WordPress Plugins: Most Used & Most Useful Plugins Around
WordPress is a really useful and simple way to start developing your website, but what really makes it stand out, are the plug-ins behind it. Some plug-ins can add visual eye candy whilst others help improve your search ranking. For every client we use several plug-ins as a standard. We think all these are so useful, we want to share them with a short summary of what they do and where to find them.
WPML Multilingual CMS
Run your website in several languages at once with WPML. The only thing you need to worry about is to write the posts, pages and categories.
Once this plug-in is installed, set up and running you won’t need to worry about installing another website on a different URL to accommodate the wishes of your overseas non-English speaking users. With one click you can make a new post or page and enter the translated content and have it shown just by clicking a useful, little language switcher on your website.
This is a very useful and regularly updated plug-in with a crew that is always ready to help. At this moment 90% of the websites we’ve made for our clients are successfully running with this plug-in installed.
Get it on WordPress plug-ins or from the author’s website.
Google Analytics for WordPress
Tracking all traffic from and to your website with one easy to use plugin for WordPress. Displayed nicely in understandable graphics.
Whenever you’re hearing about Google coming up with something you’d better pay attention. With this in mind we’ve also found a plugin to track all traffic that’s being led to your website using this very nifty plugin that communicates with your Google Analytics account. All you need to do is sign up for a Gmail account (if you haven’t done so already you can do that here). Once you’ve dont that you can apply for a Google Analytics account.
Once you have it all up and running all you can see is reports of all traffic from and to your website, where it comes from, where on your website it’s coming in and even the average time spent browsing around on your website. The information gathered from your website is displayed nicely in goodlooking graphic charts. Even if you have more than one website you can add multiple websites to your account and track them from one single account.
Get it on Wordpress Plugins or directly from the author’s website.
Google XML Sitemaps
Generating a sitemap XML file to make all major search engines find your website faster and easier. Indexes all pages, posts and categories from your website in one single file.
This powerful little plugin will, once installed, generate an XML file with the complete structure of your website to be read for every major search engine. Every time you update your website it will update the same XML file and tell the search engines that something new is happening on your website. This includes all your posts, pages and categories.
All you need to do is update it once in a while and the rest is all being done while you write posts for your website. No files to be modified, no difficult workflows to go through, just out-of-the-box functionality.
Get it from Wordpress Plugins or directly from the author’s website.
Cforms II
Fully customizable form-maker with functionality to back everything up in your WordPress database. Combine multiple forms to create a multi-page form.
When love to have people coming back every time you write something new to comment on your writings, Cforms II is the solution. It’s extensive functionality allows you to create multiple forms for different purposes. Even when you would like the results to be stored in a safe place it will put everything nicely together with your Wordpress database. No need to worry anymore that all the feedback sent from your website accidentally ends up in your junk mail folder. With a fully customizable interface using your own stylesheets, or ready to go using the preset styles.
Even complete surveys can be made using this plugin with its ability to link individual forms together to creat multi-page forms. All messages that come with a default form, error messages, ‘Thank you’ messages, are also fully customizable in the Wordpress Admin settings panel.
Get it directly from the author’s website.