One of the things that makes Wordpress such a great blogging platform is the vast amount of plugins available for completing any task you want from displaying random images and posts to syndicating content from other sites and social networks.  The use of plugins and the introduction of widgets recently have made blogging extremely easy and for new users they will likely require little or no HTML and PHP skills to put together a cool and clean looking website.

This post is dedicated to my favourite Wordpress plugins.  Although there may be a hundred different plugins that all complete one task it can take a long time to find the right ones.  By that I mean that anyone can throw a plugin together by chopping up some code but the key thing is to make sure that the plugins do not break your template or theme and do not conflict with other plugins.  I have had to start from scratch countless times because a plugin has destroyed my site.  Lessons learned!

This list is in no particular order.

1. Akismet - The absolute greatest plugin for catching spam.  Since changing this site back to Wordpress a couple months ago I have not had to moderate a single piece of spam.  Every spam like comment I receive is automatically filtered by Akismet and only real comments make their way through.
2. Headspace2 - Meta-data manager on steroids, allowing complete control over all SEO needs such as keywords/tags, titles, description, stylesheets, and many other goodies.   Besides the full SEO cotrol you have over your content I think one of the coolest tools included in this plugin is the ability to search Yahoo to have it automatically suggest tags for your posts.  By John Godley.
3. Plugin Cenral - One of the greatest plugins to have been created for Wordpress.  This little guy allows you to install brand new plugins directly from your dashboard by inserting a link to the remote .zip file.  Plugin Central will unpack the files into the wp-content/plugins folder and allow you to directly activate the plugin without ever having to open your FTP program.
4. RunPHP - Simple.  Allows you to execute PHP code directly inside a post.
5. Subscribe-to-Comments - Awesome plugin that gives your readers the ability to subscribe to your comment threads they post on.  This is a great way to keep your readers interested in your content and coming back on a regular basis.  One of the first plugins I ever installed.
6. Ajax Edit Comments - Allow both anonymous and registered users to perform inline editing of their own comments for a time limit specified by you.  They will have the ability to click an “edit” button and make changes via an Ajax interface.  Users can even edit their comments while still in moderation.
7. Wordpress Stats - While not the most comprehensive stats you can get, this plugin will record statistics recorded directly by Wordpress.com .  This plugin requires no work other than to register for a Wordpress.com API and activate the plugin.  You will then have a display on your dashboard that will show you some basic statistics about your hits.
8. WP Super Cache - This beauty will cache all of your Wordpress pages as HTML files.  The majority of your visitors do not interact with your site in the form of posting therefore serving HTML files is the best way to reduce server load and increase the speed your pages are delivered.  No PHP processing is performed when cached pages are served.  If a user is logged in or decides to post a comment then caching is bypassed and a normal PHP processed page is served.  I have noticed an immense reduction in memory and load on my server since using this plugin.  It will also protect you from large spikes in traffic from unexpected diggs and such by completing disabling PHP processing and only serving static HTML pages if you choose to enable this feature.  Not enough can be said about this plugin.
9. WP Cumulus - I am not one for flashy stuff on my website however this gem of a plugin caught my eye while visiting justtellmewhy.com that I discussed in an earlier article.  This turns your Wordpress tag cloud into a nice rotating flash display.  You can see it in action in my sidebar.  You have full control over the speed and style of the tags and if your reader doesn’t have flash installed they will just see the normal tag cloud.
10. Wordpress Database Backup - This plugin allows you to backup your MySQL database from inside your Wordpress dashboard.  You can also schedule your backups for any frequency you wish and have them either emailed to you or saved to a folder on your server.

Well thats it.  Thats not to say that this is it….  The be all and end all.  I use plenty of other plugins on my site that all deserve some recognition but these ones here have stood out as simply making my blogging life that much simpler.  I can’t tell you how much time has been saved by using the plugins mentioned above.  They are all free as is the majority of stuff you can find for Wordpress.

One grouping of plugins that definitely deserves a mention are the ones developed by Lester Chan.  His plugins are awesome.  The work he has put into development over the years which include extensive documentation for all of his work is amazing.  His work includes some of the following which I currently use on this blog:

• WP Page Navi - Adds a more advanced paging navigation to your WordPress blog.
• WP Post Views - Enables you to display how many times a post/page had been viewed.
• WP Relative Date - Displays relative date alongside with your post/comments actual date. Like ‘Today’, ‘Yesterday’, ‘2 Days Ago’, ‘2 Weeks Ago’, ‘2 ‘Seconds Ago’, ‘2 Minutes Ago’, ‘2 Hours Ago’.

I hope to have been able to make plugin hunting a little easier for new and veteran bloggers.  If there are any plugins you’ve been looking for and can’t find or are in need of some suggestions don’t hestitate to let me know.