WordPress Plug-ins I love

imageby Jamie Smith

There are many WordPress plugins out there. Some are obvious, some are annoying and some can even break your site. But there are even more that are fantastically wonderful because they make your blog run smoother, better and cleaner.

We all know about Akismet, Jetpack, All In One SEO and Google Analytics, right? I wanted to share a couple plugins I use on my blog, Jamie’s Thots. Some I also use for my business site, Jamie’s Notebook. (Yes, my name is Jamie).

WordPress plugins that pert near changed my blogging life:

Broken Link Checker-this plugin scans your site and emails you if one of the links in a blog breaks. This happened, for example, when a blog post I referred to was removed by its user. It was especially helpful when moving my blog from Xanga to WordPress.

Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu-oh, this one gives me chills of nerdy wonderful! It also confuses anyone who works in my dashboard. This lovely plugin moves your left side dashboard menu to spread across the top. This is much more intuitive for website navigation for me. I adore this plugin.

Pinterest RSS Widget-This is a pretty basic plugin, but considering how much trouble I’ve had in the past getting some of my social media updates to show up on WordPress, I’ve enjoyed the easiness of this plugin. So far it’s worked flawlessly and I like the size of the photo it uses. I’m pretty much a words person and this gives my sidebars a little bit of a visual appeal.

Term Management Tools-This plugin is one I found during the Kick-Start My Blog challenge when we were cleaning up our blogs. It may have even been suggested by ARWB ladies, now that I think about it! It made cleaning up my messy categories and tags much more organized.

Now, as a bonus, I wanted to mention a new plugin that I’ve installed but haven’t had a chance to use yet:

Easy Facebook Share Thumbnail- is supposed to make the right photo from your blog show up when you post to Facebook, which is something we all know doesn’t always happen correctly!

So what plugins do you just love for your WordPress blog? Share in the comments what it is and why you love it!jamie

 

Jamie Smith is a professional reporter and writer who enjoys “letting her hair down” on her blog, Jamie’s Thots. With her business, Jamie’s Notebook, Jamie writes corporate blogs, press releases and website copy. She is also a freelance reporter for The City Wire where she loves finding creative stories about business and the arts. Jamie and her husband John purchased their first home in December 2011 in Elkins and are enjoying raising their two dogs and two cats. When not writing or spending time with her fur kids, Jamie loves to spend time scrapbooking.

4 comments

  1. Amanda says:

    Great list! For anyone moving to WordPress or for any reason, changing their URL like I did in November, my LIFESAVER plugin was Velvet Blues Update URL’s. Without it, my new blog was nearly dead.
    Also, I love the Genesis Responsive Slider plugin. It’s not for everyone, but it works well for my particular layout, and because each post has an image that readers see first thing on my blog, it has held me accountable to post only great, not just okay pictures in posts…more work, but worth it in the end!
    Amanda

  2. Elle says:

    Right now I’m loving Photodropper. It makes it easy to find pictures to add to your posts and it automatically adds the attribute. And word press popular posts is pretty cool too.

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