Sites that Soar!

Free WordPress plugins can handle most of the technical heavy lifting for a webmaster.  The following are my top 10 favorite free WordPress plugins, in no particular order.

Usually, you’ll download these via your WordPress dashboard Plugins > Add New.  Most of them are available at the WordPress.org website.

1) Akismet is one of the most important free WordPress plugins.  It removes most spam comments from your website, automatically.  Be sure to activate it with your WordPress API code.  (You’ll get that from http://en.wordpress.com/api-keys/)

Akismet usually comes with your WordPress installation, automatically.  Activate it and it runs on auto-pilot.

2) All in One SEO Pack handles the tedious side of making your WordPress website interesting to search engines.  If you want to be on Google’s first page for your niche, you need this plugin.  It’s free.

3) Dagon Design Sitemap Generator creates a clean sitemap for your website, and updates it automatically.  It’s one of my most-used free WordPress plugins. [Link]

4) Google XML Sitemaps not only creates the XML sitemap that Google’s looking for, it updates your sitemap regularly and tells Google when you’ve added fresh content.

5) Contact Form 7 is free and easy. I’ve had mixed results with other contact form plugins.  Contact Form 7 seems to work well for every website.

6) Secure WordPress keeps the worst malicious headaches off your plate.  It won’t resolve all nuisances.  Someone hacked this site — yes, the person behind it wasn’t concealed (or a surprise) — but the damage was minimal, thanks to Secure WordPress. [Download link]

7) Delink Comment Author removes those pesky, spammy links from comments left at your website.  You can keep the comment (as long as it isn’t too stupid) but lose the link.  Free WordPress plugins like this make comment maintenance a breeze. [Download link]

Broken Link Checker makes it easy to keep links in posts up-to-date.  I deactivate it most of the time (so WordPress runs at maximum speed), but when I use this plugin, it saves me hours of tedious link repairs. [Download link]

9) WordPress Database Backup (aka WP-DB-Backup) saves the information that simple “Export” doesn’t include from your WordPress dashboard. [Download link]  I don’t keep this running all the time, just when I’m doing a routine backup.

10) A good video plugin for YouTube, etc.  Right now, I’m using Smart YouTube.  I’m very happy with that, but I may explore others to see what bells & whistles they offer. [Smart YouTube website]

And some not-free plugins I rely on:

11) WPSyndicator reduces my workload by hours, every week.  It saves me money, too: It creates backlinks and re-posts at my other major blogs and social networking sites.  Click here to learn more about this brilliant plugin.

12) SEOpressor helps me figure out how to write my articles so Google understands my main points… and places my site on the first page in the appropriate niche.  Frankly, this completely changed how I write my articles for the Internet.  [Website]

For now, that’s my entire list.  Though I experiment with other plugins from time to time, and often use a few specialized plugins for particular sites, these 12 are the ones I rely on for nearly every website I own.

Have your own suggestions?  Leave your comments below.  I’m always interested in other great, free WordPress plugins.