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Andres Jaimes

10 WordPress plugins you should have

By Andres Jaimes

This time I would like to make a list of recommended WordPress plugins. They are alphabetically sorted and have many different purposes. The descriptions shown were taken right from the WordPress description.

Here we go:

1. Comment Rating

By Bob King
Description: Allows visitors to rate comments in a Like vs. Dislike fashion with clickable images. Poorly-rated & highly-rated comments can be displayed differently. This plugin is simple and light-weight.

Opinion: This is very useful to let your visitors express themselves with just one click. There are many times when they don’t want to write a single word, but you can still get some info from them.

2. Cookies for Comments

By Donncha O Caoimh
Description: Sets a cookie that must exist for a comment to be allowed through.

Opinion: Tired of spam? This is a must-have plugin. You don’t need to ask for any additional information to your visitors before posting a comment, a cookie will let you know if it is a human or a spambot. Stops 95% of all spam.

3. Contact Form 7

By Takayuki Miyoshi
Description: Another contact form plugin. Simple yet flexible.

Opinion: It is true. It is simple yet flexible. You can create as many customized contact forms as you want.

By Aaron D. Campbell
Description: A related posts plugin that works quickly even with thousands of posts and tags

Opinion: This is a very handy plugin. It automatically adds a “Related posts” section to all your posts, using the tags field as a guidance.

5. Flickr Photos

By Onur Kocatas
Description: Displays Flickr photos based on your settings.

Opinion: Very nice and simple for adding your flickr pictures into your WordPress posts.

6. jQuery Lightbox For Native Galleries

By Viper007Bond
Description: Makes the native WordPress galleries use a lightbox script called ColorBox to display the fullsize images.

Opinion: This is a must-have plugin. It changes the way WordPress shows your picture galleries. No more back and forward clicks on your browser buttons to watch all your post pictures.

7. List Tags

By Steve Smith
Description: Adds the list_tags() template tag. It is essentially the same function as wp_list_categories, but for tags.

Opinion: Good for web developers. It adds the missing list_tags() function to WordPress.

8. Tweetily

By Flavio Martins
Description: Tweetily will periodically tweet a random post or page automatically to promote your content and drive traffic to your Web site! You set the time, number of tweets, and just let Tweetily do the rest!

Opinion: Fantastic. Just configure it and let it work. It will automatically tweet your selected posts.

9. WPTouch

By BraveNewCode Inc.
Description: A plugin which formats your site with a mobile theme for visitors on Apple iPhone / iPod touch, Google Android, Blackberry Storm and Torch, Palm Pre and other touch-based smartphones.

Opinion: It automatically shows all your mobile visitors a device friendly version of your site. A good one if you are not familiar with responsive design (or web development).

10. Yoast Breadcrumbs

By Joost de Valk
Description: Outputs a fully customizable breadcrumb path.

Opinion: Makes your visitors’s life easier by showing them a breadcrumb path.