7 WordPress Plugins to Love

Whether you have just started your self-hosted WordPress site, or you have been using WordPress for a while, there are some things that WordPress can’t operate without, and that’s plugins. Plugins in WordPress extend the functionality of the site. For example, if I wanted to show the latest from my Twitter or Facebook feeds, there  are plugins for that. A few of the plugins I’m going to mention have stood the test of time. Others are new to the scene yet have a great impact on how I build, develop and maintain on WordPress.

1. Exclude Pages from Navigation – This is useful if you’re creating a landing page for a campaign that you don’t want visible to your normal site visitors. Back in the day when there wasn’t a “Menu” dashboard item, this was useful.   If you created a confirmation page i.e. “Thank You” page that you don’t want seen until a form is submitted.  Speaking of forms…
2. Contact Form 7 – Just tell this plugin which fields you want in the form, copy the tag in the page or post of your choice and your are done.
3. Are you annoyed when you’re writing a post and link to another post, it counts as a trackback or a ping (No, not  the Apple service), which gets in the way of comments and  sends out an email to you on top of that? Well, No Self Pings helps you do just that.
4. Google Analytics – As someone always says to me, you can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been. There are a handful of Google Analytics  WordPress plugins out there. Some require you to simply place your Google Analytics account number while others require you to place the code in from Google Analytics. My recommendation is Google Analytics for WordPress.
5. What if you write a post a few years ago and that information is no longer relevant. What if you move posts from one WordPress site to another? Have 404 errors (Page not found?)This is were the Redirection plugin comes in.
6. What if the unthinkable happens? Your web host has gone down one too many times and this was the last straw?  Lucky for you, there’s BackupBuddy(aff-link) comes in. Backup Buddy backs up and store your site so that you can restore it or move it to a different host.
7. WordPress Editorial Calendar – Now you can see what post are scheduled for when. Don’t want to post something one day, move it to the next day, week or month.

What are your favorite WordPress Plugins? Let me know in the comments below.