clean Archives

  The SRG Clean Archives plugin displays your archive listings in a clean and uniform fashion, that’s search engine and user-friendly, on a dedicated page or in your sidebar. If you’re still manually updating your archives page, stop doing it!

  http://www.idunzo.com/projects/clean-archives

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• Contact Form 7

  Even though there are tens of contact form plugins out there, I’ve always liked Contact Form 7. The problem with most contact form plugins is that either they are too simple or way too complex. Contact Form 7, on the other hand, is extensible yet easy-to-use. It supports Ajax-powered submitting, multiple forms, CAPTCHAS, and Akismet spam filtering.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• Democracy

  Democracy is a simple but effective way to add polls to your WordPress website and enhance user interaction.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/democracy/

  Review by Matteo Ionescu






• Wp PostRatings

  With Wp PostRatings you con allow your readers to rate your posts. Written in Ajax, is very light and unobtrusive.

  http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/

  Review by Daniele Bazzano

Statistics

• WordPress.com Stats

  WordPress.com Stats is a traffic statistics plugin that shows only the most popular metrics a blogger wants to track – such as page views, referrers, top posts & pages, search engine terms, and clicks – and provides them in a clear and concise interface.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stats/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• Google Analytics for WordPress

  The Google Analytics for WordPress plugin lets you insert the Google Analytics code automatically throughout your blog. It discounts your own visits, automatically tracks and segments all outbound links from within posts, comment author links, links within comments, blogroll links, and downloads. It even allows you to track AdSense clicks, add extra search engines, and track image search queries.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry

WordPress Admin Enhancement

• One Click

  The One-Click plugin allows you to upload themes and plugins straight to your WordPress blog from the browser. Just upload the zip file, and it’ll automatically unzip the contents and install the plugin for you. Now you never have to use FTP again!

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/one-click-plugin-updater/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• Dashboard Widget Manager

  Ever felt your dashboard was too cluttered? Then download Dashboard Widget Manager. It allows you to remove unnecessary widgets from your dashboard so it’ll look clean and load faster.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/dashboard-widget-manager/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• Lighter Menus

  Lighter Menus creates drop down menus instead of the regular admin menus for WordPress, so you can browse items in one click. It’s fast to load, adaptable to color schemes, and comes with some sleek icons.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/lighter-admin-drop-menus/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• PageMash

  Customize the order of your pages, manage their parent structure, and hide them, all using PageMash. It features an Ajax drag-and-drop administrative interface, and is a great tool to re-arrange the order of your pages quickly.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pagemash/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• Manageable

  Manageable allows inline editing of the date, title, categories, tags, status, and more of both posts and pages without ever having to leave the "Manageable" admin section. No need to load each post or page individually. Simply double-click anywhere in the post or page row and when you’re done, press enter.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/manageable/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• Role Manager

  Role Manager is a solution to handle user levels and allow deep customization of individual permissions. Very useful if you manage a multi-user blog!
  http://redalt.com/Resources/Plugins/Role+Manager

  Review by Matteo Ionescu

Content Embedding Utilities

• Embedit

  Embedit is a very light plugin (ionly 10 lines of code) which lets you easily embed any HTML code into a WordPress page / post. Works seamlessly across different versions of WordPress.

  
  http://www.matteoionescu.com/wordpress/embed-html/

  Review by Daniele Bazzano






• Samsarin PHP Widget ***DEAD

  Very simple but effective way to add custom widgets into sidebars with your PHP / HTML code. Samsarin PHP Widget functionality should be really implemented in WordPress itself!

  http://www.samsarin.com/blog/2007/03/10/samsarin-php-widget/

  Review by Matteo Ionescu






• Exec-PHP

  Exec-PHP lets you execute PHP code in posts, pages, and in the text widgets of your sidebar.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/exec-php/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry

Miscellaneous

• WP Super Cache

  I'm sure you’ve heard of the Digg Effect and the Slashdot Effect. They can cause a server meltdown, and if you’re on shared hosting, get your ass kicked out. To Digg-proof your blog, get WP Super Cache. It reduces the load on your server by generating static HTML files from your dynamic WordPress blog.

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• WordPress Database Backup

  You should always backup your WordPress database regularly. However, doing it manually every time can be difficult and time consuming. The WordPress Database Backup plugin lets you easily backup your WordPress database tables. You can even schedule a backup, and it'll email the file to you every day!

  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• OIO Publisher

  OIO Publisher is the ultimate ad management plugin. It’s great for those who want to sell ads on their blog by themselves. The great thing about OIO is that it removes all the hassle one gets from self-selling ad space: you only have to approve purchases. OIO Publisher handles everything else. Using OIO, you can sell reviews, links, ads, and even your own products! Heck, it even allows you to create your own affiliate program, so other people can sell your ads and products for you.

  http://www.oiopublisher.com/

  Review by Ruchir Chawdhry






• qTranslate

  Multilingual support is one of the biggest missing features of WordPress, but with qTransalate you can easily accomplish the task of managing different languages for your blog site.

  http://www.qianqin.de/qtranslate/

  Review by Daniele Bazzano






• WP Lytebox

  WP Lytebox lets you easily add a lightbox effect when clicking a thumbnail to display the fullsize image.

  http://grupenet.com/2007/08/03/wp-lytebox/

  Review by Matteo Ionescu

Original list by Ruchir Chawdhry on TechVivo, extended with the contributions of Robin Good and Matteo Ionescu. First published for MasterNewMedia on December 11, 2008 as "30 Cool WordPress Plugins For Web Publishers".

Photo credits:
Content Sharing - benseguenia khaled
Spam Fighting - Andrea Danti
SEO - Marco Rullkoetter
Navigation Enhancement - Phecsone
Stats - Janaka Dharmasena
WordPress Admin Enhancement - WordPress
Content Embedding - norebbo
Miscellanous - Vitaliy Tumanyan