CC: Only only by Thomas Hawk.
Serious, professional and business bloggers listen up:
Forget all those top 100 WordPress Plugins lists, those top 10 SEO Plugins for WordPress compilations.
I blog for 4 blogs now, at 3 of them I’m am the main or only person to do so and I don’t need more than 7 plugins for WordPress. Even these only 7 WordPress plugins business bloggers need are too many in some cases.
With WordPress plugins less is more, for security, clutter and upward compatibility reasons.
While setting up a new business blog I rechecked the plugins I use on my SEO 2.0 blog and elsewhere. You will notice a big surprise. Scroll to the bottom if you can’t await it.
1. Akismet
the one and only anti-comment spam solution. Use Akismet and spam becomes a rarity.
2. WordPress Database Backup
Backs up manually or automatically. After last time my databae got hacked I was really glad to have that. A true must have.
3. DoFollow
To make links in comments and pinkbacks count in search engines. There are plenty more sophistacaed plugins to disable the default “nofollow” attribute on those links but simple is beautiful, they just add more clutter. Why give your readers real links? Why give your guest a cup of tea?
4. Feedburner
I had to give up. FeedBurner is th best RSS feed enhancement out there, it’s by now alömost standard. You have to use it.
5. Sociable
There are plenty of social media buttons plugins but most of them add clutter and look bad or redirect you to their sites. Sociable, currently maintained by renowned SEO Blogger Yoast is the best.
6. WP Super Cache
In case you want to get featured on Yahoo, CNN or Slashdot use this. Also it’s perfect to block DDoS attacks by the infamous crap site Digg.
7. A “Related Posts” Plugin
There are dozens of “related posts” plugins and I still haven’t found one suiting my requirements. Any suggestions? You really need one to retain your readers. I promise to install one in 2009!
Surprise, surprise: I don’t use a single SEO plugin!
Yes, one of the most popular SEO blogs out there does not use SEO plugins for WordPress.
It’s partly my SEO 2.0 business blogging philosophy partly due to the fact that I haven’t found a SEO 2.0 WordPress plugin that makes sense to me.
OK, OK, in case you’re into SEO 1.0 and love
- meta tags
- fighting duplicate content
- PageRank sculpting
and the likes I recommend Platinum SEO Pack. I’ve installed it but later deacticivated it as I wanted to keep my non-SEOed WordPress to prove the point that SEO 2.0, that is SEO without conventional SEO, works.
Business bloggers do not need to care too much about many plugins sometimes interfering with each other. Reduce clutter and keep it simple below the hood too.
Related posts:
- 7 Stealth Publish for WordPress Uses to Consider
- 10 Blogging Mistakes Most Bloggers Make
- SEO 2.0 Basics: WordPress URL Design
- Quit SEO, Use Wordpress
- Dofollow Blog Commenting Netiquette vs a Barbecue Party
This thing has 33 Comments
Thanks for this, I’ll be doing a cleanup on some of the Wordpress blogs I’m using. It’s a very timely reminder that my experimenting with a few additional plugins aren’t really working too well.
And yes, when you find a good ‘related posts’ plugin, please let us know!
Nice article! I’m just about to set up my own blog using WordPress – it’ll be about cutting-edge web development features. I’ve been looking at different plugins and the “related posts” one is the only one I couldn’t find. I’ll be writing one soon! It should be pretty decent.
I’ve been using the Similar Posts plugin and it’s not that bad. It can be found at http://rmarsh.com/category/programming/wp-plugins/.
Nice post! This will motivate me to clean up my plugins especially the SEO pack. hahaha.
I use YARPP for my related posts plug-in. It works pretty good, no complaints. Check out my site if you want to see it in action. Here’s the link to download the plugin.
http://mitcho.com/code/yarpp/
<p>Less plugins, that is what I love in my wordpress blog. I only use wp spam free (akismet, no no no). BTW, great article mate</p>
Thanks for the post I’m actually migrating my joomla based blog to Wordpress and I’ve been searching for the best possible plug-ins looks like I’ve already found them, thanks again.
I have to admit, I have not installed a single plug in into any of my blogs yet… because I didn’t know which ones to use. this has been a very helpful post. i might start with feedburner ;-)
Thanks for the insight.It’s always a debate for me as to how many, which ones etc. There are those that really have to be standard. The ones you’ve listed here among them.
I recently was talking to a colleague who told me she had 24 plugins installed to most of her blogs and those of her clients.
The way WP is coming out with updates, there seems to be less need for the excessive use of most of the plugins out there.
Wow great list of plugins thanks for sharing. Akismet is a must have for sure!
Great plugin list I use all of them!
very nice information indeed , i realy need to learn more from you, maybe trough your simple and very narrative and descriptif article , thanx
Akismet is great and is a default plugin included with Wordpress. You just need to activate it. The backup is useful. It will automate it much better than manual DB backups.
YARPP is the related posts plugin I use. I do not agree with using a DoFollow plugin though, it attracts the stupid blog commenters,and can bleed PR from your site
What about a sitemap plugin? oh wait that would go against your philosophy that SEO is not needed!
Good list, I would also add SEO Platinum Pack to that list as well
Good job friend, I’ll use them right now
Finally a list that I can put to use. Everyone in the forums all have there favorites but these make the most sense to use. Thanks for the post.
Well, very nice information about you experience in wordpress plugins. I also have the similar standard package for plugins in my blogs.
You information is very valuable. I also have some blogs with some plugins similar to what you have mentioned above.
Thanks for the plugins some i never new existed. Thankyou
“Reduce clutter and keep it simple below the hood too.” You are right on target there! I hold to the same idea that SEO 2.0 works without a lot of plugins. Because it is the PEOPLE.
I’ve actually used all of these and would have to agree with most. However, does DoFollow work for anyone else on Wordpress 2.7?
I love your less is more approach and have downloaded your recommendations.
Because I am on dialup I have needed an unbloated wp blog, keep up the excellent info.
I implement all the mentioned plugins in my blog except wp-cache…I will have to install that too…nice and helpful blog…thnks
Nice list, although I backup my databases through the OS, so I don’t use that plugin. One more I like to use is the redirection plugin so I can post some nice looking links with my domain.
Does the Dofollow plugin negate/over-ride the nofollow feature of the Sociable plugin?
I’m novice in bloging , but this information will very useful for me. Big thanks for this info.
I think that anybody, can use this article, like plan for our blog or site on CMS
I would go with akismet all the way.
Whilst i agree all the plugins mentioned are great i think the all in one seo pack is alao i must have plugin as you will wont to fine tune your seo meta tags etc and get traffic from google.
Powerful Post, the related post plugin is great, it gives the user an opportunity to build relevant internal links and retain pr to those pages.
My very first blog comment, and very delighted that this is my first port-o-call. Particularly since I am fairly new to IM and web design and a absolute lover of wordpress. Always been concerned whether to many plugins can be a hindrance or a problem from A SEO perspective. very informative content and have bookmarked for my own benefit.
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