Top 10 WordPress Plugins 2009

Posted by in Blogging, Top 10 Tips, Wordpress


After receiving numerous e-mails with people asking me about the plugins that I use on my websites, I wanted to create a list of the best 10 WordPress plugins. Some of the plugins are new, and others have been around for a while. They are all excellent and improve the flexibility of my websites tremendously. If there’s a plugin that I haven’t mentioned, that you personally find very useful – please share it in the comments section below.

Top 10 WordPress Plugins 2009 List

1. All-In-One SEO

The “All-In-One SEO” pack is my absolute favorite plugin. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for a website or blog is extremely important if you want to attract targeted website visitors and increase your traffic substantially. Using this plugin will help you do all of that, plus customize your titles, keywords and descriptions for each post and page. It is the most important plugin to use, in my opinion.

2. Google XML Sitemaps

The Google XML Sitemaps generator is another vital plugin for your WordPress website or blog. After installing the plugin, a sitemap is generated and updated whenever you add new content. This is important for SEO practices so the search engines can easily scan and retrieve new information, which in turn will help your site gain a higher ranking and receive more traffic.

3. Link Cloaking Plugin

The Link Cloaking plugin is one which will help out the affiliate marketers who want to cloak their affiliate links, as well as track how many clicks they receive. This is a plugin that isn’t overly popular, which is a shame as it could really help a lot of affiliate marketers out. It saves time so you don’t have to manually cloak links. I use it on my blog here and all the links look like: http://honestholly.com/goto/LinkName. The links start out with your domain name and end in: /goto/LinkName/.

4. TinyMCE Advanced (Text Editor)

The TinyMCE Advanced text editor for WordPress is an excellent plugin that transforms the normal plain text editor you normally use when writing posts, to a rich-text editing program that allows a vast array of editing options. It’s kind of like using Microsoft Word (with so many editing features) – while writing posts. It makes it easier to edit text, colors, update with images and upload videos, etc.

5. TweetMeMe Plugin

The Tweetmeme plugin is used to make it easy for blog readers, to submit your posts to Twitter. It creates a green-colored button that blog readers can click to “retweet” (RT) your posts to others. It’s a great social plugin that is extremely popular on many blogs.

6. WordPress Database Backup

The WordPress Database Backup plugin is another necessity. It allows you to schedule backups of your website – so you can save the entire website in case something happens, and your files are damaged, lost or deleted. One of the worst things that can happen to bloggers is having their website “lost” or accidentally deleted or hacked into – if you use this regularly you will be able to re-setup your website if that ever happens.

7. WP Tabs and Slides plugin

This awesome plugin allows you to create tabs within your content, to save space. It is very useful and you can see how I used it on this page make money page. I checked the download page for this plugin and it is no longer available – the owner or creator of the plugin no longer has a website hosted online. But I uploaded the plugin to my server for now so you can download it and use it. Hopefully his site will be back online shortly.

8. Comment Luv Plugin

The Comment Luv WordPress plugin is commonly used to help commenters receive some traffic back to their own websites, by sharing a link to their most recent post underneath their comment.

9. Next Gen Gallery Plugin

The Next Gen Gallery plugin is the most easy-to-use, feature-rich photo gallery plugins I’ve ever used for WordPress. It makes it easy for you to create galleries and albums, upload images and then share them on your posts or pages.

10. Page Mash Plugin

The page-mash plugin is a much-needed tool that allows you to manage all your WordPress pages, order them any way you choose, and keep some hidden or visible on your homepage.

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Tags: best wordpress plugins, plugins 2009, Wordpress, wordpress plugins

13 Responses to “Top 10 WordPress Plugins 2009”

  1. Stefan

    21. Jul, 2009

    I would also like to add Broken Link Checker to this list instead of Page Mash.

    Thanks for telling me about TweetMeMe. I’ve been thinking about adding a similar plugin and you convinced me to do it.

    Reply to this comment

  2. Anna

    21. Jul, 2009

    Thanks Holly! There are a couple there that I hadn’t heard of. I am about to revamp one of my blogs and was looking for certain solutions to what I wanted to do – and I think some of these plugins might have exactly what I’m looking for.

    It also reminds me to update my own plugin list …

    Reply to this comment

  3. Irish Tom

    21. Jul, 2009

    Hi Holly
    Many thanks for the info and now I know what are the best WordPress downloads.
    My goodness, these offer a heck of a lot of options and with a little experience in using them, they should make life a lot easier.
    I will spend some time going in and checking them out.
    Who said Internet Marketing was easy and you could do it for about twenty minutes each morning at your breakfast table in your underwear and earn thousands of dollars every day automatically? Oh yea, it must have been one of those lying BS Gurus only interested in robbing you of your money…This is a full time job and unless you put the time and effort in to it, you will not succeed.
    But with your help Holly, and also the new buch of experienced members on the http://www.HonestWorkFromHomeSuccess.com site, I believe we can all be successfully and also be honest.
    Enjoy your trip. Drive safe.
    Cheers
    Tom

    Reply to this comment

  4. ACLS Sacramento

    24. Jul, 2009

    Thank you for this post. You listed a couple that I have not used and mentioned some points that “peaked” my interest. The SEO plug in is HOT, but I have yet to try the database plug in which I will be exploring the evening

    Thank you…

    Reply to this comment

  5. Holly

    27. Jul, 2009

    Thanks Guys!

    Reply to this comment

  6. Jenny R

    28. Jul, 2009

    Thanks for this Holly, I love when people post what plugins they use. To be honest, I have been wondering for quite some time which ones you use thanks again!

    Reply to this comment

  7. Alysson

    28. Jul, 2009

    You’ve listed several great plugins here that I also use. I’ll definitely be checking out TinyMCE Advanced, as well. Good work on the list. These are definitely plugins that anyone venturing into the world of WordPress should check out!

    I’m an unapologetic WordPress plugin addict myself and wrote a post several months ago – http://www.seoaly.com/addicted-to-wordpress-plugins/ – that highlighted numerous plugins that are part of my core plugin group. Of those I mention in the post, I’d have to say that “Widget Locationizer” is on my all-time favorite WP plugins of all time list – for sure!

    Reply to this comment

  8. Personality Marketing

    30. Jul, 2009

    I use quite a few of those, however there are some that are new to me. That tabs plugin is pretty sexy :)

    Reply to this comment

  9. Holly

    03. Aug, 2009

    Thanks Alysson for the link and post. I am also a bit of a plugin addict!

    Reply to this comment

  10. Dave in Larryville

    17. Aug, 2009

    Wow… what an awesome post! I’ve only heard of 5 or 6 of these…

    Holly, does Comment Love work even on sites that default to “no follow”?

    Holly, can you or one of “the gang” here recommend a book that is pretty up to date, that can help dig into WordPress CMS “features and functionality”. Some kind of reference…?

    It may be a little bit of time before I get to sit down and dedicate significant chunks of time to “hack” my way through.

    Thanks for the plugin Gems on this page

    Reply to this comment

  11. Meena

    30. Aug, 2009

    I admire commentluv plugin and use it on my main website.. Atleast it gives a reason to users to add comment …
    Though new Google announcement of following nofollow links making me to remove it.. What do you suggest??

    I go through all the comments and see which ones deserve to be there and which ones don’t. I must say that after installing it
    my comments have increased and interaction with some commentators have also increased.

    Reply to this comment

  12. Jenna

    21. Sep, 2009

    I am wondering if someone had the answer to this question…Forgive me if this is obvious but I am having some trouble. My first WordPress site and I am a few steps from pulling my hair out! I guess practice makes perfect. :)

    I uploaded the Link Cloaker plugin and it works on all of the posts in my links but not on the links attached to images. Does anyone know why this is?

    Also, how do you keep the link cloaked through to the referrer page? My link is cloaked on my site but shows up in the url of the referrer page. Is this a redirect issue? Do I need to add a script to redirect?

    I am new to all of this and any help would be appreciated…thanks!

    Reply to this comment

  13. Lawerence Bessire

    12. Oct, 2010

    Thanks for the excellent variety with plugins, i have several favourites to, including the all known “All IN SEO “and also the easy privacy policy plus SEO friendly images (got some great results with it)and lastly pretty links (great for cloacking) affiliate links…

    Reply to this comment

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