5 WordPress Plugins I Could Not Live Without

After having this blog for 4+ years now, I’ve gone through over 150 different plugins searching for just the right ones. Here are 5 I could not live without (my commentary in italics)…

1. Blubrry PowerPress Podcasting plugin

Blubrry PowerPress brings the essential features for podcasting to WordPress including full iTunes support, web audio/video media players and more. I’ve been with Blubrry for years, and they do quality work. If you are a podcaster, you had better have this plugin.

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

2. Akismet

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. So far, Akismet is responsible for catching 12k spam comments on my blog.

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

3. IntenseDebate Comments

IntenseDebate comments enhance and encourage conversation on your blog. Build your reader community, increase your comments, & boost pageviews. I run many WP websites and run both ID and Disqus on certain installs. ID so far has been responsible for all the cool stuff comment-wise you see on my blog. The cool thing is they also backup your comments, so you will never lose them!

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

4. Top 10

Track daily and total visits on your blog posts and display the count as well as popular posts. This one little plugin helped me keep track of what the 10 most popular posts on my site were. I would’ve never known “How To Write A Check” was #1 without it.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/top-10/

5. All in One SEO Pack

Automatically optimizes your WordPress blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization). Little did I know my blog would rank better automatically for this. I was able to find I rank pretty high up in Google for “America’s Got Talent Tips” (Search Results).

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

Those are my 5 plugins I couldn’t live without. What are yours?

2 comments

  1. Being a graphic designer, I am quite partial to wp-typography. It creates real quotes and apostrophes, helps with letter spacing/tracking and hyphenation, and just makes the web a prettier place.

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