One of the reasons I love WordPress is the plethora of amazing plugins available. Here are 5 plugins that I recommend for getting a professional look to your site:
Featured Content Gallery
This plugin is amazing. It’s so easy to implement and really makes a big difference in a static site. Check out this site or this one to see it in action. To use, you simply install the plugin, and then set your preferences in the admin panel, add the bit of code to your theme files, and start posting in your featured category including the use of the custom field for the featured image. Just an FYI, for you techie types, I have found that this plugin does not work on a site that is also using “Moo Tools” javascripts. Click here to visit download page.
Breadcrumb Navigation XT
Another simple one to implement and a must if you have a site of any depth. It ads “breadcrumb” links to make it easy for the user to navigate, especially as they get deep into your content. Click here to visit download page.
Multi-page Toolkit
If you have content that is quite lengthy, this is a perfect plugin to help your users wade through it. There are many options for customizing it in the admin panel, and you can style the display by adding some plugin specific CSS to your theme’s stylesheet. Check out this post for an good example, and click here for the download page.
Related Entries
This plugin gives your readers suggestions at the end of each post for other posts that may interest them, and is a great way to increase the time they stay on your site. You can even include exerpts if you like! Click here to visit the download page.
CForms
This is simply the best contact form plugin I have ever come across. It allows for multiple forms, custom form styling and it’s very easy to insert your forms into posts, pages or your sidebar. Download page is here.
And, while I’m in plugin mode, here are some plugins I couldn’t live without:
BackUpWordPress (if you don’t have a plugin installed that backs up your site, drop everything you’re doing and install one now)
![[Post to Twitter]](http://randaclay.com/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter.png){kind=icon}
![[Post to Delicious]](http://randaclay.com/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-delicious.png){kind=icon}
![[Post to Digg]](http://randaclay.com/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-digg.png){kind=icon}
![[Post to StumbleUpon]](http://randaclay.com/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-su.png){kind=icon}
Amazing list. Many bloggers may take these for granted, but new bloggers like me need posts like this. I may may knowledgeable about website design, but when it comes to blogging… I’m a little behind.
Loving related entries… Should start using it when I have enough posts!
Great list of helpful plugin. I have faced a few problems with my old email form which don’t have spam detection. cForm is one of the greatest email supporter ever for bloggers. Thanks for the tips. I have installed it.
I am using related sites plugin, but I have to say my favorite is the all-in-one SEO pack.
thank you for this great info, I will try to add it on my Wordpress blog
I just tried out the related entries plugin on one of my blogs. Works very nicely.
The featured content gallery is really nice…took me awhile to get used it and figure out how to make it work but it really does make your site seem instantly pro.
Thank you so much for this list of plugins
This is really a great post. thanks for sharing nice plugins I am planning to use some…
Downloaded back up wordpress installer and the Featured Content Gallery Plugins. Featured Gallery looks really nice. It also looks very professional.Thank you for sharing this valuable information.
The contact form alone is well worth getting this very minute. There is no telling how much irritation that plugin alone has deterred.
Any full time blogger or admin should be using IMO.
I agree with you about the Related Entries plugin. I’ve got this on my Wordpress Blog and it does help with keeping vistors on your site. I’ll give those other ones you mentioned a go
. Thanks.
Yes, i agree with you on the benefit of wordpress plugin. Was reading last nite about a blog that told us 10 types of website that wordpress could make. and this actually including social networking and forum.
Without all those plugins, i do not think it is possible. Thank you for the post again..
Thanks for write some plugin, i have plan migrate to wordpress
great list!
I was trying to implement some “Related Entries” plugin for worpdress, but since you linked a good one I will stick to it
My fav is Related Entries web plugin. This plugin will really make visitors stay much longer on your website.
Definitely one of my favourite plugin post..
Excellent stuff. I have to admit I am shocked to how far blogging has come- I was using blogs back in 2003 before Blogger was bought by Google. The one thing that I don’t get, however, is the fact that people think blogging is somehow “so much different” than regular website marketing. It really isn’t with the exception of the idea of trying to create a community and getting people to respond and contribute to your content. Now with sites like Blogger or Squidoo you can set them up in a snap, like one I just did about the Tax Masters in about 10 minutes the other day and used a variation of the plugins discussed above. It’s an amazing internet world we live in these days!
I use the cforms plugin at the moment and am toying with the idea of using the content gallery plugin.
hi,
i am mike, i really like your list of plugins, seems very useful , will try it out in the near future. Thanks for sharing Randa.
mikerambling.com
Great plug-ins that I will definitely have to implement into my site!
I currently have related entries and the cForms plugins and they are both great. I was pleasantly surprised by cForms as I have had lots of problems with it in the past. When I upgraded to wordpress 2.6 and cForm’s new version, it was a lot better.
This was excellent. A couple of these plug-ins were just what I was looking for. Especially the Backup Wordpress. I was wondering if you knew of any Newsletter plug-ins that you might recommend. Basically I am looking to send out a monthly or weekly email to my registered users through Wordpress. The email would be HTML formatted and only to registered users of the blog.
Sweet, what is the edit plug-in you are using! That’s awesome!
Bryan,
Mailpress is a good one. You need to be running PHP 5 to use it.
Michelle
PS – I want this ajax edit, too! Someone tell us!!
Thanks Michelle for the tip, I’ll check it out…
Michelle, I found the AJAX Comment Editor.
You can download it here: http://www.raproject.com/ajax-edit-comments-20/
Randa, I love that multi page plugin! How in heaven did you get a video to play? Is that part of your theme, or did you embed it in the blog post?
I’ve seen a plugin that inserts a fixed number of items (pictures, ads, etc), which is very handy for long pages like your arthritis page.
@David – that’s just embedded in the post
@Bryan – I have used the ST Newsletter plugin. It’s $30, but worth every penny- so awesome.
CForms is a very useful plugin.It looks professional to have a form on your blog and it prevents a lot of the spam getting through to your inbox.
Great tips. Keep em coming. Wordpress I think will lead the blogging platform. It’s definitely here to stay.
Thanks for sharing the nice list of wordpress plugins. I have seen some of these plugins being used in professional wordpress themes like revolution too.
I am very happy to find the featured gallery plugin here. Thanks for sharing it. I am now testing it on my website.
Does WordPress work as well for Affiliate Marketing landing pages as other site builders and CMS apps? I am currently using Joomla for Landing Page creation and it has worked well.
Thanks Randa. I was just looking for plugins like the content gallery and CForms. And thanks for your other tips too.
Really nice post, the Featured Content Gallery is awesome and the forms one is quite impressice too.
The nextgen gallery plugin is another one that can make you wordpress site look more professional as is the wp-cumulous tag cloud plugin.
yes ur right, those are somehow must have plugins!
i should be adding the CForm soon!
I love plugin lists post! Thx a lot Randa, bookmarked already. Anyway i love the way you design your blog, really nice
I’m used custom domain on blogspot, I think this plug in can’t work for my blog
Nice post, thanks for sharing. I must say the Breadcrumb Navigation is a must imo. Every website known to the web should have one, not just wordpress and blogs
These are very good and useful set of tools for websites – i esp found related entries and multipage tools v helpful – i shall refer to all my website designer frnds
I really like the featured gallery plugin. I would love that on my blog. I always wondered how sites can design their sites like that so it’s great to hear that wordpress has a plugin that can do that automatically for you. I’m so glad I picked wordpress over blogger. The whole plugin factor just makes wordpress a better blogging platform.
Great post,
We have started using a couple of the plugins and have seen great results overall, so I am going to check out the others that you have suggested!
D4
Hello
I have a Wordpress Blog and installed few plugins but not these 5. Let me install and try these plugins also. I might get good results.
Thanks in advance
I should have thinked to install the “Related Entries” ones.
As well for the “share this”, well i intend to use Wordpress MU, i hope it can work with it..
Great, i’d love to use CForms, thanks for the tips
Cforms and the automatic wordpress upgrade plugin are both fantastic plugins which I use on all of my sites. Just downloaded the Breadcrumb Navigation plugin so going to give that a go. This is one of the main reasons why i love wordpress – there are so many different themes and plugins for you to play around with – some work, some don’t – but its great fun finding out.
Thanks for those plugins, really useful.
Can anyone recommend a good shopping cart plugin for WP that will allow you to do digital downloads?
I’ve looked high and low and don’t seem to be able to find one. I’m thinking of moving to Magento when version 1.2 comes out. Does anyone have experience with this?
Drum Loops – Dont know of a shopping cart plugin for wordpress to recommend as I haven’t tried to use wordpress for ecommerce. However I am sure there must be something out there for you to use, and if you struggle to find exactly what you need you could try getafreelancer.com. Posted a job on there the other week and the work was carried out really quickly and at a good price.
Thanks for posting about cforms. This is what i really need for my next project. I hope it should be easier to learn.
This is exactly what i need i am going to download all of these!