My favorite plugins
Jan 12th, 2009 | By Ais | Category: New favorites
Plugins change steadily. Some keep up with WordPress changes, and some don’t. These are my favorites when I’m using Branford Magazine. All of them work with WordPress 2.7.
If you’re using Branford Magazine, you must know your Category ID numbers. You can see them in your browser when you run your cursor over the category name, or you can use the Reveal IDs for WP Admin plugin.
2. Dagon Design Sitemap Generator
This plugin creates and maintains my sitemaps. You’ll see it in use at the “Sitemap” link at the top of this page.
I’ve had mixed results with other contact form plugins. Contact Form 7 seems to work well for every website.
This plugin and the related widget help your readers find the most popular articles at your website. Tip: That same list indicates your readers’ interests, and may help you decide what to write more about in the future.
In addition to the tips at Robert Plank’s webpage, WordPress Search Engine Optimization (SEO), I use the All in One SEO Pack to help my webpages rank better at search engines.
This plugin not only creates the XML sitemap, it updates it regularly and tells Google when you’ve added fresh content.
Those are the top, must-include plugins that I use over and over again. I like other plugins for specific websites, and I always use Akismet (which comes with WordPress), but the six on this list are the ones I start with.
Ive been waiting for this new version of ‘Sites that Soar,’ and after just a brief glance, it promises even more than I’d expected.
Thank you, Aisling, for your generous listing if your favorite plugins. I installed favorite #6, Google XML sitemaps and it worked smoothly. But before Google Webmaster Tools would allow me to submit the sitemap, I had to verify the site. Yikes!
I already had the Googleverification.html page in my root directory (left over from by previous, non-Wordpress site) but Google couldn’t see it because of Wordpress. STFW told me to create a PAGE (not a post) with Googleverification.html as the title, but it didn’t work because of the Robert Plant SEO techniques which knock out the .html.
I finally revised header.php to include the Google Site Verification Metatag. As soon as the site was verified, I submited my XML sitemap. I also revised footer.php to show a link to the XML-sitemap.
You may want to check out my site at http://anetgain.com. I am now struggling with the robots.txt file which is excluding my tagged posts. You may be interested in the “subscribe” button I made for the top banner. These changes are in header.php. Would you like to hear more?
Hi Anet, and thanks for the compliments!
Google verification can be an interesting process. (I just said that the way my kids used to say “Interesting” as they stared at a new vegetable served on their dinner plate! *LOL*)
Mostly, my best advice is to use trial-and-error to find what will work for you. No two websites seem to respond the same way, even on the same server with the exact same website design and additions.
I’ve also stopped recommending Robert Plank for… well, anything. The All-in-One SEO plugin replaces most of his advice, and his information is outdated now.