WordPress  – Plugins & Widgets for Your Site

 

WordPress is the most popular platform for building landing pages, websites, and blogs.  There are hundreds if not thousands of plugins and widgets that are currently available for the webmaster to use.  Most of these are free asking only to give a donation (optional) if you are happy with the application.

Many affiliate marketers first starting with WordPress out are confused by the extreme selection of available plugins and widgets that one can find.

What I wanted to do is to supply a simple list of what I feel is the most useful plugins that I have found.

As you become more familiar with WordPress you will eventually have your own short-list of must-have plugins.

WordPress Database Backup:

WP-DB-Backup is a critical tool to have and is free to download.  WP-DB-Backup allows you easily to backup your core WordPress database tables. You may also backup other tables in the same database.

You can choose to download the backups to your desktop, to your server or have them emailed to you.

You can also choose to schedule backups hourly, twice daily, once daily or weekly.  You also have the option of on-demand backups instead of scheduling them.

The important thing is that it gives you the ability to backup your core files in case of being hacked or something happens and you need to correct a major problem that has caused problems with your site.  Other backups are available but I like this one and it is very popular.

All in One SEO Pack:

The All in One SEO Pack is a must have plugin for both the beginner and advanced WordPress adminiatrator.

If you install and activate the plugin without changing a thing on the settings panel you will wind up with better SEO of your site than 90% os the sites on the web.  It is easy to use and you can fine tune the settings without any trouble at all to gain even higher search engine optimization.

I seldom come across a list of “must have” plugins that do not include All in One SEO Pack.

Akismet:

Akismet is an anti-spam tool that many blogs use to clean up the abuse by the few who try to spam your site.

It requires an API key which is free for personal use.  There is a charge if you confess to being a commercial entity.

This is again a tool many sites use.  I use the next one instead and so far have been happy with it.

SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam:

SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam can be used along with Akismet or stand-alone.  It will add captcha code to help prevent bots from doing auto-posts to your site.

It is completely configurable and can be set up for sign-ins, registration, comments, posting, etc…

It even allows you to set the difficulty level of the captcha, will add an audio feature, a refresh feature as well as other great options.

Dagon Design Sitemap Generator:

Dagon Design Sitemap Generator is a highly customizable site map generator to use for your WordPress site.

Some of its features include: support for multi-level categories and pages, category/page exclusion, multiple-page generation with navigation, permalink support, choose what to display, what order to list items in, show comment counts and/or post dates, and much more.

Google XML Sitemaps:

Google XML Sitemaps is an excellent plugin to create the Google site map needed for good SEO.

This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog.

It has been downloaded by over 4 million users so that says something about its popularity.

Google Analytics for WordPress:

Google Analytics for WordPress is again a very popular download.

This plugin makes it simple to add Google Analytics to your WordPress blog, adding lots of features i.e. custom variables, automatic click-out and download tracking.

There are so many options you can customize this for it would be better for you to visit the link and check it out yourself, including a video provided.

Plugin Central:

Plugin Central is a personal favorite that informs me anytime there is an update available for a plugin I am using.

It will also provide me as to what the updates involve so that I can determine if I want to install the update.

If I want to install it will do the installation for me with a click of a button.

EmbedIt:

EmbedIt is another personal favorite of mine.

A simple plugin that allows you to embed any HTML code (Youtube, UStream or whatever) in a post, deciding precisely where to embed it, allowing you freedom of coding your html without being annoyed by the wysiwyg editor.

All they ask for you to do is enter your email address and they send you the link to download.  I have gotten no spam in return.

Additional Plugins I like and have used:

• Dynamic Content Gallery – Slide show presentation, customizable, and I currently use on my static sites.
• DataFeed Random Ads – Excellent program for rotating ads, resets on every page reload, very easy to use.
• Open In New Window – Just in case I forget to set the attribute all external links open in a new window.
• Quick Page/Post Redirect – Allows you quickly redirect any page or post to a new location – very easy to use.
• Sexy Bookmarks – A plugin allows you to set up nice looking Social Bookmarking Links for visitors to use.
• Fast Secure Contact Form – Excellent customizable plugin to make really nice contact forms for WordPress.
• External NoFollow – Allows you to control what external links on your site is DoFollow or NoFollow.

As I said in the beginning, these are just personal favorites that I can suggest after having used them and finding them easy and effective.

You may find others you prefer as time goes on but you have to start somewhere!

 

From a collection of Free Affiliate Marketing Tips published by Free Affiliate Marketing Tips and Tools