WordPress Plugins

25 Top WordPress Plugins You Should Know About

April 23rd, 2010 | 3 Comments | Filed in WordPress Plugins

Clean and simple list of the plugins I use most often on my WordPress sites:

  1. Google XML Sitemap Generator* — auto generates XML sitemap for your Google Webmaster Account: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
  2. All in One SEO Pack* — allows easy and full control over title and meta description and keywords for each page and post: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
  3. NextGen Gallery — organize and upload photos to your blog and display using thumbnails, image browser, or slideshow: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/
  4. Cforms — create a variety of web forms using this robust and easy-to-configure form plugin: http://www.deliciousdays.com/cforms-plugin
  5. Google Analyticator* – provides great analytics and has dashboard stats: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analyticator/
  6. Sharing: Add to Any — Automatically puts a sharing link on every post and page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/add-to-any/ OR Sexy Bookmarkshttp://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sexybookmarks/
  7. WP Super Cache* — creates html pages of site and stores on server to speed up load time of site content: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/
  8. Akismet — filters spam comments from your blog. Must have wordpress.com user account to get Akismet key: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/
  9. FD Feedburner — routes your blog feed subscriptions through Google Feedburner. Allows users to subscribe to feed via email and provides stats tracking: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/feedburner-plugin/
  10. Viper’s Video Quicktags — Button in toolbar of editor allows you to quickly and easily embed videos in your blog posts from a variety of video portals including YouTube:
    http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/vipers-video-quicktags/
  11. Page Navigation — creates numbered list at bottom of index and category pages to allow people to better navigation through numerous posts: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-pagenavi/
  12. Blubrry PowerPress Podcasting — PowerPress offers full iTunes support, the Update iTunes Listing feature, web audio/video media players and more:
    http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/powerpress/
  13. Dagon Sitemap Generator — generates a customized sitemap for visitors to the site. He does not appear to be keeping the plugin up to date on wordpress.org, so get it directly from his site: http://www.dagondesign.com/articles/sitemap-generator-plugin-for-wordpress/
  14. Limit Login Attempts — Use http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/login-lockdown/ OR http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/limit-login-attempts/
  15. Firewall — blocks unusual request to the DB:http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-firewall/
  16. WP DB Backup* — makes it easy to create a backup of the entire database or repair your database without having to login to your PHP MyAdmin to do so: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/
  17. Flexi-pages — robust options for managing which pages show up in the sidebar, including hierarchical control, such as just show child pages: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/flexi-pages-widget/
  18. Category Posts — Shows posts within a certain category in the sidebar: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/category-posts/
  19. Extended Categories — great widgets for determining which categories display in the sidebar and how: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/extended-categories-widget/
  20. Broken Link Checker* — checks for broken links throughout your site: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/broken-link-checker/
  21. My Page Order — very handy interface for easily ordering pages: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/my-page-order/ (also check out My Link Order for ordering your links)
  22. Twitter: Twitter Tools — automatically generate tweets from your posts http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-tools/; Twitter Widget Pro — Great Twitter widget with customizable CSS. I like this widget better than the widget that comes with Twitter Tools because of the way it looks:  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-widget-pro/
  23. Exclude Pages* — so helpful for excluding certain pages from navigation (such as privacy policy and sitemap) without having to edit the template file: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/exclude-pages/
  24. Tiny MCE Advanced Editor — advanced toolbar for the TinyMCE editor: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tinymce-advanced/
  25. Custom Field Template — adds the default custom fields on the Write Post/Page with a gui interface: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/custom-field-template/

* These are “must-have” plugins for every WordPress install for SEO and practical purposes

3 Great Plugins for Embedding Video on WordPress Post or Page

December 7th, 2009 | No Comments | Filed in Answers to Your Questions, WordPress Plugins

Q: How do I embed video on my website?

A: The answer to this question depends on who owns the video and where it is hosted. If it’s a video you’ve created, and you want to host it on your site, then you’ll want to convert the video file (whether it’s an .mov, .avi, or other format) to flash (.flv) and use a flash player plugin (see below) to embed the video on your blog post or page.

The Adobe Flash Video Encoder (or Adobe Media Encoder) can convert a variety of file formats to flv (Flash Video). MPEG Streamclip is a very powerful video converter program with options for resizing the video, sampling sound, etc. and exporting as flv.

Be sure to  resize the video to the size you’ll display it online and use the appropriate video codec (H.264 or On2 VP6). See http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/quickstart/video_encoder/ for some useful information about Flash and video encoding even if you’re not using the Adobe Media Encoder.

1. Hana Flv Player

This flash player has elegant, simple skins and many options for how to use them. A “short code” can be used to quickly insert the video into a post or page. Be sure to read the readme file that comes with the plugin and visit the plugin website for more configuration options.

hanaflvplayer

Download here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/hana-flv-player/

I used the minimal version of the Hana Flv player at AdvertusMedia.com. It works great framed in the div on top of a background image of a television:

Picture 448

2. vipers-video-quicktags

Vipers Video Quicktags embeds all kinds of video easily, including YouTube, Google Video, Vimeo, and self-hosted Flash Video.

Picture-449

Download here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/vipers-video-quicktags/

3. WordTube

Alex Rabe’s awesome plugin makes it easy for you to manage a lot of different Flash files and insert them into your WordPress posts and pages. It uses the JW Player by LongTailVideo.com, which has many flash vars (settings) you can use to control the look of the player.
screenshot-1

Download here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordtube/

More: Embedding Video from Other Video Hosting Sites

If you’re want to embed videos from other video hosting sites, some plugins for that include: