5 Must Have WordPress Plugins

Written by Christian on March 4, 2010 in Wordpress - 11 Comments

I have compiled a list of 5 plugins that are must have in any WordPress users aresenal .

1.  Dean's FCKEditor

CKeditor is an open source WYSIWYG text editor ,brings to the web much of the power of desktop editors like MS Word.it’s lightweight and is compatible with most internet browsers which include: IE 5.5+ (Windows), Firefox 1.0+, Mozilla 1.3+ and Netscape 7+.

Features

• Replace the default wordpress editor with CKEditor
• Post comment with CKEditor to provide styled and colorful comments(Optional).
• Build-in File manager and upload manager.
• Build-in WordPress "read more" Button.
• Control output format.
• Customizable toolbar buttons
• Integrated with WordPress media buttons:
• Add Smiley Face Icons like this
• and much more…

This plug in when in stalled overrides the default WordPress Editor , and instead replaces it with a beautiful coded WYSIWYG editor. In fact , as I type this ,I am using it. It offers you so many more features. The user interface is very intuitive.  Of course if you are code slinger , and still feel like it just isn't enough , you can always switch the editor to Source mode , and then work in the format of our ancestors , HTML , lol .

2. All in One SEO Pack

This plugin makes SEO work super easy . It allows you to do what you normally would do to work SEO in regular  webpages. You can manipulate the Meta tag data , Keywords , etc.

• Advanced Canonical URLs
• Fine tune Page Navigational Links
• Built-in API so other plugins/themes can access and extend functionality
• ONLY plugin to provide SEO Integration for WP e-Commerce sites
• Nonce Security
• Support for CMS-style WordPress installations
• Automatically optimizes your titles for search engines
• Generates META tags automatically
• Avoids the typical duplicate content found on WordPress blogs
• For beginners, you don't even have to look at the options, it works out-of-the-box. Just install.
• For advanced users, you can fine-tune everything
• You can override any title and set any META description and any META keywords you want.
• Backward-Compatibility with many other plugins, like Auto Meta, Ultimate Tag Warrior and others.

3. Shockingly Simple Favicon

Theres nothing really wow about the plugin . It is pretty straight forward , but  as a web designer, attention to detail is everything. This plugin allows you to have your own custom favicon display in your browser . Usually you would have to edit some of the files , save and test . All you do is install the plugin , activate it , and then set the path where your favicon.ico is located , and then tada . Done . Very nice .

4. Gaboinked Facebook Badge Plugin

This plugin allows you to place a facebook badge on your sidebar. ( of course all you code slingers out there can hack the code and place it pretty much where ever you like , lol ) . This plugin is for use on wordpress 2.7 and above.

5. myEasybackup

This is probably one of my favorite plugins from the bunch. Just recently I had a client and his entire wordpress installation was corrupted by a virus.  The virus even went as far and screwed with his mysql settings , so that when I went and tried to do a reinstall , I would get a WSOD ( white screen of death ) … I was able to recuperate some of the files , ( sadly not all ) However , I ran into this plugin and am not implementing on his site. The plugin backs all of the mysql files , as well as the wordpress files and saves them in .zip format should the unthinkable ever happen . Very user friendly . It gives you the option to schedule backups , and have them sent to either your email address or saved on your server.

The list could go on and on , but I decided to stop at 5 .. Are there any you think I should mention ? Let me know and I will place them up here as well.