We make no excuses about being huge fans of WordPress and pretty much exclusively use WordPress for all the sites we build. One of the most common questions we get is: "What plugins do you recommend?" So, we put together an official list of plugins we recommend. Of course you should do your own due diligence to determine if this plugin is right for you. But enough with the legal disclaimer nonsense, let's get down to plugin fun! Plugins listed below in sections B, C, D, E, F are plugins we suggest you implement on all WordPress Installations. Using plugins listed in other sections depends on the purpose of your website.
Improve your WordPress SEO: Write better content and have a fully optimized WordPress site using the WordPress SEO plugin. Compared to other SEO plugins it allows easy setup and is very useful for canonical redirects also for tag / category listing pages. It also creates an XML sitemap and really should be the only SEO plugin you need. But if you want specific Sitemap functionality see below. This plugin will also allow you to edit your Robots.txt and .htaccess documents (if they are present and editable on your ftp server).
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/
This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your website.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
Redirection is a WordPress plugin to manage 301 redirections and keep track of 404 errors without requiring knowledge of Apache .htaccess files.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/redirection/
Simple 301 Redirects provides an easy method of redirecting requests to another page on your site or elsewhere on the web.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-301-redirects/
One of the most commonly suggested page speed issues is to minify your JavaScript (JS) and Cascading Stylesheet (CSS) files. WP Minify grabs JS/CSS files in your generated WordPress page and passes that list to the Minify engine. The Minify engine then returns a consolidated, minified, and compressed script or style for WP Minify to reference in the WordPress header.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-minify/
Caching a site keeps parts of your page content that repeatedly load on each page in your browser memory. Hyper Cache is flexible and easy to configure cache system for WordPress.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/hyper-cache/
The easiest, most effective way to secure a WordPress site. Improve the security of any WordPress site in seconds. Suitable for bigger organizations with online security rules and procedures.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/better-wp-security/
BackUpWordPress will back up your entire site including your database and all your files on a schedule that suits you.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/backupwordpress/
Plugin can do backups in to Dropbox and other remote places.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/updraftplus/
WP Remote is a free web app that enables you to easily manage all of your WordPress powered sites from one place.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/wpremote/
InboundWriter enables writers, bloggers, and marketers to easily create and improve online content for increased reach, engagement and conversions.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/inboundwriter/
Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/
Gravity Forms is a paid form service, however the functionality is far more advanced that Contact Form 7. Much more can be done, but usually also requires a Web Developer to implement anything beyond a simple functionality install, but the results are far superior, including reporting functionality and ability to integrate Analytics and tracking data.
Plugin URL
http://www.gravityforms.com/
WP-Polls is extremely powerful poll platform with support of multiple selection of answers. It is also customizable via templates and CSS styles.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-polls/
Business Directory Plugin allows you to build local directories, business provider listings, Yellow-Pages style business directories, Yelp-like review.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/business-directory-plugin/
Injects any adverts (e.g. AdSense) into the WordPress posts or widget area. Restrict who sees ads by post length/age/referrer or IP. Cache compatible.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/ad-injection/
Allows multiple permalink structures and category-specific permalinks without needing redirects.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-permalinks/
Better Internal Link Search improves the default internal link searching feature in a number of ways, making it faster and easier to find the content you want to link up.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/better-internal-link-search/
WordPress Related Posts generates a list of related posts with thumbnails and gives you click-through statistics.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-23-related-posts-plugin/
This plugin will check your posts, comments and other content for broken links and missing images, and notify you if any are found.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/broken-link-checker/
This plugin automatically publishes posts from your blog to your Social Network accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+(Google Plus), Blogger, Tumblr, LiveJournal, FriendFeed, DreamWidth, Delicious, Diigo, Instapaper, Stumbleupon, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Plurk, VKontakte(VK.com), YouTube, WordPress, etc.
The whole process is completely automated. Just write a new post and either entire post or it's nicely formatted announcement with backlink will be published to all your configured social networks. You can reach the most audience and tell all your friends, readers and followers about your new post. Plugin works with profiles, business pages, community pages, groups, etc.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/social-networks-auto-poster-facebook-twitter-g/
Flare is a simple yet eye-catching social sharing bar that gets you followed and lets your content get shared via posts, pages, and media types.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/flare/
Social Charge your Content with ShareThis - features Social Analytics, CopyNShare, Open Graph Sharing, and the Hovering Bar!
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/share-this/
Add a widget to your sidebar to show your latest tweet(s) with style and without JavaScript! Retweet, Favorite and Reply links are available.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/juiz-last-tweet-widget/
Display the counting data of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Steam Community, SoundCloud posts and comments.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/social-count-plus/
The Disqus comment system replaces your WordPress comment system with your comments hosted and powered by Disqus.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/disqus-comment-system/
What this plugin does is to shows the IDs on admin section.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/catch-ids/
Simple Lightbox is a very simple and customizable lightbox that is easy to add to your WordPress website.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-lightbox/
With WordPress Popular Posts, you can show your visitors what are the most popular entries on your blog.
Plugin URL
http://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-popular-posts/
With the WordPress Backup to Dropbox plugin, you can backup your entire site to a Dropbox account. Free accounts availabld and Zipped backups available for premium accounts.
http://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-backup-to-dropbox/
Do you have any favourite plugins not listed here? Please feel free to comment or tweet me @ainsleymuller and I'll be happy to add them in. Feedback on the ones we listed? That's welcome too.
