Are you searching for the best plugins for WordPress? If so, here’s a list of nearly 50 of the best WordPress plugins that will add amazing functions to your WordPress site without having to complete any coding. More to come shortly.
Resources: How to install a Plugin
AddThis
Downloaded 315,396 times, AddThis is a great WordPress plugin that helps get more traffic back to your site by allowing your readers to share your content with 295 networks. Looks modern and includes stats and charts which they will email you. I use this to share my new blog posts to about ten social networks. Read more about how to setup and customize the AddThis plugin for WordPress.
Affiliate Platform Plugin
The ‘WordPress Affiliate Platform’ is an easy to use WordPress plugin for affiliate recruitment, management and tracking that can be used on any WordPress blog/site. This plugin lets you run your own affiliate campaign/program and allows you to reward(pay commission) your affiliates for referred sales. The admin can upload/configure banners/links which the affiliates can use on their blog/site to drive traffic to your site. All the clicks, leads, sales etc are tracked by this plugin.
Akismet
Used by millions, Akismet is the best wordpress plugin in the world to protect your blog from comment and trackback spam. It keeps your site protected from spam 24/7. You’ll need to Sign up for a free Akismet API key, and configure the plugin to stop WordPress comment spam once and for all.
All in One Webmaster
This wordpress plugin provides the best way to submit a Sitemap (complete file of your site) to the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. You’ll need this to get traffic from these search engines. You can also add your Google Analytics code for your blog rather than having to add the code in your file editor.
Author Box
Adds an author box below every post on your blog which you can then add an image of your self and text including html for links to other blogs. Author box also pulls your Twitter, Facebook and blog URL’s from your profile page and links to them in your author box. Great way to increase your followers and get more visitors to your site.
Auto Subscribe RSS Feed
Awesome WordPress plugin that automatically promotes your Rss feed every time a reader posts a new comment on your blog.
AWeber Web Forms
AWeber only offers one WordPress plugin and this is it. This plugin makes it easy to add the web form that you have designed in your Aweber account to any widget area on your site. No need to add code or go back to Aweber. All you do is install the aweber web form plugin and authorise it through your wordpress dashboard. You can then add any form from any list in your aweber account to multiple locations on your wordpress site.
BackupBuddy
BackupBuddy Backup, Restoration, & Migration plugin for wordpress is the only wordpress plugin that fully backs up 100% of your WordPress site. It amazes me how many bloggers only use DB backup which excludes backup of your files, plugins & settings, Seo settings, Seo data for every post, theme settings etc. BackupBuddy is the best wordpress plugin for backup and i have scheduled the settings to backup all my sites very day. I also used this plugin to move my wordpress sites to a new host.
Better WP Security Plugin
Better WP Security plugin offers a huge range of security features so you only need to use one plugin. Another good plugin is named Secure WordPress which also offers a large range of different security features to choose from in order to protect your blog from hackers and malicious attacks.
Broken Link Checker
This is the best WordPress broken link checker plugin that checks your blog for broken links and missing image attachment links and notifies you on the wordpress dashboard and by email if any are found. Makes fixing broken links really fast and easy from the same location as well. I have this installed as well the permalink finder which redirects pages that have broken links to the same category until i fix them.
Button Creator
Free button maker plugin for WordPress produces excellent quality buttons quickly and easy. I love this plugin and its free.
Comment Redirect by Yoast
Most online marketers face the challenge of building a list of subscribers to their blog. Are you one these bloggers? One of the best ways to increase subscribers is to convert readers which leave a comments as they are already engaging with you.
This plugin redirects anyone that leaves a comment to any page on your site. You can easily create a special opt in landing page giving your readers a reason to subscribe and redirect comments to this landing page.
Works very well and is 100% automatic once setup.
Contact Form 7
Not just another free wordpress contact form plugin this is with out any doubt in my mind the best wordpress contact form plugin and has been downloaded over 2 million times. Simple, flexible and offering multiple customisation options and settings.
Datafeedr Random Ads V2
The Datafeedr Random Ads plugin is one of the best free WordPress plugins which allows you to simply and easily show random ads in any widget area on your site. Gotta eat and pay the bills so i do offer affiliate ads of related wordpress products and services that i use myself and recommend. You can create multiple ad groups and paste your banner code into them then simply choose which banner group you want to display in the widget.
Directory Plugin for WordPress
DirectoryPress is a premium WordPress directory plugin that transforms your WordPress installation into a revenue generating professional online directory website. The script includes several different template themes that vary in color and layout which can be customized to fit nearly any need. You can install this plugin on unlimited sites and you get free lifetime upgrades and support.
Full Screen Background Image
Are you searching for an easy way to add a background image to WordPress which covers the full screen? You’ll need a solution which covers all browser types and automatically adjusts to different screen sizes.
Pippins plugins provides a free WordPress plugin which requires minimal setup. All you need to do is install the plugin and upload the image you want to use for your background.
Google XML Sitemaps
This plugin will generate a special XML (file type) sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog. in their search results. This is the best wordpress plugin for creating an XML sitemap which you then paste the location into all in one webmaster for automatic submission every time you update your wordpress content.
Google XML Sitemap for Images
This plugin will generate a XML Image Sitemap for your WordPress blog. Open the settings page to create your image sitemap.
Google XML Sitemap for Videos
This plugin will generate a XML Video Sitemap for your WordPress blog. Google loves sitemaps and will reward you handsomely especially when it comes to video sitemaps as without one, the search engines job can become difficult. WordPress Video XML Sitemap Plugin Tutorial.
Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms – Premium WordPress plugin which allows you to build a completely custom contact form for your WordPress websites/blogs. Over 100,000 wordpress sites already use gravity forms which couldn’t be easier to build complex, powerful forms in minutes. I own the gravity form plugin and highly recommend them as the best in the business. Click here to visit rocketgenius.
Hide Categories
If your looking for the best wordpress plugin to hide/exclude categories from your category menu or tag cloud this plugin is what you need.
Image Widget
Popular wordpress image widget which is perfect for adding images/banners to any widget area on your site. You can upload the image from any location when configuring the settings from the widget area. Also allows you to add alt text to your images so the search engines can read them, links and text.
Jetpack by WordPress.com
I’ve written an entire blog post on the Jetpack plugin because its a new concept that wordpress themselves are using to combine there own plugins into one super plugin. They have already fixed a few bugs and released an upgrade.
Jetpack enables you to connect your blog to a WordPress.com account to use the features built in WordPress.com user features. Would have to be the best new plugin at the moment as it saves you from installing 8 different plugins.
WordPress want to add about 20-30 plugins to jetpack at some stage. Matt Mullenweg seems to think he now owns an airline!
Link Manager Plugin for WordPress
The Affiliate Link Manager plugin allows you to automatically convert specific keywords from your blog posts and pages into your affiliate links. It also cloaks the affiliate link and gives it a prettier and shorter alias. This affiliate link cloaker plugin can also convert keywords from your sidebar widget text and comments into your affiliate links.
MaPpress – Google Maps Plugin
MapPress makes it easy to insert Google Maps in WordPress posts and pages. Once you install the MapPress plugin for WordPress and activate it you’ll need to go to the settings screen and configure the settings.
Market Samurai
Not a plugin-Market Samurai offer one of The best premium Seo programs in my opinion. Offers a free trial .Find out who’s linking to your competitors and monitor your keyword rankings. This software offers many other Seo benefits that have helped me increase my search engine results on a regular basis.
NextGEN Gallery
Downloaded over 3 million times nextgen gallery plugin would have to be the most popular and best wordpress photo gallery plugin available. You’ll also find many other wordpress plugins that work in with this one and provide you with some amazing effects and options to choose from.
Permalink Finder
This the the best permalink finder plugin which i use in conjunction with link checker so my site visitors never get a 404 error page not found again. If you have restructured your permalinks or moved your blog, this plugin will find the right post or page every time. All you do is configure the settings to look for one, two or three keywords in the permalink and redirect to the correct location.
Popular This Week
I have added the widget from this plugin to my footer because readers that only have time to visit my blog once a week like to read whats been popular for the week. I also use the daily popular posts plugin.
Popup Domination
Some people love using popups because the facts are they do work, others wouldn’t have them on their site. If your going to try a popup email form then popup domination is one of the best and come with several great themes to choose from so your email opt in form looks professional. Set to popup once per i.p address and you will see 3-4 times as many opt ins 24/7 without annoying anyone.
Premise
The latest version of the premise landing/sales page plugin by Copyblogger media is at least twice as good as the previous version and now lets you:
- Build rock-solid membership sites with WordPress
- Take recurring payments with automated access management
- Automatically drip content out over time
- Securely sell ebooks, software, and other digital downloads
- Confidently create private forum areas with vBulletin
- Quickly set up password-protected content libraries
- Easily build check-out pages for PayPal and Authorize.net
Premise is an impressive plugin worth trying for 30 days if you’re using WordPress for online marketing to make money. Learn more about Premise here.
Print Friendly & PDF plugin
The Print Friendly & PDF plugin adds a button allowing you & your readers to print blog posts & pages or download them as a PDF. Rather than open in a new page, this plugin opens in a lightbox displaying options for both printing a web page and converting your blog to PDF.
Really Simple CAPTCHA
Really Simple CAPTCHA is the best anti spam plugin which you can use with the Contact Form 7 plugin.
Shopping Cart Plugin for WordPress
In a Nutshell… this sleek WordPress shopping cart plugin allows you to sell any form of digital products and services from your wordpress blog securely with complete automation. What I mean by complete automation is that once you set it up the whole process (The buying and the delivering of the product without revealing the real URL of the product) works on its own. An overview of the WP eStore plugin operations can be found here.
Squeeze/Sales/Landing Page Plugin
Maxfoundry plugins make the creation and editing of squeeze, landing and sales pages very simple. These plugins produce visually stunning web pages with a call to action. Squeeze pages are essentially well developed landing pages that are geared towards helping you grow your list of email subscribers. Landing pages are the main page to direct your visitors to and a sales page is for selling.
TubePress
This plugin displays your youtube videos in your posts or pages simply by adding a tag to that page and configuring the settings which is fairly easy to do. Every time you add a new video to your tube account, it will be automatically included on your site if you desire.
WebSimon Table Plugin
The WebSimon table plugin for WordPress enables you to build your own tables in your WordPress dashboard and customize the tables with your own choice of styling & structure. To display the table in a post or page, simply insert the unique shortcode in your WordPress editor.
You can also add html, links and images to your tables and style them further using custom hex color codes if needed.
Woo Commerce
Woo Themes have been working hard for over a year on their new eCommerce plugin which is based on the Jigoshop eCommerce shopping cart plugin. Woo Commerce or WooCommerce as Woo call it, is the name of the new plugin and its free. Its an advanced version of the Jigishop plugin with more features and options.
WooDojo
This plugin is a bit like Jetpack because it includes other plugins and functions within the same plugin. Some of the features which will work on any theme include custom menu’s, Login Branding, ShortLinks, Social Widgets, Custom Code, Sidebar Manager and the excellent WooCommerce plugin.
WordPress Download Monitor
I have installed this plugin so i can offer downloads of ebooks and wordpress itself to my readers. This plugin will manage the downloads and tell me how many have been downloaded as well as where the visitors have come from. Once configured you can easily insert a tag to any page or post which will become a download link to whichever download you choose.
WordPress eMember Plugin
WordPress eMember is a WordPress Membership Plugin that can turn your existing or new WordPress site into a membership site easily. You can selectively protect articles by creating various membership levels (eg. Free, Basic, Premium, Ultimate) and protect the content (posts, pages etc) of your site. Easy installation, easy design, easy intergration with paypal, affiliate software and eshop. Read more on eMember WordPress membership plugin.
WordPress Importer
Awesome plugin if you want to import posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, tags and more from wordpress.com to wordpress.org site, blogger and many other free hosted blogging services. Transferring content to your own self hosted blog is simple when using this plugin. Free hosted blogging comes at a price!
WordPress Membership Solution
WishList Member is a powerful solution for creating an online membership site – all built using WordPress as the core content management system. Now it’s easy to control access to your content, accept payments, manage your members and so much more! Read my review on the best membership software or visit WishList for full feature descriptions, tutorial videos and examples of sites using WishList Member.
WordPress Seo by Yoast
WordPress Seo by Yoast is one of the best free Seo plugins for WordPress in my opinion however you may not need it depending on which theme or framework you are using. I don’t use this plugin with the Thesis theme for WordPress as that framework offers built in Seo features.
WP-Cumulus
Great looking 3D tag cloud that helps your site visitors find what they are looking for and also should help your seo. This is the best wordpress 3D tag/category cloud plugin available and is very popular based on the download stats.
WP Lightbox Ultimate
Tips & Tricks have created a premium lightbox plugin which offers a more powerful & professionally supported plugin for WordPress.The WP Lightbox Ultimate plugin can be used to display images, mp3, mp4, flash, YouTube, Vimeo Viddler, video in a lightbox popup. WP Lightbox can also be used with videos hosted on your Amazon S3 account.
WP Snap Engage Plugin for WordPress Live Chat
If you’re running an eCommerce store then you wouldn’t want someone walking into your store and not having a customer support staff to offer service.
Using SnapEngage live chat for WordPress helps turn your site visitors into customers.
WP Super Cache
Need to speed up your site and increase page loading speeds? WordPress WP Super Cache Plugin will make a huge difference to your site speed simply by installing the plugin then enabling it. You can also pre load your pages so they are already saved and load super fast. Downloaded over 2 million times, i use and recommend this as the best wordpress caching plugin which is co authored by Automattic, the creator of WordPress.
WP Touch
If you don’t have a mobile friendly theme then your visitors who are using mobiles to look at your site may not enjoy a very pleasant experience as your site will not look the way it does know on a mobile device. The wptouch wordpress plugin formats your site with a mobile theme for visitors on Apple iPhone / iPod touch, Google Android, Blackberry Storm and Torch, Palm Pre and other touch-based smart phones. You will need to configure WPtouch with WP Super cache if you are using this caching plugin.
Agree or Have Your Say
I would love to know what you think are the best WordPress plugins. Have you installed any of these WordPress plugins? Which ones and what is the best WordPress plugin in your opinion? Please leave your comments below.
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Share Your Opinion
nice trick thanks thi plugin is really working…..
I prefer w3 tc . Its more powerful than super cache.
W3 Total cache is another excellent caching plugin as long as you understand how to configure the settings. WP Super cache has been downloaded 10 times more W3 and is co authored by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.
Excellent round up of wordpress plugins. I’ve just been through the lot and will recommend these to my list. Thanks
Thanks Dadony
I recently downloaded the NextGen plugin on one of my sites. It works great! Thanks for the recommendation.
No worries Jenifer. Its a great plugin which i use myself on this site and its the most popular plugin for WordPress galleries.
However, the default gallery system built into WordPress is excellent as well and will become further enhanced soon.
The next version of WordPress, 3.4 makes it possible to link image captions which may also interest you.