Top 16 WordPress Plugins To Jump Start Your Blog

Guest post by Zach Kolleger. Subscribe to Zach's feed.

To a lot of people starting a new blog can seem like a gigantic task. From finding a good available domain name, setting up hosting, theme customization and installing the right plugins {if you are using WordPress}. Well to make your life simpler I have compiled a list of my Top 16 WordPress plugins.

I think these 16 are great for making your blog more functional, and user friendly in a faster time {No guarantees, individual results may vary}. So, without further ado, I give you the Top 16 WP plugins - obviously they're all free.

Top 16 WordPress Plugins

  • Plug Installer ~ This is the first plugin you need to get, as it helps you install all the rest.
  • WP e-Commerce ~ Perfect if you are selling anything from your blog, like those Alexa traffic rank tee shirts with your site name.
  • WP Post Rating System ~ Your readers can rate your post on a 1-5 scale, with 5 being the best.
  • Gregarious Bookmarking ~ The ultimate social bookmarking plugin, integrated with Share This.
  • WP Movie Review and Ratings ~ If write about movies then you need this plugin. Integrated with the Internet Movie Database.
  • Author Highlights ~ Highlights the comments/replies to comments made by the author, just so you know who's who.
  • Edit Comments ~ Users can edit their own comments, an alternative to a bad word filter.
  • Dash Notes ~ So you can remember that post you wanted to write. It's Canadian!
  • Digital Fingerprint Beta2 ~ Protects your content from being stolen. Someone let John Chow know about this. {Also Canadian!}
  • WP Ads ~ An add for showing Banner and Contextual ads.
  • WP Table ~ Since the WP visual editor has no table function, this plugin adds one.
  • Ad Man ~ Add ads before/in-the-middle-of/after your posts.
  • Contact Form 7 ~ A simple contact form plugin, that supports multi-forms, etc.
  • Transpose Email ~ With this spammers won't be able to grab your mail-to: links.
  • Since Last Visit ~ A handy plugin that display the number of Comments and Posts since your last visit.
  • Easy PayPal ~ Accept "If you liked this post, buy me some beer/coffee/milk" payments.

Have fun and start pluggin'! Digg the article here.

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  • Dated: August 18, 2007

14 Responses to “Top 16 WordPress Plugins To Jump Start Your Blog”

  1. Hey, thanks for putting up my post. :)

  2. Jesse says:

    Ali, I just stumbled upon your blog from a comment you left on TC. I really like your layout and design!

    Zach, do you use Wordpress yourself? It seems like I have heard nothing but horror stories about Wordpress. I have always thought about starting a blog, so I your post is very helpful assuming Wordpress is the way to go.

    Jesse

  3. Michael says:

    Contact form 7 is the only one listed here that I would consider using.

  4. Jesse, yes i am using wordpress currently, on wordpress.com, as I am in the process of installing it on my server. I have used the self-hosted version in the past, so thats how I know about the plug-ins.

    and michael..
    the contact form will be the second plug-in I’m going to install..as I agree with you; it probably is the most useful. :)

  5. Sam Goh says:

    Curious to know if there’s a ‘transliteration’ feature/plugin available, whereby I can type my motivational poems in English and get them ‘translated’ automatically into another language (eg. Hindi) as seen in my blog http://motivationinmotion.blogspot.com ?

    Sam Goh Tue. 21st Aug. 2007.

  6. Flick says:

    Thanks for the post! :) I came across this via a pingback on the Dash-notes page, and was very pleasantly surprised to find a list VERY different to some the ones praised by other blogs. Thanks! I agree that Wp-Table is definitely one of the unsung heroes!

  7. Gary says:

    Hi. Very handy list. Just one question, however. Which plugin do you use for Recommended Reading?

  8. Hyder says:

    Gary it is the Related Posts plugin available here

  9. Gary says:

    Thanks for the info, Hyder.
    Gary

  10. Paul says:

    You forgot to include Arkayne Widget in your list. You know that BlogRush / EntreCard replacement you’ve been looking for?

    For the curious: http://www.arkayne.com

  11. Thanks for the great information. I just suscribed to your blog feed.Michelle

Trackbacks

  1. [...] My guest post Over the weekend fellow blog Everybody Go To decided they would allow some guest blogging, as they were going to be busy. So being the good community fellow I am, I decided to help out, and submitted my latest post (Top 16 WP plugins) to them. I guess they thought it was pretty good, as they posted it. You can view it on their blog at: http://www.everybodygoto.com/top-16-wp-plugins . Last I checked it had 14 diggs, and a few comments. [...]

  2. [...] Sure mine did have a few nice things, like a PR 1, and some pretty decent traffic I got through a guest post on EverybodyGoTo {under an alias}, but it was nothing [...]

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