A plugin is an additional piece of software added to the main software programme to add additional and often very specific functionality.
There are thousands of WordPress plugins available for you to add to your site, most of which are free for you to use. If you find a plugin you like, a small donation to the developer to help aid future development is always appreciated.
This page lists the plugins that are considered essential for your WordPress site and are all found on the WordPress website. You can search for them from your plugins area.
All in One SEO Pack
Absolutely essential out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog. This plugin will help you optimise your site for effective search engine positioning.
An effective SEO campaign will bring your site free traffic from organic search engines.
cbnet Ping Optimizer
Stop your wordpress site from getting tagged as a ping spammer. By default, WordPress blogs automatically ping unnecessarily every time you edit a post. Installing this plugin will help avoid your blog from getting tagged as a ping spammer.
A ping notifies servers that a weblog has been updated with new content. Most of the major search engines operate ping servers.
Google XML Sitemaps
This plugin will automatically generate an XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to index your blog.
Sitemaps list your sites links in an easily read format and allows for additional meta data to be added which will give search engines a better understanding of the links in your site.
TAC
If you really must download free themes from shady places, this is the essential plugin for you. It checks your themes for malicious and encrypted code and provides a direct link to the compromised page for editing. It will help you avoid a hacked computer or server, changed code, bugs, site hijacking, uploading malware, virus’s, trojans, phishing, copyright infringement and a host of other possible nasties.
The best recommendation I can give you is to avoid downloading themes from these types of sites in the first place. Prevention really is better than cure!
Please contact me if you would like help installing or updating a plugin.
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