Keep your WordPress blog running smooth and optimized with 10 of the most useful plugins available.

As of WP version 2.8.4 these plugins are used for every WordPress website/blog I set up.  My goal is to work as efficiently and expediently as possible.  Each of these plugins help achieve that goal and will increase your productivity in a meaningful way.

1. Akismet

Akismet is included with the default install of wordpress.  It catches spam comments so they don’t clog up your bandwidth, compromise your server or infect your viewers computers.  All that’s required is to visit WordPress.com and register for an API Key. I use the same API Key for every WordPress application I create.

2. All in One SEO Pack

All in One is a simple Search Engine Optimization plugin that works.  Headspace is also an effective plugin, and I’ve used both, but my preference is All in One primarily because I find that I personally don’t use all the bells and whistles that come with Headspace and I haven’t noticed any measurable difference between the two.

3. Bad Behavior

Bad Behavior is a gatekeeper that compliments Akismet and other spam solutions by utilizing a PHP based solution for blocking link spam and the robots that deliver it.

4. Clean Options

As WordPress progresses, updates are necessary to stay current and remain secure and functional.  There are times when you will experiment with different plugins, but as time and WP versions march on, some plugins will be rendered incompatible with updated version.  Most likely an alternate solution will become available, but you’ll still have deprecated plugin remnants in your database that could conflict with your current application or new plugins.  Clean options finds the orphaned database entries and gives you the opportunity to remove them, thus keeping your database free of unnecessary clutter.

5. Contact Form 7

Contact forms are a necessity, not an option, for any serious blog.  Contact Form 7 is a simple, yet highly customizable contact form that is easy to configure and easy to place on it’s own separate page,  included in a post or in the sidebar.

6. Google Analyticator

This plugin adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google Analytics on your blog.  Google Analytics is the most comprehensive FREE web traffic analyzer available.

7.  Maintenance Mode

Whether you’re in the initial development stages or you need to perform a major overhaul of your blog, Maintenance Mode is a great way to let your visitors know that your blog is down temporarily.  Maintenance mode is customizable in that it accepts html code and gives you the ability to tell your visitors when to check back.

8. My Page Order

Blogs are dynamic and living documents by design and as the pages come and go you’ll want control over the order in which they are presented in your menu bar or navigation bar.  You can change the order by digging into the PHP code, but why bother when someone else has designed this great time-saving plugin for you. My Page Order adds a link in the Pages section of your WordPress back-end, all you have to do is click and drag to rearrange the order.

9. Reveal IDs for WP Admins

Referencing posts, pages or other components of your blog are made simpler by Reveal ID’s.  While this plugin is designed for the more advanced user, there are a few plugins (notably: Featured Content Gallery) that require this plugin to work.

10. TinyMCE

TinyMCE is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that adds an enormous amount of flexibility for the writer/blogger.  The ability to create and format tables, enhanced font control and multitude of useful formatting elements not available in the standard WP editor.  Each of these functions can be accomplished using the html interface, but for time saving and ease of use, TinyMCE is one my favorites.

There are literally thousands of WordPress plugins to substantially increase the usability, flexibility and ease of use for the developer, blogger and visitor.  This small sample represents the basics for any initial setup.  Suggestions, comments  or questions are welcome.

peace.

WordPress is an open source blog application which is widely used because of it’s functionality, adaptability and inherent SEO-friendly structure.  Anyone interested in blogging should seriously consider WordPress.  The latest release is WordPress 2.7.  For those of us upgrading from the previous release to WordPress 2.7, the upgrade was not necessarily seamless, but then it seldom is.   Several new features were added which will greatly increase functionality, yet, as usual, some plugins and themes have caused problems or broken your blog.

This time out, I started a new blog fresh with 2.7 and upgraded two others from 2.6.  The initial installation of the fresh install got jacked because I tried to use all my old plugins.  After nearly 10 hours of trying to figure out how to resolve the issues, I deleted the entire root directory and started over.  The second installation was problem free mainly because before installing any plugins, I checked one place first.

Lesson #1:

Check the plugin compatibility page BEFORE installing plugins for any new WordPress Release.

I was starting a new blog, but I liked my old plugins and knew how to configure them.  Some of my old plugins were redundant because the new Worpress release built them into the application.  However, I learned that some of the newer plugins worked better or had added features, ultimately requiring less to mess with, which is always better.

Fixing the upgrade

When initially upgrading from 2.6 to 2.7 everything seemed to work at first, but then my editor broke along with title tags and a few other minor annoyances.

In this case a clean install of WordPress was out of the question.  We had hundreds of posts and dozens of subscribers.  But I ultimately not only fixed the broken blog, but improved it.

Lesson #2:

Clean your WordPress database periodically.

Before messing with your database, make sure to back it up.

After backing up your database, export it into a comma-separated-values (csv) file or text file and look through it.  You may find some interesting entries that you had no idea were there.  Afterwards, there is a wonderful tool to find any unnecessary records that could be causing problems now or may cause unexplained issues in the future.  If you’ve tried out a number of different plugins and either they didn’t work, or you decided not to use  them, remnants still exist in your database.

I highly recommend the  Clean-Options plugin.  Clean-Options checks through your WordPress database for orphaned options.  The “options” table in your database holds the info for your plugins.  If Clean-Options does not find an option with a “get_option” or “get_settings” referenced in any of your PHP files, it will display the record as orphaned and allow you to drop that database record.  Dropping a database record is the same as deleting.

Please be careful not to delete any shared resources.  Only delete records that directly reference a plugin that is deprecated or not in use.  I’ve used this plugin to reconfigure revisions of plugins as well.  For example, the All-in-one-SEO-pack plugin wasn’t working right, so I dropped all the all-in-one database records, reinstalled and everything was great.

WordPress is touted as an application for those who are not particularly tech-savvy.  If you are not tech-savvy and run into issues with your blog, as you will from time to time, if can be a monstrously frustrating experience.  These are just two simple tips to help you avoid pulling out your hair if you’re a newbie.