Base plugins for blogs

Now that WordPress is installed and setup and a theme has been installed, it’s time to install some plugins.  I’ve found from building different blogs for myself and clients that there is a set of base plugins for blogs that everyone should really have.  These plugins will help your site grow, keep it running efficiently, keep it secure and make it easy to use for your visitors.  Here they are, in nor particular order:

Akismet

Akismet is a plugin to fight comment spam.  As your blog grows, gets linked and becomes more popular, you will inevitably begin getting comment spam.  Comment spam are comments left on your articles that promote products and generally contain links to incredible sights.  Maintaining and removing them is tedious, but the good news is that for the most part, Akismet does this for you.

Akismet is also really easy to install, as it comes pre-installed with WordPress!  All you have to do is activate it by obtaining an activation code and entering it on the Plugins>>Akismet Configuration page in your admin console.  Once complete, your blog will be 90% spam free.  If one sneaks through, you can help Akismet and other bloggers from getting the same spam by going to your Comments page in your admin console and marking the comment as spam.

Contact Form 7

One of the most important things you can do for your blog is to make it easy for your readers and potential advertisers to contact you.  One big mistake that many new bloggers make is placing their email address on their blog.  The consequences of doing this are generally nothing more than an inbox full of Spam.  A far better option is to create a contact page and use a contact forms plugin.  There are numerous contact form plugins each offering varying levels of functionality and features.

The one I’ve found that has the features I need and yet is still light and fast is Contact Form 7.  After installation, all you have to do is create a Contact Page, and insert the Contact Form shortcode into your contact page.  The short code can be found on the Contact Form 7 settings page under the Contact Menu.  There are numerous options you can set-up and use, but in most cases I just use the defaults.  Contact Form 7 also supports additional forms, so if you need to have multiple contact forms or other forms on your site, you can create those as well.  It’s simple and easy, just the type of plugin I like.

You can see it in action on my Side Income Blogging contact page (while there, take a second to say Hi!).  Let me mention though that I did a lot of custom styling to make my page look the way it does, if you know CSS it’s easy, if not I’d suggest just going with the default page or engaging me to style it for you.

Google XML Sitemaps

A sitemap is a file located on your web server that contains a listing and URLs for all of the pages on your site.  The purpose of the sitemap file is to make it easy for the Google bot (Google’s software than scans your site for content) to locate and index your content.

The Google XML Sitemaps plugin automatically generates a sitemap file for you, containing all of your content.  There are numerous settings available to customize the file and it’s accessibility.  99% of the time, the default settings will be fine.  After you install the plugin and activate it, head over to the Settings>>XML-Sitemap page and generate your initial sitemap file.  Depending on your host, you may have to give Google XML Sitemaps the correct permissions to generate the file.  If so, it will tell you exactly what you need to do.

Once the sitemap file is created, it’s important to head over to Google Webmaster tools and tell Google that you now have a sitemap.

WP-DBManager

I recommend WP-DBManager primarily for backups, but it has a few other nice features as well for those that are technical and can write basic SQL queries.  Having frequent and reliable backups for your blog is critical in the event anything ever goes wrong and you lose your data.  WP-DBManager can be set-up to do automated backups and either save them to the server and/or email them to an email account.

I’ve created an GMail account for all of my backups and have my blog backups sent to this email address on a daily basis.  Gmail is free and offers a ton of storage, so it’s a great way to archive your backups.

W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache isn’t for the faint of heart, but once configured and working, can make a huge positive difference in your site performance.  I run this plugin on every site I own along with installing and running it on most of my client’s sites.  This plugin stores your page content locally on disk rather than having to regenerate it each time it’s viewed.  This is called caching.

I say it’s not for the faint of heart as it has many different options and requires a little technical knowledge to get it configured.  I’ll be devoting an entire article to installation and set-up of this plugin soon.

WP-Page-Navi

Finally, WP-Page-Navi enhances the previous and next blog page links that come by default with WordPress.  WordPress by displays x number of posts on the blog page.  X being defined by your configuration.  To navigate to the previous or next posts, there are links that say “Previous Entries” and “Next Entries”.

WP-Page-Navi adds numeric numbers so that both your visitors and search engine bots can more easily navigate and find your content.  It’s a very minor change, but one that makes a big difference in site usability.  You can see this plugin in action at the bottom of my main blog page here on Side Income Blogging.

Wrapping Up

Of course these are only a few of the thousands of plugins available at WordPress.org.  One word of caution though, plugins can slow your site down and can cause security issues, so I always recommend using the absolute minimum number of them.  Plugins also frequently cause issues when WordPress or your theme are updated.  Keeping the number of plugins you use to a minimum just makes the upgrade process easier.

Have a plugin you use frequently and think is worth mentioning?  Add a comment and make sure you include a link to the plugin location.

Photo by: Samuel M. Livingston