20 WordPress Plugins I would die without!

20 WordPress Plugins I would die without!

Ones I swear by:

1. Askimet – (does a pretty darn good job of catching the spam)
2. All in One SEO Pack – (although I have Thesis now and don’t need it)
3. CommentLuv – I just love being able to allow the kind people who comment on my blog to have a link back to their last blog post (plus I’ve found some cool blogs I may not have found via this plug-in on other people’s sites)
4. Contact Form 7 – making a contact form doesn’t get easier than this (it could but I’m not one to gripe)
5. Contextual Related Posts – does a pretty dandy job at suggesting other related blog posts to your readers
6. Do Follow – (by default WordPress sets your site as NoFollow).  I’m more than happy to encourage people to leave comments on my site by sharing link juice with them so this overrides the default WordPress settings
7. WordPress.com Stats – this tips me off to what people are searching for on my site so I can write posts that I know are relevant (yes, after the fact but sometimes we don’t know what people want until we see what they search)
8. Feed Stats for WordPress – gives me my Feedburner info so I don’t have to sign into another site (not necessary, just handy)
9. Google XML SiteMaps – the title tells it all
10. One Click Plugin Updater – again, tells it all – one click and you can update all your plugins!
11. Section Widget – without this one, I may have lost my mind – this allows you to put sidebar widgets on specific pages, posts, etc. Helps me keep my home page “cleaner”.
12. ShareThis – Makes it easy for people to share my posts across various social networks
13. TweetMeme Retweet Button – makes it easy to tweet my posts (and I can add this ReTweet button into my Aweber newsletters)
14. Supr by StumbleUpon – while I don’t use this one as much as I can I do still really love it. Makes it easy for people to Stumble your blog post
15. Ultimate Plugsins Smart Update Pinger – this is a handy tool that will not ping services when you make updates to blogs
16. WordPress 2 Ping.fm – (If I had to pick a favorite it would be this) – I have all my social network accounts set up at Ping.fm – every time one of my blog posts is published it automatically gets sent to all accounts set up with Ping.fm (can it get easier than this to spread your message?)
17. WP Super Cache – helps my site load faster
18. Zemanta – I use this with ScribeFire (for FireFox) and it often tips me off to tags I may have otherwise not thought of
19. Thesis Open Hook – a must have if you use the Thesis Theme
20. Post Videos and Photo Galleries (while I don’t use this on this site I do use it on my Vacation Rental By Owner website and LOVE it!)

New Plugins I am trying out based on other’s recommendations (mainly ones that Extreme John mentioned on his recent 25 WordPress Plugins You Might Dig)

1. Instant Weekly Round Up – makes it super easy to do a weekly-round up of your blog posts (or monthly if that’s your style)
2. Subscribe to comments – allows your readers to subscribe to comments on a particular post
3. Thank Me Later – kind of fun, I’ll see how it affects the comments left by others
4. WP Greet Box plugin – while this is being a little funky with my photos I like the concept that it suggests people Tweet, Digg, Stumble or subscribe to your RSS feed depending how they came upon your post
5. TwitterLink Comments – allows people to leave their Twitter handle with their comment (feed the addiction!)
6. Insights (similiar to Zemanta but I’m trying it out on my Vacation Rental website to see which I like more)
7. Custom Smilies 2.8 Beta – why don’t you use a smilie when you comment on this blog and tell me what plug-ins are your favorite?

Okay, I’m a junky for these – any you have that you swear by?

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