A few days ago I talked about WordPress and the amazing tool that it can be for those wanting to build a website or blog for their business. If you haven’t read it you can check it out here. Now something that you need to understand about WordPress is that it only becomes that much more of a powerful tool when you start to install “Plug-ins.”
Plug-Ins give you more features and tools that are going to make your site or blog that much better. Here are the top 5 Plug-ins that I use on all of my blogs as well as any other WordPress site I build.
1. Akismet
This is probably the most important and vital Plug-in that you will want to have on your website. Akismet is a tool that will help prevent your site from getting unnecessary spam and junk posted on your blog. It is probably the best tool to use in filtering out bad comments and spam from your pages. It is constantly striving to improve and is very much worth using. You can get a free key on their website, which you will need to activate this Plug-in to your site.
2. Google XML Sitemap Generator
WordPress does not come with a sitemap after it has been installed onto your domain, so you will need to find a sitemap builder Plug-in to be sure that one is built for you. There are different types of sitemaps which I will be explaining in another post, but for a blog I prefer to use an XML sitemap. It automatically puts your newest pages within its database which makes my job a lot easier each time I post a new blog article. Google can read whatever version of sitemap you want to submit to them.
3. KB Robots.txt
Now you should know what a Robot.txt file is. This is put in place to let the robots that crawl your website know what to index and what not to index. Even if you do not want to block any page that is on your website, you still will want to have a Robot.txt file so that the crawlers know where to go. Typically within this file you will direct the robots to your Sitemap.
4. ManageWP
Now this may not be a tool that can be used by everyone, but is a great tool for those of you that might have more than one WordPress website. This is the only tool out there that I have been able to find that allows you to manage all of your WordPress blogs in one place. You can keep all of your themes, Plug-ins, and spam managed in one place and you don’t have to log into each blog/website individually. It helps me a lot with the 100+ websites I manage right now. If you want to use this plug-in you need to sign up at www.managewp.com. Right now it is a free service since it is still in beta and has some bugs here or there, but it’s worth checking out if you have a lot of WordPress blogs on your plate.
5. Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus one Share Buttons
It is always a good idea to have the proper resources available to all of your readers and subscribers when they come and visit your website. This last Plug-in allows them to automatically share your content on the 3 biggest social networking sites. This is an ample way to get even more traffic and visitors to your website, which can then convert into long term customers and clients.
All 5 of these Plug-ins are named the way that you would find them if you are searching for them within WordPress. I have really enjoyed using them and hope that you will find value in them as well. If you have any problems finding them or need some assistance please let me know. Also let me know what you think of them, and if you really find them of value or not.
