a Must have wordpress plugins ?

Hello,

I just started new medical type blog, and since it's been long time i have used wordpress i wonder what a must have plugin i should install, you know like contact forms and post rating and stuff like that

can you mention some best plugins every wordpress should install ?

thanks

 

ehm I suggest W3 tottal chace to make your site more light and faster. There still many plugins that i think usefull, but i forgot what are they

 

Here is my sort list for you..hope it helps
For SEO: All in one SEO or Yoast (both are good)
To SEO Optimized Images: SEO Friendly Images
To Generate Sitemap: Google XML Sitemaps (Best auto sitemap generator for WP)
For Contact Form: Contact Form 7
To show Images in Lighbox: Lightbox Plus ColorBox (sites looks cool if they have lighbox)
Editor: TinyMCE Advanced (Take your post/page Editor to new level)
Social Network Post: NextScripts: Social Networks Auto-Poster (Automatically Post to social network sites like FB & Twitter)
FB integration: Facebook AWD All in one(integrate Likebox, Like and share button and FB comments to your site)

I think this list is enough for start, If you still want any other plugin to perform specific task or your site should have that feature then describe it I will try to find that plugin.

Regards,
Jaimin

 

great caching is a must for blogs

 

Thank you Jaimin, nice bunch of addons

 

I recommend you these plugins:

Google Integration Toolkit: Integrate Google services (Analytics, Webmaster Tools..)
BWP Google XML Sitemaps: Generates a Sitemap index
Meta Keywords Generator: This plugin helps your SEO by adding meta keywords
SEO Meta Description: Creates extra meta description write panel for posts and pages
WPeMatico: Enables administrators to create posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds. (not a must but is a nice plugin)

 

Jaiman has provided a good startup list of plugins.
Other plugins that I have found useful are:

• WP Smush.it - to reduce image file sizes.
  and
  
• Contextual Related Posts - I would wait on this one until you have considerable content on your site. It provides a list of related posts at the bottom of each of your published posts.

I prefer not to overdo the number of plugins so that the site can load quickly. Therefore, I have a couple of plugins that I activate periodically and then deactivate when finished using. For example, I use a Broken Link Checker plugin but I use it just for checking and then deactivate it when finished. If you site loads really quickly (using gtmetrix.com as a guide) then you don't need to worry.

 

W3 total cache, jetpack, all in one seo, YARPP

 

• All in One SEO Pack - to optimize your titles etc.;
• Google XML Sitemaps - to create sitemap;
• NoFollow Free - if you want to make some links in comments dofollow, ie. if the author has 5 or 10 comments approved, his links change from nofollow into dofollow;
• Subscribe to Comments - it allows users to be notified about new comments. It also lets you drive more traffic to your posts;
• Contact Form 7 - to let you create your contact form;
• Exclude pages from navigation - I use it sometimes for pages I don't want to display in the main menu;
• Facebook Social Plugins;
• WP No Category Base - it removes the "category" from URLs for categories.

 

For us we have:

all in one seo plugin
Google xml sitemap
askimet
contact form 7
Blog vault (for backups)
Incaptula
Floating social bar
wp advertise it (adsense)

The blog vault is very good for backing up your website and really important. We do run our website on Thesis though so we don't need many plugins because a lot of them are built in on Thesis.

I do have a resources page with a lot of the bits and pieces I use on my weight loss blog that may be useful to you:

http://myweightlossdream.co.uk/weightlossbloggers/resources-for-weight-loss-bloggers/

And I hope it goes well for you.

 

Akismet (comes by default with wordpress)-to prevent spam
Seo by yoast- my choise- more features (or all in one seo optional)- to optimize content
BackWPup or vaultpress for backups
Jetpack- A lot of features to customize
Wp super cache- cashing plugin to speed up website
Contact form 7+captcha

 

SEO by Yoast is great. Contact Form 7 has been reported (and tested) to sometimes bottleneck a site's load times etc so you may want to test that one out. If you run into compatibility issues between wordpress plugins be sure to test deactivate them one by one and reactivate and test them one by one to see if you can isolate any issues. Aside from this, test out which Caching plugin works best for you through speed tests over the course of multiple trials to get a large enough sample.

 

Another Plugin:

- CKEditor

 

special recent posts
The most beautiful and powerful way to display your recent posts with thumbnails.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/special-recent-posts/screenshots/

easy watermark
Allows to add watermark to images automatically on upload or manually.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-watermark/screenshots/