If you use Wordpress, there’s no doubt that you know of all the free plugins and modifications available for it. Without all of these plugins, a lot of the features found on many blogs today wouldn’t exist.
In this article, I want to share with you guys the 28 plugins we currently have installed here and how they have contributed to the growth of our blog.
It’s a long list, so get prepared for a little reading! Lucky for you guys, I took the time to sort this whole list out pretty neatly.
Share Posts
We can’t be the only ones promoting our posts, see what options we give our readers to promote our content.
Give a variety of sharing options
We use a plugin called Add to Any, and it adds a little button below our posts that gives you many options to share the post on social network sites.
Display retweet, digg it, and many other buttons
We use a plugin called Digg Digg to display the retweet button and digg button in our posts. It is much more effective than Add to any because it makes tweeting or digging a post much simpler.
How we encourage reader discussion
We take the time to write articles, so to ensure that people read them and create conversations, we use the plugins below to initiate more comments.
Create a higher incentive for commentators
Whenever someone comments on a post, we give them the ability to show their latest post on their blog after their comment with a plugin called Commentluv.
Increase comment initiatives: Remove the nofollow tag
We have also made our blog dofollow. On a blog with the nofollow tag removed, more “link juice” will be given to anyone who posts their link onto our blog with their keyword in it. If you want to learn more about Dofollow links, read the benefits of a dofollow blog and the pros and cons of nofollow and dofollow.
Easiest way to start email conversations
Communicating through email is a very easy way for readers to communicate with you one on one. It is so important that you need to have a good, reliable contact form for people to fill out. So, for that reason – we use Contact Form 7.
We also use a plugin called Really Simple CAPTCHA to protect our contact form from spam.
Keep Conversations Going
Subscribe to comments makes it easier to keep discussion within the comments alive. It allows reader to check a box, and then whenever their comment is replied to – they get an email which should bring them back to your blog and keep discussion going.
Blog Optimization
From speeding up your blog to smartly organizing it, the plugins below are not ones you want to overlook.
Organize your feed readers into one place
With FeedBurner FeedSmith, you will be able to keep track of every last subscriber if you use Feedburner. With this plugin, you can get a more accurate number of people who subscribe to your blog as it will make everyone subscribe through FeedBurner.
Move JavaScript files to the end of your page, decrease load time
Plugins and themes often call a lot of external scripts. JavaScript can really slow down the loading time of your pages, so by using a plugin like JavaScript to Footer, you can move the scripts from the header to the footer, which will significantly decrease the loading time on your blog.
Save your blog from pinging suicide
Every time you update a post, WordPress sends a ping to any ping service. If this happens too much, your blog can get labeled as a ping spammer, and you can miss out on plenty of traffic without these ping services on your side. We combat it with MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer.
How to get pages and pages of content seen by search engines
A sitemap is important for your SEO. It allows search engine bots to easily navigate through your blog and index the pages within your blog. With Google XML Sitemap Generator, a sitemap will be created for your blog automatically and will be updated as you add more pages (posts) to your blog.
Reduce image sizes significantly and decrease load time
Images are an important part of your blog, but they also can increase the loading time of your site. With a plugin like WP Smush.it, images will be compressed when you upload them and the best part is it does it all in the background without interrupting your publishing process.
Speed up your blog through page cache
The best way to speed up the loading time of your blog is to cache the pages with a plugin like WordPress Super Cache.
Making content more accessible
It’s important to make as much content as possible within easy reach of your readers so good content doesn’t go to waste. Here are the plugins we use to keep as much content as we can visible.
With the latest posts by category archive, we can do just as it says – display a list of the “x” latest posts from any category. I wrote a tutorial a couple weeks ago using this plugin as an example to create a favorites post list.
Show off Popular, Recent and Similar Posts
In our sidebar, we display the most popular posts on our blog, under every article on the blog, we show a list of related posts, and on our Archives page, we show our most recent posts. All of these plugins help get the most relevant content to our readers.
We chose the three plugins above because of how easily customizable they are, but they do require the Post-Plugin Library plugin to function.
How to create a great archives page
On our Archives page, we used a plugin called smart archives reloaded that creates a very organized list of your posts sorted by month.
See how we used this plugin to create our archives page →
Numbered Page Navigation
Rather than using the “previous” and “next” page links to navigate through our pages of posts, we decided to create a numbered navigation so you can easily select what page you want to jump to. We used WP Page Numbers.
See more benefits of this plugin →
Breadcrumb Navigation
At the top of our content area, we have a breadcrumb trail that lists what page you are on, and the pages you visited to get to that page. It’s very useful for not just SEO, but for driving more clicks to sub pages.
Miscellaneous Features
Below are just some of the cool little features we added to our blog to switch things up a little.
Create a Stream of Quotes
In our sidebar, we have a section dedicated to blogging quotes. We found an amazing plugin called Stray Random Quotes which comes with great features to create a random quotes section like we have in our sidebar.
Display Latest Tweet(s)
Another feature within our sidebar is the latest tweet spot where the most recent Twitter updates from our @Blogussion account are displayed.
RSS Reader only messages
Some people choose to read our blog content from their feed reader without visiting our blog. With the plugin RSS Footer, we can add extra bits of information after each post that will only show up to people reading through our RSS feed.
Useful Admin Options
The plugins we use below add some pretty nifty options to our admin panel that make us depend less on 3rd party applications and more on WordPress.
Spell & Grammar Check Articles
It’s important that your posts are published with the best grammar and spelling as possible. Content should not only be informative, but clear and easy to follow. We chose to go with After the Deadline, which is probably the most effective plugin of its kind for WordPress.
Traffic Tracking
I like to open up my WordPress dashboard and see what the daily traffic stats are for the blog. So, I use a plugin called WordPress.com Stats to get a very accurate reading of daily pageviews, most popular post of the day and more.
Stop spam in its tracks
Everyone knows this and probably uses Akismet. It’s probably the best anti spam plugin for WordPress.
Read more about fighting spam without harming your community →
Backup your database
Backing up your blog is a very important precaution you should take every day. With WP DB-Manager, you can get a backup of your database with many options to make the process more automated.
Share With Us
What plugins do you guys use on your own blog? Did you happen to see any plugins from our list that you use at your own blog? Share all of your plugin inquiries in the comments section below!
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Wow! These are some very cool plugins. I will definitely try these out.
Thanks for sharing!
Eric B.´s last blog ..Creating a Wordpress Theme — Part 2
They really are Eric, thanks for stopping by!
I really had no idea that some of these existed (especially the ping optimizer). I’m in the process of downloading and installing quite a few of them right now; I really appreciate you putting this list out there.
What do you think about Twitter as part of the blog’s sidebars? How many tweets are too many or intrusive? I have 5 updates on mine as a widget, but I wonder if somehow that makes the site come across as unprofessional instead of communal and social like I want.
Professor Beej´s last blog ..CFP: Anti-Twilight Week
It’ amazing what little gems others can find isn’t it? I would have never found that ping optimizer if it wasn’t for reading a similar list like this.
I like to keep a tidy sidebar, I just throw in one tweet. I don’t think it matters too much as long as your sidebar isn’t cluttered with a ton of other stuff.
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
I’ve heard of and used many of these plugins but there are a few gems that I can’t wait to try out on my site. Thanks for the great list!
Stillwater Real Estate´s last blog ..Woodbury Detached Townhome Foreclosure
Glad you found something useful!
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
All the plugins are great!
I am using many of them.
BTW…Akismet is the default one in WordPress, so there is no need of its installation!
It is installed, yes, but you still have to activate it with the number key. Not everyone realizes this.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..I Want You To Review Me. Part 1
Blimey, there’s a bit going on behind the scenes isn’t there?! I only have 4 plug-ins so far but a list of 5 other gathered from your list which I will be asking my delightful computer boffin to add to my blog.
Should I add Tweetmememe too and comment redirect plug-in also?
Thanks for sharing all your know how:)
Wow, only four? That’s insane Annabel! You may be missing out on a lot of great features! Don’t let people who say plugins slow down your website get to you, if you see a plugin you want – go for it!
Tweetmeme is an extremely valuable plugin – it has brought us a ton of traffic and I recommend it highly!
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
Very Interesting list of plugins!
Will investigate some of them for my blog. Many Thanks
David Shaw´s last blog ..Is There A Need For Blog Etiquette?
I am now use Drupal for my webistes and blogs, and I am going to start a new blog based on Wordpress. Thanks very much for sharing these great pluginins.
David Wei@Your Money Online´s last blog ..Paid Surveys Panel Reviews: Global Test Market
I have never used Drupal – which do you like better: WP or Drupal?
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
Can anyone recommend a plugin that sends an email to new commentors asking them to subscribe to my blog?
TheDebtHawk.com´s last blog ..Wells Fargo Online Banking
I can recommend one.. but to be honest they are not very effective. 10 minutes and you can respond to most of your new commentators with a personal email. If you make it personal, with more than just their name they WILL come back.
Just try emailing them, let them know you responded to their comment and give the location and either ask them a question relevant to their blog or encourage a post they might be interested in based upon the url they left. Being personal goes a long way.
Seth´s last blog ..Breakdown of the 28 WordPress Plugins That Have Contributed to the Growth of our Blog
Hi seth,
I think the “Thank me later” plugin can help on that?
Blog Tips´s last blog ..Blogging Tips and Techniques
If I may add some to Seth’s grat advice – NEVER commercialize it, which is what those plugins want you to do. Do not ask for the subscription, as Seth mentioned hey will if they want too.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..I Want You To Review Me. Part 1
Great post! Looking forward to trying some of these! Thanks
Alex, what plug-in do you use for the reply to comment thread?
Muzi Mohale´s last blog ..Interview: Simone Garner, Personal Assistant to Sales & Marketing Director at One&Only Cape Town
I would also like to know that, it helps the blog to become more interactive
Blog Tips´s last blog ..Blogging Tips and Techniques
I’m not sure if it’s the same, so I figured I’d give my recommendation also
.
http://blog.2i2j.com/plugins/wordpress-thread-comment has all the front end features you need and some great backend admin controls also.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..I Want You To Review Me. Part 1
Thanks for that, i will give it a try
Free Income´s last blog ..Work at home earn your free income
Dennis is exactly right, we just use the comments system built into WordPress and added a little styling from Thesis + my own touch.
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
Now I’m confused lol. What I mentioned and use is a plugin, not the comment system built in?
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..IS An Advertising Page Really A Good Idea? An Interesting Opposing View…
Great list of plugins and I already use most of them on my WP sites. I haven’t activated comment luv yet because I just can’t stand the default styling. I will be checking out Javascript to Footer though. Thanks for the heads up on that one.
Andrew @ Incomes International´s last blog ..How to Keep Customers for Life
Install it – announce it in a post – watch your comments begin to triple and grow from there.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..I Want You To Review Me. Part 1
Adding onto Dennis’s advice, you can add a little graphic to your sidebar announcing it. I also think there is a feature you can toggle that adds a little message in the footer automatically.
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
Thanks Alex, I forgot all about the graphic. That’s actually a request from the creator Andy Bailey.
I know everyone asks you to use their graphic for the link back, but him I followed with no hesitation. He’s got to be the hardest working FREE plugin creator I’ve ever met.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..IS An Advertising Page Really A Good Idea? An Interesting Opposing View…
Hey Alex – This is an excellent list of plugins. I like how you’ve categorized them as “Contributing to the Growth of Our Blog”. There are soooooooooooo many plugins out there that grouping them by how they are of value really helps! Great work!
Deb Brown´s last blog ..We can help you succeed – Yaro Starak tells why
Glad you like it Deb!
There are a lot of plugins, and I felt like the best way for you guys to really find what may benefit your blog the most – I would write catchy little headlines like that.
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
WOW this is a really detailed post with truly helpful tips. Again I leave here with a hefty to do list. Thanks!
Ms. Freeman´s last blog ..10 Reasons Teenagers Shouldn’t Work
Good to know we keep you busy!
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
Wow, this blog post came at the perfect time. I just went to Word Camp NYC this weekend and I met some really great people and learned soooo much about Wordpress and plugins and themes and SEO, etc… I am very excited for all this information, it is like getting a new toy for Christmas.
Anyways, I am in the process of expanding my site and getting a WP page soon, as soon as I get all this themes and plugins things together. I took notes of all the plugins listed here and the ones that I’m interested in… I actually met Raphael Mudge from After The Deadline and he convinced me to get that plugin. Very exciting!
I’ll be back for more info on WP stuff.
Thank you Blogussion you guys rock!!
Arie Rich
Arie Rich´s last blog ..Word Camp NYC – Blogger Track (Part 2)
That must have been awesome! How much was it?
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..I Want You To Review Me. Part 1
It was awesome! Early registration was $40 for 2 days.
Arie Rich´s last blog ..4-Hour Work Week – FREE AudioBook
Sounds sweet. What notification list are you on? I live on Long Island, 40mins by train.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..I Want You To Review Me. Part 1
That’s awesome Arie, I’m totally jealous! I want to go to a WordCamp one day.
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
Very nice list. I use about half of those and am happy with them all.
To many plugins is a bad thing, but if you find the right mix for a fast site and to have a site things for you to save you time, then you will be a happy blogger.
John Paul´s last blog ..Keep Your Blog Readers Stuck To Your Blog Like Jelly On Your Fingers
There are so many things I would love to add to this blog, but I really had to cut down the list to only what I need. This theme is graphics and script heavy as it is, and adding more garbage to load in the source code just wouldn’t help!
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
Wow! what else can i say? you’ve said the best of what blogussion is, and now i know why this blog is being successful.
Thanks for sharing and i will sure try some of your recommended plugins
Blog Tips´s last blog ..Blogging Tips and Techniques
The plugins are only one reason for the growth of our blog of course.
There are many other things as you know, the plugins just help reinforce the blog look!
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
Nice looking list of plugins. Hard to live without some of those, especially Akismet! DoFollow has also been a nice addition — nothing like giving a little juice back to the peeps.
Gabe | freebloghelp.com´s last blog ..Deep linking gives old posts new life
Definitely Gabe, I would hate opening up the control panel every day and have to manually go through regular comments and spam comments. Gotta love Akismet!
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
Which of course raises a question from me, heh!
You DO scan the spam for legit comments accidentally caught, right?
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..IS An Advertising Page Really A Good Idea? An Interesting Opposing View…
It is amazing how accurate Akismet is though. In the last 3 months, I’ve had less than 10 comments that were falsely identified as spam. That’s pretty accurate!
I usually check once every couple of days before I purge all the spam.
Blake @ Props Blog Reviews´s last blog ..Twitter Testing ReTweet Button (With RT Tracking)
There is also PR Linkback Generator, excellent Free SEO Tool:)
That sounds useful, do you know where I can look into that?
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
Thank you for the wonderful tips! I love the smart archives plugin. Instead of the ol’ & boring look of archives, I’ve managed to jazz it up! Thanks once again
Kiran´s last blog ..And the award goes to…
I love the plugin too! It really does make the archives page look great and easy to navigate.
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
i still prefer if you write it in list for easier to read..
but that a great plugin collection, thank as always.
izzat aziz´s last blog ..7 Characteristic of entrepreneur that blogger should have
I agree, it may be a little tough to read! I tried to make it easier to read, but I really wanted to go beyond a standard list here!
Glad you enjoyed the post still!
Hey Alex, what plugin do you use that is related or it is used for the benefit of thesis?
thanks! I will be trying the javascript one asap!
Claudia´s last blog ..Soccer Fanatics Rejoice!
Sorry Claudia, could you rephrase your question? I’m not sure which plugin you’re talking about!
Oh man, I’ve been meaning to write this post FOREVER. lol Thanks for some cool ideas, you may expect a link back when I do!
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..I Want You To Review Me. Part 1
Can’t wait Dennis!
hmmm interesting, gonna try it too, thx for the post
sonya´s last blog ..NEW and INNOVATIVE BOT
Thanks for sharing. I learn something valuable every day from your blog. I use Datafeedr Random Ads V2\datafeedr plugin that allows me to rotate banners of my affiliate links in my sidebar.
Really glad to hear that Yvette, seriously – it means a lot!
I am against any kind of ads on blogs, so you wouldn’t find a plugin of that sort on this blog! :p
Great Post.
These set of plugins will surely help everyone. Some plugins are very powerful and is a MUST for every blogger.
Anyway great list. Hav helped me choose some plugins for future as well.
Glad you like the post Gary!
I thought that I had a great list of plugins, but because of this post, I had to go out and download a few more!
Thanks for the great information!!!
Chris
Yeah Chris, there are quite a few plugins out there that really add a ton of value to your blog!
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
I have 5 updates on mine as a widget, but I wonder if somehow that makes the site come across as unprofessional instead of communal and social like I want
If it adds value to your site then I don’t think it would look unprofessional at all.
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
Hi buddy,
You made a great list here!
Put it simply, these plugins is a must have..
I assume this is a typo:
The best way to slow down the loading time of your blog is to cache the pages with a plugin like WordPress Super Cache.
Should be “speed up,” no? Or is it sarcasm?
That would most definitely be a giant mix up. Thanks for pointing that out Bobby.
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
Thanks for a great list. I too wasn’t aware of the ping optimizer.
Joan´s last blog ..Affiliate Networks: Matching Merchants and Affiliates
Alex thats hell lots of plugins… Meanwhile If I’m not wrong you are using Thesis theme. If That so, why are you using feedburner feedsmith plugin ?
Theme Premium´s last blog ..Why Cheap Webhosting is not Good for Wordpress blog
Does Thesis have some sort of feature I don’t know about that does exactly what FeedSmith does?
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
This is a great list., thank you very much, this is really cool article..
I’ve been researching a lot lately about the possibilities of obtaining a self-hosted blog and reading this article definitely helped! Thanks for the info!
Tony´s last blog ..A WordPress.com Blogger’s Dilemma
Definitely, I am not too sure if you are limited to plugins when you host it on WordPress.com, but I know that the possibilities are endless when you host it yourself!
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
Thanks for sharing. I have been using most of these plugins already. However some are really new to me.
imran´s last blog ..WhatBlocked: List of Websites Blocked Inside China !
Glad we have the same taste in plugins! Which one did you find the most interesting?
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
Great list of plugins Alex, this a great share, the great advantage to using plugins is that you can get the most out of WordPress easily..
Web Hosting site´s last blog ..Web Address – Non-Latin Domain Names Approved
That’s exactly right!
What was your favorite plugin in the list?
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
Great list! Good to see some different ones – these kinds of lists are so often the same plugins every time.
So you’re not using any SEO plugins?
Digigirl´s last blog ..Free Wordpress 101 Webinar
We try to mix up what we use and believe we have found some truly unique plugins that help set us apart!
We use the Thesis theme, which comes with any and every SEO feature we would ever need!
Alex´s last blog ..8 Funny Things I Learned From Designing That I Apply to Life
Since you are using the similar-posts plugin combined with the post-plugin, how did you get it to work with Thesis? What kind of settings did you apply to the similar-posts plugin to get the nice thumbnail images to show up the way you do? What kind of coding trick do you use to get the similar-posts plug to access each individual post image?
Thanks,
Mark
As I concentrate more on SEO, I prefer Sitemap Generator as the most important one.Also needless to say, Feedburner plugin too. But, the wordpress.com stats thing made my blog to load slower than before. Especially the admin panel.
Senthil Ramesh´s last blog ..Interview with Simon from Teenius
Really a nice list of plugins, all these plugins are user friendly. So it would definitely attracts the visitors of your wordpress blogs.
Thanks for your post,not all bloggers reveal the plugins they are using
Aaslin´s last blog ..Video tutorial-How to migrate blogger blog to wordpress with 301 url redirection
Thanks for sharing the plugins that you use here at blogussion.com. Lets see if I can use few of these myself
TechChunks´s last blog ..Watch Google’s 11 Year Evolution in Just 2 Minutes!