10+ (Almost) Essential WordPress Plugins

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I’ve installed WordPress for a lot of people and each time there are a few plugins that always get installed — sort of by default, you could say. If I install a blog, these are ‘part of the package’ that I install and configure right after WordPress itself. I use these all on my own blogs as well — including This.Is.Inspired.

Spam Control

Akismet

Akismet comes bundled with WordPress, but you do have to activate and configure it once WordPress is installed. Do do this, you need a WordPress API Key (log in to your WordPress.org account to find it).
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WP-SpamFree

A powerful compliment to Akismet. I don’t know which I’d go without first.
Download >

Administration

Admin Expert Mode

Trims away all the unnecessary clutter in the blog’s Admin section and really is a great boon to training a new user without distraction.
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Admin Trim Interface

Similar to Admin Expert Mode and offers a few other options.
Download >

Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu

I’ve had a lot of questions about the Admin navigation on the left-hand side. This puts it all at the top of the Admin pages in a handy-dandy drop menu. People understand drop menus better than click-to-expand side menus.
Download >

Formatting

Post Typgrapher

Let’s face it — most folks aren’t familiar with the intricate details of typography. Post Typographer takes some of the headache away and handles stuff automatically, like detecting where a generic hyphen should be an em-dash (and inserting appropriate HTML characters), etc. I’ve gotten lazy myself because of this plugin.
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Syntax Highlighter and Code Prettifier

This is only necessary when you’re publishing code — PHP, HTML, CSS, JS, etc etc. I find it works more reliably than the Google Syntax plugin, but check both out to see what you like better. Uses the PRE tag and looks like this:

function blah($foo) {
	echo $foo;
}
return blah("foo");

Download >
Check out Google Syntax plugin and make up your own mind.

Contact Form

Contact Form does the heavy lifting of adding contact forms to your blog. It uses an easy-to-implement short code syntax to add dynamic contact forms anywhere you want to plunk one down.
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Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Beneficial to aid cross-clicking in your site and drive up monthly impressions by suggesting related posts the reader might find useful.
Download >

Miscellaneous

Ultimate Google Analytics

The biggie. everyone wants to know how their site fairs. You configure this plugin in tandem with a Google Analytics site profile for the blog and it inserts all the nasty Javascript code on the fly.
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Twitter Widget Pro

Handles all major interactions you could possibly want between your blog and Twitter. You do have to have a Twitter account, obviously.
Download >

…and for added goodness

Shockingly Big IE6 Warning

This one isn’t really mandatory, and when I code sites by hand I still proof for IE6, but nonetheless this plugin throws up a big yellow banner at the top of the page that asks the visitor to upgrade to a better browser. You can choose whether to uggest current versions of IE, Firefox, Opera & Safari.
Download >