My Fav WordPress Plugins
October 10th, 2008
Over the last couple months, I’ve become passionate about WordPress. I can thank Doug Wray, because having attended a class of his on the subject, he simplified a couple things that were vexing me, plus revealed how fun it was to build both blogs and websites using this great tool. Ever since, I’ve been singing the praises of WP, making some client sites and blogs, plus trying to help some adventurous people along the way. I’ve learned a couple key things I feel are worthy pieces to the puzzle; hopefully they will help lessen your learning curve.
First, This Important Message
This is just a nugget that helps me so I don’t blow up my own site: have a backup or test site in which you deploy and fiddle with things like plugins and changes to the css and php files. I use mine before using anything on my “real sites” and it’s saved me a lot of aggravation and embarrassment. I tweak it to death or I kick it to the curb, and my visitors are never the wiser because it all happened on a “pseudo” site.
The Shortlist of Goodies…uhh, Plugins
In order, these are my favs and what they do:
- Lighter Menus-makes navigating the WordPress interface smoother and more intuitive
- TinyMCE Advanced: Awesome editing tools for your posts and pages
- Simple Twitter: Shows your Tweets automagically in your blog or website
- Share This: a way for visitors to share your site, but more cleanly than showing a bunch of icons
- All In One SEO: Lets you customize your posts for better ranking
There are so many fabulous plugins, but these are the ones I use personally. When I build a site for the first time, the first two plugins are deployed immediately so designing and navigating everything is easier and faster. Every so often, I dabble in the WordPress Plugin Toybox but be careful; once there, you will find yourself grabbing everything that looks fun and get sidetracked with your build!
Have a favorite of your own that you’d like to share? Please do, comment or shoot me an email.
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Thanks for the link-love Deb! I’m always pleased to ‘light the candle’ for another WordPress fan! Have you updated to WP 2.7 yet? It’s a great upgrade – and now there’s CORE FILE UPDATE! WOO HOO! (does the Daffy Duck bouncing off walls routine) Between THAT feature and one-click plugin updates, maintaining my client sites has just gotten a TON easier!
For sure Doug! And the update is beyond awesome…the interface takes a bit to get used to, but once you roll around a bit, WOW, did they make some awesome improvements…this is one, replying to you so easily!
Hope to see you soon, connect with me on Twitter so I can keep up with you better 
@bizcoachdeb