Jentrepreneur

With blogging, especially on Wordpress, sometimes it feels like plugins make the world go ’round. They often provide some of the most useful tools both for bloggers and for blog readers. Here are the 10 best Wordpress plugins, according to moi (and not in any particular order), based on what I find myself repeatedly using:

1. Akismet - It’s just a lifesaver… simply put. It’s a default. Activate it. Use it. Love it. Kick the spammers to the curb.

2. Author Adsense - You won’t be able to use this if you use the Adsense Deluxe plugin, but if you’re running a multi-author blog, it’s a must-have. I’m currently using it on the Six Figure Writers blog, and have it enabled on BizAmmo.com for when I bring in a few writers on a revenue sharing model. It’s easy to use, and lets you easily set ad shares per users based on posts (so writers are only paid for the posts they personally contribute to the site).

3. Add Meta Tags - Another simple plugin, Add-Meta-Tags is just what it sounds like: a plugin allowing you to add meta tags to your home page, category pages, pages, posts, etc. for SEO purposes. You can let the plugin automatically create custom meta tags for your keywords and page descriptions, or you can easily override them on an individual page basis.

4. SimpleTags - This is another plugin that’s just what it sounds like: a very simple way to add Technorati tags to all of your posts.

5. Dagon Design Form Mailer - This contact form creator is another lifesaver. You can completely customize it, and create multiple forms. You can see it in use on the nomination page here at ChickTech for the best women webmasters, being used as the nomination / submission form.

6. WWW Redirect - I remember implementing a 301 redirect from my non-www pages to my www pages on several of my blogs not long ago. The result was login problems, comments no longer working, post content mysteriously disappearing after posting, and more. The only way to resolve the problems was to scrap my redirects, which wasn’t an option. Luckily, the www redirect plugin did the trick nicely, and without any of those nasty side effects.

7. WP Post Ratings - I haven’t implemented this plugin yet, but plan to on a number of my blogs. The idea on this one is simple: it adds a rating system to your blog posts, so blog readers can rate them (a nice means of gathering quick and simple feedback, or a way or ranking posts, especially if you have multiple blog authors or contributors).

8. Related Posts Plugin - This one simply finds posts that it feels are relevant to the current post, and displays them in a list. It’s a nice and easy way of interlinking your articles and posts to improve reader metrics a bit.

9. Popularity Contest - This plugin allows you to automatically display a list of the most popular posts on your blog.

10. Wordpress Database Backup - This is another must-have no matter what type of blog you’re running niche- or author-wise. It’s a tool to allow you to quickly backup your blog’s database… so now there aren’t any excuses for letting it slip your mind.

[tag]wordpress,plugins,blogs,blogging,wordpress plugins,best wordpress plugins[/tag]

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