My Top 10 Must Use WordPress Plugins

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We all have plugins we just seem to use on every project. These are things that would be great if they were added (or more specifically their functionally) was added to the WordPress Core! I thought I would share mine with you! Clicking on the titles will open up the plugin page in a new window for you!

underConstruction

Creates a ‘Coming Soon’ page that will show for all users who are not logged in. Useful for developing a site on a live server, without the world being able to see it. A great plugin which i usually the first I install!

The Mojo Admin Toolbox

So ok this one is my own plugin but I really do use it all the time. The Mojo Admin Toolbox is a collection of little functions I found myself using a lot to customise the admin dashboard of WordPress, specifically when I was hiding stuff from a client or customising it for them!

jQuery Lightbox For Native Galleries

Ok so it looks like this has now been discontinued which is a shame especially as the developer has killed it in favour of JetPack! It’s still a great plugin and I will continue using it and I recommend you look at it as well! Makes the native WordPress galleries use a lightbox script called ColorBox to display the fullsize images right there in the page. No modifications required.

No Self Pings

Another old one that hasn’t been updated for a looooong time but hey it works. Keeps WordPress from sending pings to your own site.

Google XML Sitemaps

It’s a bit of a no-brainer this one, if your not using it you should be! This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines to better index your blog. 8 Million users can’t be wrong!

All in One SEO Pack

My personal choice for all my sites, I know there are others and hey me and 11 Million other users prefer this one! WordPress SEO plugin to automatically optimize your WordPress blog for Search Engines.

WP Super Cache

Again another one where there are several options, I’ve had good results with this one especially on some larger sites! A very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files.

Gravity Forms (Premium)

There a loads of “Free” plugins out there that allow you to create web forms for your WordPress site, I love this plugin though and for the small fee you have to pay you get a lot of bang for your buck! Easily create web forms and manage form entries within the WordPress admin.

Akismet

If you have a site with comments you need this, best of all as soon as you install WordPress you have this plugin already installed. You may need to pay depending on what your site is, but it is worth every penny! Used by millions, Akismet is quite possibly the best way in the world to protect your blog from comment and trackback spam. It keeps your site protected from spam even while you sleep.

Regenerate Thumbnails

If you work on your theme all the time like I do. Then you need this plugin. When you upload an image to WordPress it automatically creates all the version WordPress needs plus any your theme has requested, if you change your theme it might have some different sizes needed that you haven’t created, use this plugin and it goes through and re-creates all your thumbnails!

Of course there are lots of plugins that I use depending on the project but these are my Top 10 if you like, they get used on almost every project, in most cases they are installed as part of my WordPress setup routine! I’d love to hear your comments, do you use them? Have I missed any?

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