Wordpress is an awesome blogging platform that is really simple and easy to use and also easy to customise to your own liking using plug-ins and widgets. A question that I am often asked is what plugins do I need for my Wordpress Blog? So with this in mind the purpose of this post is to highlight to new bloggers 5 plug-ins that make using and managing your Wordpress environment a breeze.
What is a Plug-in?
A wordpress plug-in are applications or programs that enhance your Wordpress experience. Most of the plug-ins are free and can be downloaded from the Wordpress plug-in directory or you can search for them by using a search engine such as google or bing. So below is a list of must have plug-ins that you should have installed on your blog.
Wordpress Database Backup by Austin Matzko
Wordpress Database backup is a simple yet powerful plug-in that allows you to schedule and run backups right from within your Wordpress dashboard. Installation is quick and simple with no real configuration required. The plug-in will even email the backup file to your preferred email account should you want. This is a must have plug-in to ensure that your wordpress database is backed up on a regular basis.
Google XML Sitemaps by Arne Brachold
This plug-in creates a site-map file of your Wordpress site/blog and submits it to the search engines such as Google & Bing. Installation is a breeze and no real configuration is required to get it up and running. This is a valuable plug-in to help get your search engine rankings going.
Wordpress Stats by Andy Skelton
The Wordpress stats plug-in is a simple yet very powerful tool that displays stats within your Wordpress dashboard showing you number of hits, referring URLS and search engine terms all in a neat and usable graphical interface. Its an ideal compliment to Google Analytics or any other analytics packages. You will need to register with Wordpress for an API key to enable this to work on your blog site.
FD Feedburner Plug-in by John Watson
This plug-in takes your normal blog RSS feed and directs it into Feedburner. Feedburner is a google owned property that manages your RSS feed and enables a full range of statistics and monetization options for your feed. You will need a feedburner account (free) and will need to “burn” your RSS feed in the Feedburner interface, when that is done you basically input the Feedburner feed URL into the plug-ins settings and away you go. This is a highly recommended plug-in and it will enable you to add huge value to your RSS Subscribers
All In One SEO Pack by Michael Torbert
This plug-in allows you to input a whole range of SEO options into your posts or pages which will enable you to rank higher in the search engine listings. You can target specific keywords and meta data and add descriptions to posts and pages. A great addition to your Wordpress armoury! Note you should check that this plug-in will work with your specific theme before installing.
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FYI: Wordpress Backup is a nice plugin – there isn’t anything else like it, but it has problems. After a while it stops emailing the backups, or they become sporadic. Of the 3 sites that I have running this plugin, only 1 still works. Austin hasn’t managed to figure out what is causing this, and if you look at the forum for the plugin on his site, other users are having the same problems. I hope he can manage to fix it. Hope this helps.
Cool thanks Tony for the information, I will keep this in mind. So far I have not had any issues but thanks for bringing this to my attention.