It’s the start of a new year, and what better time to start fresh with a new blog, and put in some of our favourite plugins!

In the past 5 and a half years, I’ve installed WordPress more times than I care to remember. Since 2004 it’s been my platform of choice for blogs, and in the past year or so, it’s become perfect for small-scale websites.

A large reason behind this is the plugins. Anyone can whip up a plugin that taps into pretty much any of the built-in features of WordPress, to make an already brilliant platform that little bit better.

Theres a handful of plugins that I couldn’t work without, going from behind-the-scenes of WordPress to sidebar widgets:

WP Dummy Content

By Zvi Band – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-dummy-content/

WP Dummy Content

When you’re working on a WordPress theme, the last thing you want to do is spend 20 minutes making a bunch of pages to fill the menu, and enough posts to make your page numbers show up. Even then, there’s only so much Lorem Ipsum you can use.

This plugin gives you as many posts/pages/sub pages as you want, with paragraphs, lists, quotes etc. So you can style everything as you need, then just hit the “Delete them all” button when you’re finished!

Page Lists Plus

By Tim Holt – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/page-lists-plus/

Page Lists Plus

This plugin is so powerful, it’s hard to sum it up in a couple of paragraphs. In a nutshell, it overrides the wp_list_pages function, adding heaps of new features, like

• Changing the title text of your menu links from the default of the page title
• Open certain links in new windows
• Redirects (ie. Links to external sites in the header)
• Include (my personal favourite, removes pages from the list)

There’s also a ton of options for the list as a whole, such as adding span tags around links (perfect for weird background images), adding a ‘home’ link to the start of the list, unlinking the current page, and heaps more.

Twitter For WordPress

By Ricardo González – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-for-wordpress/

Every man and his dog (well, just about) uses Twitter, and with over 200 websites using WordPress, there’s some overlap.

There’s a ton of different ways to integrate twitter into your blog, but Twitter for WordPress gets my vote. Automatic @reply recognition, URL hyperlinking and email linking are options, and it can be used as a widget, or by a call to twitter_list_messages(); in your template code if you want it somewhere different.
I love this plugin so much, I’ve been working on a modified version that supports twitter lists…

Widon’t 2.1

By Shaun Inman – http://www.shauninman.com/archive/2006/12/05/widont_2_wordpress_plugin

The effects of this plugin probably go largely unnoticed by a large portion of people, but the few that notice it will love it.

It removes ‘widows’ (a word by itself on a line) from page titles (and any other specified tag), by adding a none-breaking space between the penultimate and last words.

Simple Flickr Photos

By Onur Kocatas – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-flickr-plugin/

Simple Flickr Photos

This one does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s simple, and it shows Flickr Photos. My only disappointment with this plugin is that you have to know your Flickr user ID (idgettr solves that issue though). Aside from that, It’s simple, but has a load of options (user photos, group photos, tagged photos etc). You can see it in action at the AFLPA Blog.

WP-PageNavi

By Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-pagenavi/

Before

After

Out of the box, WordPress adds ‘next’ and ‘previous’ links to blog pages. While this is useful, some people want a little more control. That’s where this plugin comes into play. It adds page numbers to your archive pages, and in the case of a lot of themes (such as those from WooThemes), there’s ‘plug-and play’ support for it.

Obviously there are a lot more useful plugins, but these are the main ones that I use with any fresh WP installation.

Which plugins can’t you live without?

I usually spend a chunk of time on a Sunday researching through a list of new plugins for our blog and wowzers, I have a great one for you this week. It’s a pretty new plugin and it makes it extremely simple and easy for your readers to share your posts on their facebook accounts. This possibly means more traffic for you plus your post gets in front of many more eye balls. I also love the way you/your readers can tell how many people have shared this by simply looking at the plugin interface. WINNER!!!

It has similar functions to one of my fav plugins for twitter – tweetmeme and makes the whole sharing process easy by one click.

We are MASSIVE fans of wordpress at Thinktank Media and so if you have a blog/website built on this platform then this plugin is certainly one to consider. As part of the Thinktank “luv our clients” service, if you have had your site/blog built by us then hit me up and I can get our super savvy web developer – aka – Matt Bannon to install this for you.

Enjoy!

You can download the plugin here: DOWNLOAD

Are you luving this plugin or what??? share share

Having the best plugins to assist you to smash your blogging goals, keep your readers coming back for more,  and sharing your content is essential! Thinktank Media are big fans of wordpress as it’s clean, simple and easy to use.

I have been searching high and low for the best plugins for this blog and by golly, at last……. I have my trusties. So soak these up and save the many hours of work I have spent plugging into the net!

Got your straw…start slurping!!!

Akismet

A must have for any wordpress blog. Its anti-spam blogging armour blocks the weaseliest little spammers!

http://akismet.com/

Google analytics

Get Google to track all your pages with this neat little plugin. Google Analytics provides you with highly advanced website tracking and management information.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress

Feedburner

Staying in close contact with your readers is a must! Feedburner is your blog promotion machine. Install this plugin to automatically feed your posts to your subscribers and more!

www.feedburner.com/

All in One SEO Pack

This nifty little pack optimizes your WordPress blog for search engines by automatically optimizing your titles and META tags.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

Google XML Sitemaps

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

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/

Tweetmeme

I love this plugin! Make it easy for your readers to share your posts on twitter by adding Tweetmeme. It also shows how many people have RTed the post making you look pretty popular!

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweetmeme/

Twitter tools

Pull your tweets into your blog with Twitter Tools. You can also create new tweets on blog posts and from within your WordPress site.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-tools/

Facebook Connect Community

Pop this little gem on your blog to encourage users to sign in from their facebook accounts. It supports comments to be sent to the users news feed, which can bring you some tasty viral traffic.

http://www.sociable.es/facebook-connect

Share This

An easy way for readers to share your blog with their social networks and bookmarking sites. They can also send a link to your post via email, AIM, Facebook, Twitter and more.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/share-this/

Digg Digg

Adds Digg, Reddit, Yahoo Buzz buttons with counters for your readers to easily vote for your posts from your page. Great for organic SEO!

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/digg-digg/

cforms II

A neat little plugin that makes it easy for readers to contact you with their questions regarding your services, blog posts and more.

http://www.deliciousdays.com/cforms-plugin/

Well, these are our top 11 wordpress plugins…full yet! There are heaps more yet these ones are great to power your blog up!  If there are any of your favs that I have not mentioned then please share share!