Best tools for WordPress

Here are my Top 10 WordPress plugins if you were to start a new WordPress blog here are the plugins you would upload and activate.

We will split the top 10 in Search Engines and Optimization plugins, Administrative Plugins and No Spam plugins.

First of all we will start with Search Engines & Optimization.

1.All in One Seo Pack.

Optimizes your WordPress blog for Search Engines.

Some features:

• Canonical URLs
• Fine tune Page Navigational Links
• Built-in API so other plugins/themes can access and extend functionality
• Provides SEO Integration for WP e-Commerce sites
• Nonce Security
• Support for CMS-style WordPress installations
• Automatically optimizes your titles for search engines
• Generates META tags automatically
• Avoids the typical duplicate content found on WordPress blogs
• For beginners, you don’t even have to look at the options, it works out-of-the-box. Just install.

You can download it from here.

2.Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin generates a XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog. This format is supported by Ask.com, Google, YAHOO and MSN Search.

For advanced users, you can fine-tune everything

Note: The XML-Sitemap format was introduced in 2005 by Google and adopted in 2006 by YAHOO, MSN Search and Ask.com so thats why it’s often called “Google Sitemaps”.

You can download it from here.

3.Wp Super Cache

WP Super Cache is a static caching plugin for WordPress. It generates html files that are served directly by Apache without processing comparatively heavy PHP scripts. By using this plugin you will speed up your WordPress blog significantly.

This plugin is a fork of the excellent WP-Cache 2 by Ricardo Galli Granada. WP-Cache 2 caches the pages of your WordPress blog and delivers them without accessing the database. Unfortunately it still means loading the PHP engine to serve the cached files.

WP Super Cache gets around that. When it is installed, html files are generated and they are served without ever invoking a single line of PHP. How fast can your site serve graphic files? That’s (almost) as fast it will be able to serve these cached files. If your site is struggling to cope with the daily number of visitors, or if your site appears on Digg.com, Slashdot or any other popular site then this plugin is for you.

You can download it from here.

Ok let’s look in the No Spam category,here you will find:

1.Akismet

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s “Comments” admin screen.

PS: You’ll need a WordPress.com API key to use it.

You can download it from here.

2.reCAPTCHA

reCAPTCHA is an anti-spam method originating from Carnegie Mellon University which uses CAPTCHAs in a genius way. Instead of randomly generating useless characters which users grow tired of continuosly typing in, risking the possibility that spammers will eventually write sophisticated spam bots which use OCR libraries to read the characters, reCAPTCHA uses a different approach.

While the world is in the process of digitizing books, sometimes certain words cannot be read. reCAPTCHA uses a combination of these words, further distorts them, and then constructs a CAPTCHA image. After a ceratin percentage of users solve the ‘uknown’ word the same way it is assumed that it is the correct spelling of the word. This helps digitize books, giving users a reason to solve reCAPTCHA forms. Because the industry level scanners and OCR software which are used to digitize the books can’t read the words with which the CAPTCHAs are constructed, it is safe to assume that in-house spam-bot OCR techniques will not be able to bypass the CAPTCHA either.

reCAPTCHA has earned a very prestigious reputation among the various CAPTCHA systems available and is used by such sites as Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and a few U.S. Government Websites such as the TV Converter Box Coupon Program Website.

You can download it from here.

And the last category Administrative:

1.Wp Tiger Administration

The current default WordPress administration area is functional, but I felt it could be improved. For several reasons, I didn’t want to touch the XHTML framework of the admin, but instead relied on the power of CSS2 to manipulate the presentation. The whole package has been wrapped up into a single plugin. Just install and activate. The new design will be immediately visible.

You can download it from here.

2.Semisecure login

Semisecure Login increases the security of the login process using client-side MD5 encryption on the password when a user logs in. JavaScript is required to enable encryption. It is most useful for situations where SSL is not available, but the administrator wishes to have some additional security measures in place without sacrificing convenience.

You can download it from here.

3. Semisecure login reimagined

Semisecure Login Reimagined increases the security of the login process by using a combination of public and secret-key encryption to encrypt the password on the client-side when a user logs in. JavaScript is required to enable encryption. It is most useful for situations where SSL is not available, but the administrator wishes to have some additional security measures in place without sacrificing convenience.

This plugin is a “re-imagining” of the original Semisecure Login (which used one-way MD5 hashing). This version works with the new phpass hashed passwords that WordPress uses, as well as maintaining backwards compatibility with the older (pre WordPress 2.5) MD5 hashed passwords. Theoretically, it will also work with any other hashing algorithm (because this plugin simply adds an extra layer in the process rather than trying to authenticate anything itself).

This plugin requires PHP to be compiled with openssl support, which is a pretty standard option for most hosts.

You can download it from here.

4.Socialize

Socialize is an easy way to selectively add actionable social bookmarks to your posts.

You can add bookmarks in one of two place:

1. Inside the content
2. In a box below the content

The plugin was designed to make it very easy to manage. Instead of adding new meta keys like other plugins require, there is an additional panel in your posts admin that allows you to select which bookmarks you want to display. This is to encourage people to choose more relevant bookmarks for their posts.

You are also provided with a box at the bottom of your posts that asks readers to subscribe and comment. This text can be edited in the ‘Socialize Admin Page’. You can also selectively display social bookmarks in this box the same way you go about inserting bookmarks in content.

Furthermore, you can choose to display bookmarks in the content on all pages or just on single pages. You can also choose to hide the box that displays beneath the posts by default.

You can download it from here.

5.Quick Adsense

Quick Adsense is an Ads management WordPress plugin. It offers a quicker & flexible way to insert Adsense or any Ads code into a blog post. Besides, it can randomly place the Ads anywhere within a post. It comes with a simple setting page, and it does not overwhelm you with complicated customizable options.

In general, placing Adsense randomly within a post is a good way to experiment a variety of ads formats & placements besides optimizing your Adsense. If you have many regular visitors who frequently revisit your blog, the randomization will likely catch their attention.

Here are some features that come with this plugin:

1. Absolutely NO author revenue reward or revenue sharing from your Adsense or that kind of features.
2. Flexible Ads placement, insert Ads specifically or randomly anywhere within a post, including at the beginning or end of post.
3. Simple configuration interface, requires no coding knowledge: Just copy and paste AdSense code, tick & select options, the plugin will then do the rest for you.
4. Support any Ads code, not limited to Adsense code only.
5. Display up to a maximum of 3 Ads on a page.
6. Support up to a maximum of 3 Ads codes on Sidebar Widgets.
7. Support up to a maximum of 10 Ads codes for Randomization within a post.
8. Ads placement on the fly, simply insert <!–Ads1–>, <!–Ads2–> … , <!–RndAds–>, <!–NoAds–>, <!–OffAds–> to a post to accomplish this.
9. Tags above can be inserted into a post easily via the additional Quicktag Buttons added to the HTML Edit Post SubPanel.

Sign up for a Google Adsense Account to generate revenue from your blog, if you don’t have one.

You can download it from here.