We have plenty of Pulgins available for WordPress Self hosted Blog. A Plugin is simply Software Module or a piece of small code to achieve a functionality to a bigger module or software. They are very easy to use on Self-hosted WordPress blog and can be activated or deactivated as per our requirements thru “Plugins” Tab in the Features. let us see some of Plugins that are very useful for a self hosted WordPress blog.
1. Akismet: This is one of the most important Plugin to stop Spammy Comments on your articles. It almost stops 90% of the spammy Comments and gives a count of spammy comments that are stopped till date. To activate Akismet Plugin, you need to have an WordPress API key, which can be easily obtained by signup on wordpress.com. And Akismet Plugin can be downloaded at Akismet Plugin.
2. Google XML Sitemaps: We have discussed the importance of an XML Sitemap. This Plugin will make an XML Sitemap for your Blog and keeps updating whenever you create a new post. Apart from making and updating the XML Sitemap, it will notify all the major Search Engines about the changes in Sitemap. Plugin is available at Google XML Sitemap.
3. All in one SEO Pack: One of most useful Plugin is “All in one SEO pack” which makes your site most search engine friendly by optimizing Title, Meta Tags, Description etc. It gives you the control over the SEO Basics like Title, Meta Keys, Meta Description of the Posts and Pages. The Plugin is available at “All in one SEO Pack“.
4. Adsense Manager: If you want to earn seriously from your Blog, then this is the one one for you. It easily manges the Ad units from different providers like Adsense, Adbrite, Yahoo!PN etc. Ad units can be easily managed and can be placed within your posts or at the sidebars. The Plugin is available at “Adsense Manager“.
5. Add to Any Share/Save/Bookmark Button: Social Bookmarking plays an important role in bringing more and more traffic to your website. By allowing your visitors to bookmark or share your website at their Favorite Social Networking Website like Digg, Delicious, Stumpleupon etc and alows you to share thru gmail, Yahoo mail Hotmail etc., which makes your site more visible. The Pluin is available at “Add to Any“.
6. Google Analycator: Wants to have a real time visitors count, then add Google Analycator Plugin. Plugin is availeble at “Google Analycator“.
7. WorPress.com Stats: Which is another Plugin gives the information about the real time stats right within your admin panel. The Plugin needs an account with WordPress.com and its API Key. Plugin is available at “WordPress.com Stats“.
8. Contact Form7: If you want your visitors should contact you then this Plugin is makes it very simple. It allows your visitors contact you thru a contact form, which can be placed at a “Contact us” page. To keep away from spam robots it uses a simple Captcha before submitting. It is very flexible and and capable to upload files also (WordPress 2.7 & above). The Plugin is available at “Contact form7“.
9. WP-DB-Backup: without this plugin the list never get completed. Its always the best to get the Database backup. Will be useful if something goofed up with the server or database and we’ll have our database ready to use for reinstallation. We can have our database backup copy on demand or we can have a scheduled back up hourly, daily etc,. and can get the copy right in our Mailbox. My rating for this plugin is a 5*. The Plugin is available at “WP-DB-Backup“.
These Plugins are basic requirements for your WordPress.org self hosting blog. And in next artical we’ll discuss about some other important and most highly recommended Plugins.
