There are plenty of Best Wordpress Plugins posts out there, but I have my own set of favorite wordpress plugins and I figured I’d share them with you guys. Each of these plugins I install on every single one of my niche blogs, including this one.
#1 Pretty Link
I just discovered this awesome wordpress plugin, and I’m now in the process of installing it on all my sites. Basically it lets you create nice, readable urls from your own domains from the Wordpress control panel which makes it a great way to mask your affiliate links. Previously, I had been doing this myself by adding 301 redirects to my htaccess file. Not only that, but it also tracks the click-through stats for each of the links you create and also allows you to view a pretty comprehensive report on your clicks. Very cool. Pretty Link itself is free, but it also has a paid Pretty Link Pro option that offers a lot more features as well.
#2 Trackback Feed
This plugin is available as a free bonus when you purchase the Indexing Tool plugin. While I’m not a big fan of the Indexing Tool, the Trackback Feed plugin is pretty cool. If you use services like Unique Article Wizard, SEOLinkVine and similar link building services you may notice that when your articles get posted on other blogs, you will get notified via trackback on your blog. The thing is, many of these trackbacks are from blog posts that never get indexed. So what the Trackback Feed plugin does is create an RSS feed from all these trackbacks and then you can use a tool like Backlink Index Express to index these links and ensure you are getting the full results from your link building efforts. Not free, but very useful.
#3 PostMash
By default, Wordpress always displays your posts in chronological order. Sometimes though, you want to have more control over the order in which your posts are displays. That’s what PostMash does. It displays all the posts on your blog and it allows you to re-arrange their order via a simple drag and drop interface. I find it quite handy when I have certain posts that I would like be displayed first.
#4 Google XML Sitemaps
It’s a well known fact that having a sitemap will help the search engines index your posts and pages properly. This free plugin will create your sitemap for you automatically and also notify Google, Yahoo, MSN about any updates to your blog. It’s quite customizable as well and lets you control what posts get added to your sitemap.
#5 Wordpress Database Backup
If you have a ton of wordpress blogs like I do, then you need an efficient way to backup your blogs easily. This is what the Wordpress Database Backup plugin does. Just set it up to automatically send you a backup copy of your WP database to your email, and you never have to be worried about losing your data. This plugin is a must install.
#6 Crawl Rate Tracker
This plugin logs all the visits from the major search engine bots and displays a nice chart telling you how often your content is being indexed. You can see the crawl rate stats for each of your pages and it gives you a decent idea of how popular your content is with the search engines.
As an internet marketer, these are some of the best wordpress plugins to install on any niche blog. Did I miss any of your favorite wordpress plugins? Let me know in the comments.
