03/14/2011
Author:
Josh 
10 Comments
Best WordPress Plugins for 2011
WordPress plugins easily add new features and increase the functionality of your site, usually with just a few mouse clicks.
Below is a list of my favorite plugins that we’re currently using on this and our other wordpress sites.
Thank Me Later
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/thank-me-later/
Sends a thank you e-mail to anyone that leaves a comment on your blog.
WPTouch
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wptouch/
Creates an alternate theme for visitors using mobile devices to view your site.
WP Super Cache
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/
Caches your posts and pages so that each page doesn’t have to be dynamically generated for every single page view. Makes your site load a lot faster and cuts down on server load
SEO Smart Links
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-automatic-links/
Automatically links keywords and phrases in your posts to other posts. Fully customizable so that you can pick what links to where.
SEO Friendly Images
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-image/
Adds alt tags and titles to all your images in your posts.
Contact Form 7
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/
Lets you create custom contact forms to use in your pages or posts.
Subscribe to Comments
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments/
Notifies a commenter when there is a reply to their comment. This is great for keeping a discussion going in your comments area and for getting return visits to your site.
Update: Subscribe to Comments Reloaded!
Like the old one but with more features, less bugs and other cool stuff that makes it worth the “reloaded” title. 
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments-reloaded/
All in one SEO pack
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
Lots of SEO options to choose from to make your site more attractive to the search engines.
If you get a premium theme (highly recommended) then a lot of the features in this plug in will already be included and you shouldn’t need it.
Google XML Sitemaps
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
This creates a sitemap for your site, keeps it updated and submits it to google. Basically it lets google know what and where all the content on your site is so it can better list your content in the search results.
Sociable
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sociable/
Adds social buttons to your posts and your RSS feed.
WP-Polls
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-polls/
Add a poll to a post or page.
WP Auto Tagger
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-auto-tagger/
Uses Yahoo API to scan your post and suggest tags to use.
Tweet Old Post
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweet-old-post/
Randomly pics old posts and tweets them on twitter.
Easy Privacy Policy
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/easy-privacy-policy/
Quickly set up a google compliant privacy policy on your site.
CommentLuv
http://comluv.com/download/commentluv-wordpress/
A very popular plugin for letting commenters place a link back to the last post on thier own site.
No 404 Errors
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/no-404-errors/
Gets rid of 404 errors from missing or moved pages on your site by redirecting to a page of your choosing.
Audio Player
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/audio-player/
Easily lets you embed mp3 audio files into your post so your readers can be listeners as well. Check out my post about it here.
About The Author!
I personally wouldn’t recommend using the “No 404 Errors” method/plugin unless you’re making sure that you’re tracking your 404s — because what if you are getting inbound links that point to 404 pages, how will you know to correct them?
Otherwise, great list! I especially like WP Super Cache (in combination with WP-Minify, and Use Google Libraries) and I (used to) like SEO Smart Links, but I don’t use it anymore because Windows Live Writer automatically converts keywords to links as you’re writing the posts.
Anyway, thanks for sharing this!
MK Safi recently posted..The Best WordPress Popup Plugin
I didn’t see ReplyMe on there either. It’s a great plugin that lets your commenter receive updates when you reply to there comments.
Nice list though, I use almost everyone above as well.
Chris recently posted..Video Theme for Your Video Blog
A great list of plugins, however there are a few I think may work better for you.
First of all W3 Total Cache, it seems to out perform WP Supercache by about 10 fold in my a/b testing.
And SEO Ultimate, it does everything all in one SEO does, but has much more features, and does a better job at SEO it seems in general.
My favorite plugin is Custom Post Template… which completely transformed my wordpress blog into a powerful content management system…
great list of plugins… My favorite is tweet old post
Hi Josh,
I followed your CommentLuv link over here to see what plugins you’re recommending. This is a pretty good list but you didn’t include one I couldn’t do without: the free GrowMap antispambot plugin Andy @CommentLuv created and named after my blog.
That plugin is also included in CommentLuv Premium.
Gail Gardner recently posted..CommentLuv Premium Plugin Winner: Congratulations Jenny Barron @JennySweets_com
Nice I’ll check it out. Thanks.
Josh recently posted..A Bloggers Guide to Choosing Your Domain Name
Great list Josh … Shared here are some plugins that I wasn’t aware of !!
Salman @ Tech Blog recently posted..Getting the Best out of your HDTV Experience
Since you didn’t mention anything about security or backup, I will list the 2 plugins I use:
1. WP-DBmanager for backup up your database
2. WSD Security scans your wordpress install to make sure it’s clean from hack attempts and helps to keep you safe.
3. Login Lockdown prevents brute force attempts by blocking ip’s after so many failed attempts.