I have put together a list of WordPress plugins that you can use on your business blog. I use many of them myself. It is a good list to start off with when you have your first business blog. There are a few that cost some money, but I think they are still worth adding to your blog.
I made this list because I haven’t really seen anybody give too many ideas on the best plugins to use for a home business blog. Take a look at the ones that I have mentioned, and leave a comment on ones that aren’t mentioned here.
Akismet- You will need some way of controlling spam comments on your blog. Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You will need a WordPress.com API key to use it.
Google XML Sitemaps- I use this plugin on my blog. It hasn’t given me any trouble since I downloaded it! This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and Yahoo.
Login LockDown- This plugin adds some extra security to WordPress by restricting the rate at which failed logins can be re-attempted from a given IP range.
MaxBlogPress Favicon- Have you ever wondered how to get those little images next to the URL bar? This one easily adds favicon to your blog without editing any WordPress files. Just put in an image that you want to use to brand your blog and you are done!
MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate- This one does cost some money. Only get this one if you plan on doing some affiliate marketing with you blog. It automatically converts keywords on your blog into money making affiliate links. You can manage, track, cloak and shorten unlimited number of affiliate links from one central location.
MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer- WordPress works by pinging search engines and many other services that you have new content on your blog. Anytime you update or change anything WordPress sends out a ping to those services. If you ping them too much, your blog will be put on the black list for ping spam. This plugin reduces how many times your WordPress sends out a ping to those services.
OIO Publisher- This plugin will require some money from you. It is a feature rich plugin for managing your ads. You can place affiliate banners and much more onto your blog.
Podcasting- You want your business to stay competitive in a rapidly changing market. Adding a podcast service to your blog will give you an edge. Podcasting enhances WordPress’ existing podcast support by adding multiple iTunes-compatible feeds, media players, and an easy to use interface.
reCAPTCHA Form- Every business needs to have a contact form so people can get a hold of them. This plugin enables you to use a reCAPTCHA contact form on your blog.
Redirection- At some point you are bound to get those nasty error messages that a page doesn’t exist. This plugin will redirect those pages to something similar. It will increase SEO at the same time. Google doesn’t like it when you have those errors! It will just manage all your 301 redirects and monitor 404 errors.
SEO Friendly Images- Oops, I forgot to add an alt tag to my image. This plugin automatically adds alt and title attributes to all your images. Improves traffic from search results and makes them W3C/xHTML valid as well.
SEO Post Link- Having a long URL isn’t a good thing to be proud of. This plugin automatically makes your post link short and SEO friendly by removing unnecessary words from your post slug.
ShareThis- This is a great plugin to keep your blog clutter free. It allows your visitors to share a post/page with others. Supports e-mail and posting to social bookmarking sites.
Subscribe To Comments- Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry. This can help with keeping a page fresh with new content. There might be a controversial post you made that a visitor would like to keep tabs on.
TweetMeme Button- Gives your visitors a way to easily share your post on Twitter. It will add the TweetMeme button into your posts and RSS feed.
TwitThis- It is the same thing as the TweetMeme button but with a twist. Twitter users are given points for using the service. Depending on how many tweets you send in any given day, your Twitter account will be displayed for others to follow. It is a good way to gain followers on Twitter.
Wishlist Products- This plugin does cost some money to use. It is a membership plugin for anyone looking to start their own membership site. It has many useful tools. It is a very powerful plugin worth looking into if you plan on have your own membership site.
WordPress Popular Posts- Retrieves the most active entries of your blog and displays them with your own formatting (optional). Use it as a widget or place it in your templates
WP-DBManager- You need to have some way of backing up your blog in case something happens. It manages your WordPress database. Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database, drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of database.
WP Greet Box- This plugin is a good way to get subscribers to your RSS feed. It shows different messages to your visitors depending on which site they are coming from. For example, you can ask Digg visitors to Digg your post, Google visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed, and more! Best of all, this plugin is compatible with various WordPress cache plugins.
WP Super Cache- When your blog starts generating a high volume of visitors, you will be glad to have this plugin. It will even help out during times of sudden influx in visitors. It is simply a caching plugin for your blog.
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin- This plugin displays a list of related posts at the bottom of each page and in your RSS feed. It will help to keep visitors on your site longer, and is a good way of getting internal links to your blog. It will also help with SEO.
Ok, I couldn’t just stop at 20. Here are 5 more plugins you can use on your home business blog.
Top Commentators Widget- This is a good way to encourage comments on your blog. It will show those people that have the most comments on your blog. Many people like to see their name with a link to their own site on your blog.
StatPress SEOlution- I think this one is my favorite one! This plugin is similar to Statpress Reloaded. It gives you stats about your blog. Gives information about how often spiders visit your blog. It also collects information about visitors, search keywords, feeds, browsers, OS and more. Well worth taking the time to download this one!
Google Analyticator- This makes it easier for you to check your analytics without having to go to Google Analytics.
WP Security Scan- Think of this plugin as your personal security software for your blog. It lets you know of any vulnerability to your blog. If you don’t have something to protect your blog, I would get this one today!
All In One SEO Pack- Out of all the ones I have mentioned, this is probably one of the more important ones to add to your blog! You will be able to add the meta tag, meta description, no follow and more to your blog. It does what it says it is. You need this one on your blog to help with SEO.
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank for the great infos..and nice Blog
Alex
Thanks Josh – what a great & very useful list – my blog is coming along slowly but surely thanks to people like Keller and you. Best wishes, Will
I get the most gratification from knowing that I am able to help someone else from my blog posts! I am glad to hear that you are liking it!
Good list. These plugins can help all blogs.
Would have been better if you linked to each plugin though.
Good stuff here! I love the top commentators script myself and some of the others also. I don’t get the favicon piece…I like to keep plugins to a minimum, and putting a little favicon snippet into the header.php is a snap. It would take as longer to install the plugin and configure it than it would to edit the file. Thoughts?
Awesome tips, Josh! Thanks – I’m going to try a few out on my blog.
Thnx for the list. A direct download list to those plugins would be better though
Hi, Wasup
I i saw your blog on homebusinessposts.com
Very well presented
In fact I have been Googling for something like this for months
homebusinessposts.com is just what I was looking for.
Great effort congrats !
John
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Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!