The Toy Box – 10 Great WordPress Plugins to Get You Started

I led a session at the recent Word Camp MSP event. This session was designed to help those who are just getting their feet wet with WordPress, understand what a plugin is, and how they can help their installation of WordPress.

It is important to note that not every plugin is appropriate for every installation. Each site’s goals and content need to be taken into consideration before extending WordPress. However, after bouncing the question around to a number of peers, these are some of the plugins that have bubbled to the surface.

Here are the plugins we featured:

  1. WordPress Database Backup
  2. WP Touch
  3. Gravity Forms
  4. NextGen Gallery
  5. Audio Player
  6. Share and Follow
  7. Google XML Sitemaps
  8. Page Links To
  9. WP-Optimize
  10. All in One SEO Pack

What about you? What are your “Must-install” plugins on WordPress?

Others that came up (these were peer recommended, but I haven’t used all of them,)

  • Spam Karma 2
  • Get Recent Comments
  • Subscribe to Comments
  • Meteor Slides
  • Custom Field Template
  • Category Posts Widget
  • WordPress PHP Info

4 Replies to “The Toy Box – 10 Great WordPress Plugins to Get You Started”

  1. Hey there Carl, my name is Kelly a web developer at The Nerdery in Chicago, originally a MN native.

    Saw you spoke about WP plugins at the MN WordCamp and thought I’d share mine with you.

    Heres a quick overview of what it is:
    The Developer Tools plugin for WordPress is the ultimate WordPress development tool. It creates an admin user interface for many of the code-enabled features in WordPress and commonly used web development libraries. The Developer Tools plugin can also generate template code for theme development.

    You can get more info here: http://developertools.kjmeath.com/

    Cheers
    -KJ

    1. Sweet! That sounds awesome. I am definitely going to try that one out. Thanks for sharing Kelly!

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