Today I am going to share with you the plugins this very blog uses to stay alive. Keep in mind these are all wordpress plugins so the bloggers reading here not using wordpress yet may be out of luck on some of this fantastic and essential plugins.
A blogger needs help as content production and promotion are top concern for the new author and blog alike. This does not leave much time for the little things that make a blog home for so many of us when we come to visit. Keeping this in mind generally most people will have anywhere from 10-20 plugins. I am quite religous about the ones I keep active and installed as I like to have the smallest footprint on my server resources that is possible. This can be contributed to my overly clean nature or just plain craziness depending on how you want to think about it. This being said Less is More as too much is garbage not just for your resources but also your reader. Depending on your hosting package or your need for more than the essentials these are definate must haves as far as plug ins go.
If you do not see a critical plugin for your blog listed but would like to have it added to the bloggers toolbox please post it in the comments for this post.
Adsense Target – This plugin will make sure that your adsense stays true to your posted content instead of anything else. As some of my older viewers will know I had a problem with this until I installed this plug in. I highly recommend it either way as to maximize your adsense earnings.
Akismet - What can I say in the way of spam control this works perfectly and fits the bill for me. I will be honest I have not tried any others yet as I have had absolutely no need to. If you do not have an anti spam filter for your comments yet I say download this one.
Comment Luv – This is another essential for any blog which you wish to encourage commentation on. This in combination with another I will reveal shortly will help to produce an environment which people comment and share their thoughts while also in a backwards way promoting their own last blog post. Highly effective.
Contact Form – An all in one does it all contact form plugin that has a very small footprint and is very easy to use. Again their are many options for these but this was the first one I tried out of the gate and it fits the bill.
FeedBurner FeedSmith – This is one of a couple of plug ins which will help keep your rss number accurate to what is true. It essentially sends all of your rss subscriptions to one place on your feedburner account whether it is email or a feedreader. I highly recommend this.
Google XML maps – This may be a new concept to many but if you want your site indexed daily and quickly after new content is posted this is the best way in tangent with a google webmaster tools account. It essentially makes an index in xml of your entire site and sends it to google; as well as, the other search engines. This means more organic traffic.
OIO Publisher Direct Pro – The only blog monetization tool you will ever need. This plugin is what every serious blogger uses to automate their blog monetization and keep the middle man out of your transactions.
Random Posts – I use this under the Featured Post section as a way to display content from the archives which most new viewers or people who do not want to manually search my archives to get a taste of what Big Ben Patton’s Place is all about. It’s great to offer old content as well as your current posts as I have so people have the best idea of the content your offering with as little work as possible.
SezWho – This plug in helps to raise user loyalty and establish a larger sense of community amongst your peers and commentators. It is highly customizable and allows users to rate threads and if you allow comments as well. The avatar system can replace your stock one and also links to posts or comments that the author of your post or comments has made recently as to get a better feel for your reader.
Subscribe to comments – Another must have for any blogger wishing to promote serious commentaion and establishing a real blog community. This way between rss, bookmarks and comment subscriptions you are able to notify your dedicated reader of anything new the moment it happens.
Top Commentators Widget – This is by far the most useful tool in the bloggers arsenal to raise blog commentation and loyalty. For instance having a free back link to your blog because you participate in conversation helps you network with other bloggers and again promotes a 2 way discussion instead of just your posts on a page.
Word Press Database Backup- This is needed no matter what kind of blog you run you always want to hold your db as it is sacred. If lost you may lose valuable information which controls your blog and keeps it glued together at the seams. I have one saved on the server daily, mailed to my web host email and mailed to gmail as a precaution against anything undesirable happening to it. All I can say is be prepared.
Wp Super Cache – While some blogs may not need this I still recommend it for everyone. You know the saying Digg proof? These guys invented it. Essentially what it is doing for you is caching the php from your wordpress blog which happens to be rather CPU intensive when many many people are accessing your website at once and instead turns it into html which is not. This can mean the difference in a fast load time and a very slow one if your hosting is not up to par. It can also mean the difference on some hosts between being suspended for over cpu usage, or even causing your entire shared server to crash. All in all this plugging is quite valuable and very customizable. I have my cache times set for every ten minutes. It also automatically reaches after every comment or content update so your site is still live. I only cache my top landing page once you navigate into a post or another page your reading the php again. You can change this under options but for me the traffic I am concerned about is all top level. One note about this plug in if you use OIO Publisher it is a php script you will want to change to the ad server option and insert it into your code manually. Java Scripts load every time the html loads so all of this will stay live and rotate etc as you had setup with the php.
These are by far some of the most popular plugins being used, but by no means are the only ones. Depending on your niche or site you may want to include a few more or even not as many.
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Pretty good list there Ben. Theres a few on there that I didn’t even know about.
wp super cache, that ones seems pretty interesting. I have yet to get a huge amount of traffic at once, but ya never know. I think I’ll go through my list again and see what I need to add and what I can throw away.
I also made a list of wordpress plugins. Read em if you want.
http://ironblogger.com/ten-wordpress-plugin-recommendations/
IronBloggers last blog post..John Cow’s Free ebook
Great lis, the only one’s I don’t use is Adsense Target and OIO Publisher….though I plan to get OIO at some point, I don’t use much adsense on my main blog, but may look at it for others.
Great list. I would recommend linking to the plugins for the sake of the lazy people (me)
Tom – StandOutBlogger.coms last blog post..Quick ‘No Brainer’ Way To Make An Extra $10 A Month – With No Extra Work
@ Jk Yea adsense is not for every blog and with some IM and blogging advice blogs they will never make any money. And with FF able to block them completely adsense is no longer a primary earning network.
@ Links iNC! wooops ;p
@IronBlogger It is always interesting to see what plugins bloggers use to get that little extra something.
I didn’t know you could block adsense, how you do that?
IronBloggers last blog post..Using Web Analytics To Optimize Your Blog: Part 2 Setting Up Web Analytics
As I recall their is a plugin for FF. I do not use it, and I do not endorse it being a blogger who monetizes. ;p
Wow, I havent been here for a long time! I am subscribed by email so I thought I would come see how you’re doing
As for me, I am hard at work on a new blog 
EmmaBs last blog post..Thou Shall Blog
You can block adsense using adblock plus. Anyway, it seems that I missed some of the listed plugins, thanks for sharing, stumbled!
Rajaie AlKoranis last blog post..Three Steps To Perfecting Your Theme – Part Three
@EmmaB Glad to see you back on the site
Hope the changes I have made are all for the better. Lookforward to more of your around.
@Raj Thank you for the SU
Big Ben Pattons last blog post..13 Essential Wordpress Plugins
You should add this one to the list – http://www.webmaster-source.com/gocodes-redirection-plugin-wordpress/
Joshs last blog post..GoCodes: Redirection Plugin
That is probably the easiest url redirect/cloak I have seen for WP. However I will wait to add this to the list untill I try it while using WP Supercache. It has a workaround but I want to make sure it works as advertised with it.
“”There seems to be a conflict with the WP Super Cache plugin where a redirect will only work once before the cache is cleared. There is a workaround, though. All you have to do is add “index.php†on a new line in the “Rejected URLs†field of the WP Super Cache options page. This will disable cacheing of the page yourdomain.com/index.php. Generally, this shouldn’t be too big of an issue, as visitors will rarely add the /index.php when they visit your blog.
“”
Big Ben Pattons last blog post..13 Essential Wordpress Plugins
This is the first time I’ve heard of ‘Adsense Target’.
thanks!
Susans last blog post..How Much to Offer on A Short Sale?
That’s really cool, I had no idea you could completely block out AdSense.
IronBloggers last blog post..Special Offer For The Month Of July
@Ben- Alright feel free to test it yourself, I have them both going on my blog and it seems to work fine.
Joshs last blog post..GoCodes: Redirection Plugin
The work around works for me this is a great and menu driven link cloak/redirecter Thanks for the link Josh!
Apart from Adsense Target, OIO publisher and Random Post, I have all of them installed on my blog.
This is a useful list worth a bookmark. BTW, how does Adsense Target works any differently from ‘Section Targeting’?
Yan
Blog for Beginnerss last blog post..Goodbye Speckyboy & Hello Sketch’d
One of the favorite of them is the Comment Luv which i really love
Good list btw.
Chetans last blog post..Free Banner Ads Rotator for Wordpress Blogs
[...] Ben shares with us his list of plugins that he uses on his blog. Ben explains each one very well. Check out his list of “13 Essential WordPress plugins”. [...]
@Blog for Begginers It works exactly the same as far as I can tell.
@Chetan I have to agree with you. And thanks!
Now, I’m thinking of installing WP-Super Cache. Looks like you just convinced me.
I recently found the plugin that I’ve been looking for for sometime. I didn’t know that it actually existed until I ran into it a few days ago. It’s called Better Blogroll and displays any number of random links from my blogroll. Since I have quite a lot of of links, I cannot display all of them on my sidebar. This plugin solved my problem.
Wp-Super cache is well worth using even on a smooth page, what it can do for you in terms of cpu offloading from php to html is amazing and can mean the difference in a suspended hosting account or not if you happen upon a front page like digg or SU, reddit , etc. Be like a boyscout and be prepared, I know I am.
Using the SEZ who plugin too
Loving it too..
[...] 13 Essential Wordpress Plugins [...]
This is nice post i have read. I will follow your blog and revisit again. I enjoyed a lot and learn new stuffs. I will bookmark our blog so I could easily revisit this.
Wordpress Tips´s last blog ..Wordpress Plug-in For Youtube – Smart Youtube
Superb study, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing just a little study on that. And he actually bought me lunch because I discovered it for him smile So let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch!