WordPress is an amazing Blogging platform which makes it really quick and easy for anyone to publish their own blog or website.

WordPress Plugins are clever little programs created by Plugin Developers which can be quickly installed to produce literally hundreds of different features, effects and benefits for your blog.

So if you want to add video to your blog or website – there are many plugins to choose from. If you want to add photo galleries to your blog – then again there are lots of options to choose from. There is probably a plugin for virtually anything you can think of.

For the first time blogger or newcomer to WordPress I would recommend the following 5 Plugins to give you an idea of the range and versatility of WP Plugins. There are lots more if you need them, but the following plugins will literally give you the potential to transform your blog saving you lots of time, stress and hassle.

Here is my recommended list to get you up and running, you can find them from the Plugins Menu in your WordPress Control Panel – Just choose the option to ‘Add New’ and then just search for the following plugins:

List of 5 Recommended WP Plugins for Newcomers to WordPress Self Hosted Blogs

1) Smart Youtube WP Plugin – Add Youtube Videos

2) Photodropper WP Plugin – Add Flickr Images

3) Contact Form 7 WP Plugin – Add a professional Contact Form

4) AddThis WP Plugin – Add a ‘Share’ button to each blog post

5) Twittercounter WP Plugin – Add a Twittercounter to your sidebar

1) Smart Youtube Plugin – Add Youtube Videos

This is a plugin which allows you to quickly and easily add virtually any Youtube video to your blog post or blog page. You can easily customize the appearance of the video player in terms of color and size to fit perfectly with your blog theme and design.

To use the plugin all you need to do is copy and paste the Youtube video url into your blog post and then make a tiny amendment to the url (add the letter ‘v’) and that is it. It’s really quick and simple – no other code is required.

2) Photodropper Plugin – Add Flickr Photos

This plugin allows you to search for images by keyword from within your WordPress Control Panel. So as you are writing a blog post, you can just search out an appropriate image and Photodropper will present you with a list of photos which you have permission to publish.

All you do is simply select the image you like and publish it to your post. Again, like the Smart Youtube plugin – it is really quick and easy.

3) Contact Form 7 Plugin – Create a Contact Form Page

This plugin is really useful, apart from making it really easy to create a contact page for your blog it can also be used to produce more forms – so you could use it to collect other feedback from your readers and followers.

If someone leaves a message on the contact or feedback form, it sends you a copy of the message almost instantly to your designated email address. So you will get the feedback very fast making it easy for you to react quickly.

4) Add This Plugin – Add a ‘Share’ Button

This is fast becoming one of the most popular ‘Share’ buttons around. It allows your readers to share your content really easily through the option of selecting one of many social bookmarking sites and social networks.

Once you have installed this plugin, it will automatically place a ‘Share’ Button under every post you submit maximizing the chance for your work to spread around the web.

5) Twittercounter Plugin – Let everyone know how many Twitter Followers you have

This plugin is probably more for fun than anything, but if you do have a lot of Twitter followers then this might just boost the credibility of your blog.

Once you have installed it you will have a choice of Twitter counters, so you can select the one you think is most appropriate for your Blog.

What are you waiting for?

So, what are you waiting for – go ahead and try installing these plugins and you will be amazed at the results! Once you have tried some out you will find it much easier finding more plugins and customizing your site so that it does exactly what you are looking for.

One word of warning – don’t go installing too many plugins as each one will slow down your site a little – so just stick to the ones you really need.

WordPress is a great platform for very simple blogs but in order to give them a more professional look and to make them function more efficiently themes and plugins are essential.

Basically a theme is what makes your blog look the way it does whereas plugins take care of a lot of the functions behind the theme. Think of the theme as being the outside look of your car, WordPress itself as the engine with the plugins being the things such as the lights, indicators, warning lights etc that are good to have but not essential to run the engine of the car. I am no mechanic but you get the idea.

What are WordPress plugins?

I guess the simplest explanation is that they are a bit of code that make things easier to do or allows you to do things that without the particular plugin are very difficult to do and beyond the capabilities of anyone other than a person with a technical knowledge of WordPress.

Why use WordPress plugins?

They allow you do to do things with WordPress that without them would be either time consuming and may also require technical expertise in WordPress beyond that of the majority of WordPress users.

What are some examples of WordPress plugins?

Akismet is a popular plugin that checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You can review the spam it catches under “”Comments.”" Without such a plugin your blog could easily become full of undesirable comments that you certainly do not want your readers to read.

All in One SEO Pack is Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog. You can use this plugin to tweak the default options for title, description, keywords and duplicate content.

Google AdSense, Chitika and Kontera plugins allow you to monetarize your blog and make an income from an information only blog.

Contact Form 7 allows you to create a “”Contact Us”" page with a form people can fill in for further information or questions about your products.

These are only a few of the many plugins you can use on your blog and it all depends on what you want your blog to do as to what plugins you need to install to make it work more efficiently and save you extra time in maintaining your blog.

WordPress first appeared in 2003 as is now used on thousands of websites. It is a simple open source blogging tool which is offered in two ways, either the hosted option or the free software download option.

WordPress offers many additional features which are otherwise know as WordPress plugins. These WordPress plugins allow you to customise your blog to suit both the audience and the genre of your website.

There are so many WordPress plugins to choose from, if you are new to blogging you may not know which ones will work best for you. Here is a list and explanation on just some of the most popular WordPress plugins available.

Top WordPress Plugins:

o All in one SEO pack – this WordPress plug in helps optimize your titles for search engines as well as generating automatic META tags. It gives you the opportunity to override titles and set any META keywords and description you want. Depending on the version of WordPress you are currently using ie 2.3 you can simply install this WordPress plugin and it will work straight away.

o Akismet – this is a fantastic tool which helps sort out the clutter of spam. Once installed, this WordPress plugin will check all of your comments against the Akismet web service to analyze if they look like spam or something genuine, it then allows you to review what has been found in the ‘comments’ section of your WordPress blog so that you can decide if you want to delete it or not.

o WordPress Stats – although there are many ways to capture data and stats regarding your website, most offer too much information especially if you are new to blogging. The WordPress stats system has been specially designed to focus on the most popular information a blogger needs.

o Twitter Tools – this plugin integrates your Twitter account with your WordPress blog. Twitter is a free micro-blogging and social networking service.

o Get Recent Comments – This plugin gives you full control over the appearance of excerpts of comments that are shown in your sidebar. You can determine the order, the number of excerpts and the length.

o DMSGuestbook – This guestbook can be easily customized allowing you to change not only the color but allows you to set mandatory fields where a user must fill out certain information. You can fully manage the user entries and edit/remove posts before they are shown.

o All In One Video Pack – This WordPress plugin offers every functionality you need for video and rich-media. It allows you to record/upload and import videos straight to your chosen post.

Each WordPress plugin has its own unique advantages and can really help to turn your blog into something user friendly. With so many plugins to choose from it is worth spending a bit of time searching through what is on offer and selecting the plugins that will benefit both you, your site and your readers.

New additions are constantly being added and developed so be sure to keep checking so that you do not miss out on something that could be of benefit.

Have you gone searching for plugins recently? There are a bazillion and one of them (and I don’t believe that’s an exaggerated number!). Knowing which you need on your blog can be very confusing. Worse, is that you start downloading and installing dozens of plugins and you don’t really know what they’re for and/or how to use them.

I can help you make wise plugin choices for you blog.

WordPress Plugins – Choose Wisely

Plugins add features and functions to your WordPress blog above its core functions as is with an ‘out-of-the-box’ installation. Plugins are one of the things that makes WordPress so powerful, because there’s a plugin for nearly everything (and once someone creates a plugin so my WordPress will give me my morning coffee – I’ll proclaim WordPress 100% perfect ; however, just because there are so many plugin choices, does not mean you should download and install them all. So how do you choose?

You Start by Identifying a Need

If you find you have a need for a specific feature or function on your blog, that’s when you search for a plugin to fill that need. Not before.

So the plugins you may use, might be completely different than the ones I might use; because our needs are different.

Know and Understand Your Plugins

If you’ve identified a need, then searching for plugins to fill that need is the first part of knowing and understanding why you are installing a particular plugin. You will find many ‘Top Recommended Plugins’ lists on the web, and there’s nothing wrong with those lists, but you need to know and understand the purpose and function behind a plugin before you download and install it. If you don’t, then you are not going to be using that plugin to its full potential; or worse, it could be slowing down your blog, or not be compatible with another plugin you’re using.

So don’t blindly install plugins unless it is filling a need you have on your blog.

Plugin Maintenance

Every time you need to upgrade your WordPress, there’s always a chance that one of your installed plugins will not be compatible after the upgrade. For the more popular plugins, their developers are usually on top of these things, and an upgrade is made available very quickly. However, not all plugin developers continue updating the plugin and if that’s the case, you’ll need to find another compatible plugin that will do the same thing your now outdated plugin did.

Too Many Plugins?

There is no set number of recommended plugins; other than to only use those that you need. However, keep in mind that many plugins use a lot of resources and some may really slow down your blog’s loading time. If you find that you’re using a resource hog plugin, try to find a ‘lighter’ alternative that provides similar function/features.

My Top 15 Recommended Plugins – and Why They are Useful

Ok, now that I’ve given you the lowdown on plugin selection and things you need to be mindful of; I do have a list of 15 plugins that I personally use and I’ll share with you their function, so you can decide if they would also be useful on your blog. If you don’t want or need the function/feature any of these plugins provides – do not install them. Simple as that.

Akismet: this is one part of my two part spam-fighting system on my blog to combat comment spam. This plugin actually comes already installed on every WordPress blog, you just need to activate it with an API key you get from WordPress.com.
All in One SEO Pack: awesome plugin that allows you to set unique blog post and page titles (i.e. keyword phrase specific titles that should be unique to every post and/or page you write) and set meta descriptions and add meta keywords as well.
Articles: this plugin allows me to select ‘featured’ posts that will then display on a separate page on my blog for quick and easy reference. Not the same as a sitemap, as only those posts you select will be visible, so a good way to keep your most popular posts all in one easy to find location.
Audio Player: a nice plugin that makes it very quick and easy to add an mp3 audio to a post or page. Great for adding interviews or audio sound bites to your page. I prefer this plugin over the built-in audio player in WordPress.
Comment Redirect: this plugin will redirect all first time commenters on your blog to a page or post of your choosing. I have a page created where I thank them, as first time commenters, for visiting my blog – you could even offer them a free downloadable report on this page, invite them to subscribe to your mailing list (include an opt-in form on this page!) or whatever you want. Make them feel special and appreciated!
Dagon Design Contact Form: by far the best and easiest to use and setup contact form I’ve found. It includes a captcha to control contact form spam by bots.
Dagon Design Sitemap: this is a human-friendly sitemap, made to make it easier for your blog visitors to find all of your posts and pages in one spot. Has a place to enter the location of your XML sitemap (see below)
Google XML Sitemap: this is a sitemap for search engines. Yes, you need both a human-friendly sitemap and this XML sitemap, so works well with the Dagon Design Sitemap listed above.
Sexy Bookmarks: this is a social bookmarking plugin that will add social bookmarking icons below every post and/or page on your site so your blog visitors can easily Stumble, Digg, Tweet, etc…. your site content. This is great for traffic generation!
Similar Posts: adds a list of similar or related posts at the end of your blog posts.
Subscribe to Comments: allows site visitors to receive notice of any new comments on a specific blog post.
Thank Me Later: will send a fully customizable follow up ‘thank you’ email to anyone who has previously commented on your blog, but has not been back. Great for reminding folks about your blog and getting return visitors.
Twitter Tools: allows you to integrate your blog and Twitter account. This is the tool I use to automatically send a tweet out when I publish a new post on my blog. You can also add your latest Twitter activity in your blog sidebar.
WP Database Backup: this an extremely handy plugin that everyone really needs to use. Not only will this plugin backup your database, you can schedule regular database backups with this plugin and have those backups emailed to you. I highly recommend that you install this plugin and schedule at least daily backups of your blog. Do not assume your web host is doing regular daily backups of your site.
WP Super Cache: if you have a blog that gets a LOT of traffic, or you could potentially get a surge of traffic (like through Digg, Stumbleupon or a trending topic), you need this plugin. It will save you from crashing your bandwidth during high traffic surges.

I know there are many different articles out there that cover WordPress plugins but I felt the need to create one based on my own experiences. I have compiled a list of the top 5 most useful WordPress plugins that I actively use on my sites.

W3 Total Cache

This plugin is the heavyweight in WordPress Caching plugins and is being used on the high traffic blog Mashable.com. W3 Total Cache provides the most options of any caching plugin that I have ever used. If you don’t know what caching is let me explain that briefly first. Caching on a WordPress blog or any blog can be very important due to limited server resources or days of higher than normal traffic. Caching plugins will create static versions of your dynamic pages on your site so they can be served much quicker to visitors with less load on the server than dynamic pages.

W3 Total Cache also provides more functionality than just caching your content. It can also provide you with Database Query Caching, Minify your code, CDN, and Browser Cache. I want to talk more about the CDN or (Content Delivery Network) this feature allows you to use an already in place CDN like Amazon or create your own. You can actually create a self-hosted CDN network within your own server or on another server that you own via FTP. Why would you want to create a CDN on your site, because it will dramatically improve load time on the site or appear to when your users visit. A CDN allows a browser to load more objects and images in parallel than without.

Overall, if you haven’t tried W3 Total Cache on your blog you are missing out, go ahead and give it a try.

Sharebar

The Sharebar creates a Mashable-like (looks just like the one found on Mashable.com) social media sharing plugin that follows along side your posts when scrolling. The plugin is completely customizable which gives you the freedom to ad any kind of button that you like. The plugin also allows you to change the background color, width, and positioning to better fit the design of your site. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Visitor Maps and Who’s Online

The Visitors Maps and Who’s Online plugin is a traffic statistics plugin for your WordPress installation. This plugin allows you to track which users are on your site at any given time, where they are from in the world, and much more.

The Who’s online page that comes with the plugin displays information about every user that enters the site. It will display their IP address, location, browser type, whether they are a robot or person, what page they are on, and the last time they clicked something on the site. This information can be quite useful to determine what post or posts are popular on the site at any given time. It can also help you determine how many people are on the site at any given time of the day especially if one of your articles becomes quite popular.

WordPress.com Stats

The plugin WordPress.com Stats is also a traffic statistics plugin for your WordPress blog. The plugin provides you with a comprehensive look into your traffic data. With the plugin you get a nice graph that sorts your data into Days, Weeks, or Months. There is also a page that displays where your hits are coming from called Referrers, and Top posts and pages, search engine terms, and even clicks on your content. This plugin is a must have for any WordPress blog, if you use it now let me know what your experiences with the plugin are.

Lightbox 2

I don’t have much to say about Lightbox 2 except for the fact that this plugin looks great! Like any other Lightbox plugin this one also allows users to click on your images which will then pop up and enlarge. Lightbox 2 however has a much easier to use GUI for the end user in my opinion than other Lightbox plugins.

If you use any of the WordPress plugins I have listed above leave a comment about your experience with any and I will try to help you if I can. If you haven’t used them, feel free to leave questions.

Below the 7 essential WordPress plugins that should be installed on every new WordPress site before you do anything else. Each one of these is a MUST have for every blog and WordPress site you build. Best of all they are all FREE; gotta love that!

1. Google XML Sitemaps: This is a plugin that will map your site to help Google and other search engines index your site better. In plan English, this will allow your WordPress site to play nice with the search engines, which in turn will help you show up higher when people search for what you are talking about. Don’t be fooled that it is called “”Google”" XML Sitemaps, because Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com all index the same way, so this plugin will help index your pages and posts in all the major search engines. For more advanced user this plugin also allows you to customize priorities and other features.

2. TinyMCE Advanced: This is basically 16 plugins in one to add more functionality to the editor in WordPress so that it is more similar to utilizing Word and you are don’t have to be constrained to the presets of your theme. Meaning, you have more control over type of font, size, color, adding tables, link and image options, etc. There are over 40 buttons that it can add to your toolbar and is customizable so you can drop and drag what items you want in your toolbar and where you want to see them.

3. Sexy Bookmarks: If you are posting good content that you want people to read, like and share (which you want EVERYONE to do!) this plugin makes it easy. Readers can easily share your blog posts and pages with people they know through the social media platforms they use and love with just a click of the mouse! You can customize which platforms you want people to be able to share on; this plugin gives you TONS of options..

4. Exclude Pages from Navigation: This will allow you to create pages that you want active but do not want to show up in your site navigation menu. This is great for creating squeeze pages (it would defeat the purpose of a squeeze page to have it in the menu bar!) or promotional pages for offers that you only want select people to see (i.e. your email list, your social media fans, or you know those offers that appear when you try to leave a site…”"Wait, don’t leave until you see this fabulous offer that we have to get your to buy right now”" kind of thing, etc.).

5. Google Analyticator: A must for monitoring your site! This makes it sooo easy, so that you don’t have to worry about going into your template and messing with code. This will work with your Google Analytics account (this is free and a MUST have for all of your sites to track activity on your site) so you don’t have to do anything. Usually with Google Analytics you have to copy and paste the code into your template code…which if you don’t know what you are doing, isn’t necessarily the best things to change around the code of your template, so this does it all for you!

6. Platinum SEO Pack: A great plugin to make your WordPress site even more SEO (search engine optimization) friendly. It does a whole lot of stuff (most of which I don’t understand) to make it more appealing to the search engines and get your blog posts and pages ranked higher in searches. It has fabulous standard settings so you don’t have to tinker when you install it, but if you are more techie minded it also allows you to customize the setting to suit your needs better.

7. Custom Headers and Footers: This is a fabulous plugin that will allow you to add extra content above or below your posts and page content despite your theme. This plugin keeps you from having to modify your theme’s code and allows you to quickly put in items like header images or your copyright information and links to your terms of service, privacy statement and disclaimers.

I especially love it for sales page templates. Most are just blank canvasses and don’t have an area set for header images. Just be aware that you can enter text or HTML, so if you want to put in an image you need to know the HTML code for displaying the image (there is no image upload function). Here is a great site that shows HTML code for images: http://www.goldcoastwebdesigns.com/12.shtml

BONUS: This plugin comes pre-installed WordPress, but DO NOT ignore it, don’t delete it; activate and use it! Its called Akismet is a fabulous spam comment blocker. When I started my first blog, I got very excited at first at how many comments I was receiving, until I found out they were all spam comments that contained links to less than reputable sites. This plugin prevents those comments from coming through. It also seems pretty smart, because I have never had it filter out a real comment, though I keep I have the spam sent to the spam folder (kind of like email) so that I can review them weekly just to make sure no real comments got banned. Just remember that in order for this plugin to work you have to sign up for a WordPress.com account (just an account not a blog) to obtain and “”API Key”" (don’t ask me what this is, but it is important and several plugins utilize it, so just get it).

There are lots of other plugins I utilize and love, but this is the shortlist of essentials in my view. Each of the above plugins have been hyperlinked to the plugin site, but it is actually much easier to download from within you WordPress site back office, Plugin menu. In this menu you will see Add New and a search field, just type in the plugin name you want into that field and then you can install the plugin directly into your blog…it saves you the step of downloading then uploading.

If you have any other plugins you feel you can’t live without, please share. I always love learning about what other people are doing!

The WordPress platform owes a lot of its popularity to the availability of thousands of plugins that perform any function a site owner may need. Simply put if you need to do something there is probably an existing plugin to do it. But what are the security risks that come with installing WordPress plugins? I will tie these threats to the central principles of information security which include Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability.

Confidentiality – Goal is to prevent the disclosure of information to unauthorized individuals or systems

Integrity – Goal is to ensure that data cannot be modified without detection

Availability – Goal is to ensure your site is available when someone tries to access it.

Plugins vary in code size from very simple to very complex. 99.9% of plugin users do not have the time or expertise to do a security review of the code prior to installing a plugin. That means you are at the mercy of the developer that nothing malicious has been programmed into the plugin that could affect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of your site. For this reason it is best to stick with WordPress plugins that have a large user base and come from more trusted sources.

Plugins are primarily developed by individual developers or very small teams with limited budget for testing. That means if you are an early adopter of a plugin you are the equivalent of a beta tester so it is wise to avoid being on the bleeding edge of adopting a new plugin version unless there is a security vulnerability in the old version that is actively being exploited in the wild. Otherwise you risk something going wrong with the plugin that could negatively impact the availability of your site. For this reason it is important to have a viable backup of your site prior to installing a new plugin or upgraded a currently installed one.

When you install a WordPress Plugin you are installing an application. That means you should careful consider whether you need and intend to use the plugin regularly. Each plugin installed required additional site administrative overhead in the form of applying upgrades to ensure you are running the latest version. For this reason it is important to only install plugins that will be activated on your site and plugins not active should be removed to eliminate a potential source of vulnerability.

As you have no doubt seen by now, WordPress is perfect for building high quality websites and blogs in record times. It is also great for attracting visitors from the search engines at zero cost.

But where it falls down is in the monetization aspect of a site. Quite simply, how do you quickly and easily add some adverts to your WordPress site that can make you some money? Whether these are banner adverts, text adverts or some other kind, with WordPress alone you’re likely going to struggle.

Luckily there are some very good solutions to this question – namely WordPress banner plugins.

These WordPress plugins allow banners to be quickly and easily added to any site without you needing to know any coding at all. You simply take the snippet of code that the respective affiliate program gives you and then paste it into the plugin. As if by magic the banner this then start to appear on your website.

The biggest problem with WordPress plugins for banner management is that they are typically designed for only one thing – and that is displaying banners. What they won’t help you to do is to work out which banners are actually getting clicked and making you money. Because after all what is the point of pasting dozens of banners all over your site if nobody is actually clicking them?

A basic plugin simply for putting banners on your WordPress site is the WhyDoWork plugin where you simply paste the banner code in, decide where you want the banner to appear and it will start to show.

If you want to track the results and so make as much money as possible from your banners then the best solution is the WpSplitTester plugin.

Great Googly! You want WordPress plugins that work well with Google? You are in luck because there are some great WordPress plugins that do a variety of tasks that also play well with Google. Some of these actually help your website get a better ranking with Google.

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin generates a special XML sitemap for your WordPress site. A sitemap will help the search engine spiders index your website. Meaning spiders can see your website structure completely and retrieve it more efficiently. Every time you create a post, search engines are notified of new content. Search Engines will also rate your site better the better they can read it.

Google Analyticator

Easily adds Google Analytics tracking code to the pages of your blog. This allows users to track all outgoing links or downloads. You can see information from the last 30 days about your visitors, such as the top pages visited, the referrer and top searches. It also hides your visits thus your administrator visits to do not affect the numbers.

Google AJAX Translation

Being online means people around the world can visit your website. Google AJAX Translation plugin allows your blog to be translated into a variety of languages. Visitors to your site can read posts, pages even comments translated into one of the 52 languages available. You are able to choose to display all 52 or just a few languages.

Advertising Manager

Rather than manually adding Google ad code to your blog, you can add Adsense to your posts with a click of the button. Manage and rotate your Google Adsense and other advertisements with this one simple plugin. This plugin actually works across several ad networks so you are not limited to only Google.

MapPress Easy Google Maps

If you have a business or you just need your readers to know where something is a map is the best way to explain a location. With MapPress, it easily adds Google Maps to your blog or blog post. You can add markers to locations and readers can quickly get driving directions. Both you and your readers can choose from street, satellite or hybrid.

Google Calendar Widget

While WordPress comes with a calendar widget, Google Calendar Widget is actually a plugin that works as a sidebar widget. You can set up it up with URL of a calender feed you want to show.

Google Doc Embedder

Embed PDF files, PowerPoint presentations, and Tiff Images with Google Doc Embedder. Similar programs require your visitor to have Adobe Reader, PowerPoint and other programs this allows visitors to read directly. Your documents or files do not have to be on Google Documents to work with this plugin.

Use Google Libraries

Google’s AJAX Libraries API has a number of Javascript libraries that WordPress can host. With this plugin it decreases the load on your server, by allowing visitors to use the files cached on their computer via Google, rather than use files from your WordPress. It also uses compressed versions for faster loading.

Other Google Plugins

The number of WordPress plugins are growing daily. Google is producing new products regularly. So the list of Google related WordPress Plugins will continue to grow. It is always best to be logged into your WordPress back office to see if the plugins will work with your edition of WordPress, then visit WordPress.org and look for their plugin directory.

If you want to make your website better these plugins can help. Plugins allow you to add features and functions to your blog without having to learn programming language. You might notice a common theme with these plugins. All of these use WP or WordPress in their WordPress plugin names.

WordPress Database Backup

No one plans for their site to crash, but sometimes it happens. With this blog plugin you can schedule regular backups of your website to be sent automatically to your email. You do not have to worry about remembering or being on vacation.

WordPress Firewall

Similar to the firewall you may have installed on your computer, this blocks suspicious parameters. This means that if it detects something suspicious happening to your WordPress website it blocks it. It also logs the interaction for you to check over later. You can also whitelist your own IPS address and your other blog writers further limiting access.

WP Optimize

You probably have noticed every time you make a change to your posts, WordPress saves a revision. After a while all those revisions grow into mountains. You also have extra information saved on various code sheets that make up your site with installing and uninstalling plugins and themes. Optimize your site with this WordPress plugin.

WordPress Mobile Edition

More and more people are checking websites on their phone. But phone browsers may not be able to read your theme. When this WordPress blog plugin detects a phone it uses a mobile friendly theme instead of your normal one. Now your readers can continue to have access to your site wherever they roam.

WordPress Stats

Many statistics plugins take setting up and then require a learning curve to understand. With WordPress Stats you visit the plugin on your dashboard. The line graph show number of visitors. The tables below show you what pages people visited, what brought them to your site and reminds you of your busiest day.

WordPress Thread Comment

Social media has gained in popularity because people like to interact. The standard WordPress comment system allows comments to flow in time order which makes it hard for people to understand when one comment is responding to another. Not with this plugin, your readers and you can comment directly. The response will be with the original comment to flow evenly and logically.

WP Super Cache

While you are getting the site working better this will come in handy as well. Most of your visitors will see a saved static file version of your site. This allows your website to run faster and will help should your site suddenly have heavy traffic.