10 Great WordPress Plugins

WordPress has become one of my favorite ways of creating a self-hosted website. Part of the reason is because of the growing number of plugins that add functionality to your site. Here are a list of some of my current favorites. On your WordPress Dashboard go to the Plugins tab, click Add New and do a search for these highly useful add-ons.

1. All in one SEO Pack Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog. Appears on every page and makes adding keywords and meta tags easier.
2. Easy Adsense Easiest way to show AdSense and make money from your blog.
3. Exclude Pages from Navigation Provides a checkbox on the editing page which you can check to exclude pages from the primary navigation. Very helpful for those special landing pages.
4. Follow Me The Follow Me plugin is designed to allow users the ability to add links to their social media profiles in their blog. Shows up on the side with a pop up of your chosen social media such as Twitter and Facebook.
5. Google Analytics for WordPress This plugin makes it simple to add Google Analytics to your WordPress blog, adding lots of features, eg. custom variables and automatic clickout and download tracking.
6. My Category Order My Category Order allows you to set the order in which categories will appear in the sidebar. Uses a drag and drop interface for ordering. Adds a widget with additional options for easy installation on widgetized themes.
7. My Link Order My Link Order allows you to set the order in which links and link categories will appear in the sidebar. Uses a drag and drop interface for ordering. Adds a widget with additional options for easy installation on widgetized themes.
8. My Page Order My Page Order allows you to set the order of pages through a drag and drop interface. Perfect if your theme is not exactly WordPress 3.0 compatible.
9. NextGEN Gallery A NextGENeration Photo gallery for the Web 2.0. Lots of options to choose from.
10. WP-DBManager Manages your WordPress database. Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of database.

By the way, did I mention these plugins are all free? Some of them do ask for donations and I encourage you to do so. Somebody has to support these people so they can continue to create the wonderful plugins.