The reason many online marketers use WordPress as their platform of choice when it comes to setting up sites is because of the nifty add ons called “plugins”.

But what are these plugins good for? Essentially they expand the functionality of the WordPress software, much like the add ons available for Firefox and apps for the iPhone. Each one makes a task easier, faster or more robust. If you’re wondering which are the must have plugins for your blog? Wonder no more, as I share my top picks.

I NEED THOSE STATS YESTERDAY!

1. WordPress.com Stats – this is clearly one of the absolute must add WordPress plugins to your blog. It tracks visitors but displays the stats within your admin dashboard. I’m highly addicted to this plugin and add it to ALL my blog sites. Yes! I do use Google Analytics as well, but barely ever check it. I check this one instead because all is right there within easy view; such as search engine traffic, social media traffic, daily weekly and monthly visitor count, keyword terms, and much more.

MY 8 BALL

2. Physic Search – one of my super top secret WordPress plugins. This one accompanies the plugin I use above, and for good reason. The reason is that it shows me (with a link) the key term or phrase someone entered in the search engine to find me, AND the page they landed on. A powerful and must have plugin on your blog.

ALERT GOOGLE NOW!

3. Google XML Sitemap – one of the best ways to let Google know you have updated your site is via the use of a sitemap. With WordPress you can add a sitemap plugin and make it crazy easy to alert Google each time you post an article.

EASY BREEZY SITEMAP PAGE

4. Dagon Design Sitemap Generator – the difference between this plugin and the one mentioned above is the format. This one creates a Sitemap page on your blog and keeps track of all your articles and pages.

ADSENSE HEAVEN

5. Post Layout – another one of my super top secret plugins. This one makes it nice and easy to add Adsense, an affiliate banner or anything at the beginnning, end or middle of posts to your site. Simply drop the code in the plugin and you’re off.

I’M TO SEXY FOR…

6. Sexy Bookmarks – my preferred social bookmarking wordpress plugin, because it takes something mundane and makes it SEXY. How can you not love this plugin, add it to your site at once.

MY MEMORY IS SHOT, HELP!

7. Subscribe to Comments – many times when someone visits your blog and leaves a comment, they will completely forget to return later, because they can’t remember where they were. This plugin adds a small checkbox at the end of a comment, and if the commenter checks it off, they will be notified if (and when) a reply has been posted. A nice way to make it easy for someone to return to your blog to continue the conversation.

NO COMPLAINTS PLEASE

8. Contact Form 7 – a simple no frills contact page plugin. But the neat feature of this particular one is that it allows you to create multiple contact pages or areas on your blog. Let’s say you want to create a “Submit a Tip” page or a separate “Advertising” page, use this plugin to create them both.

GOOGLE SMOOGLE

9. Easy Privacy Policy – easy way to instantly create a privacy policy page on your blog. Enable this plugin, complete the fill in the blanks section, and you’re good to go. A privacy policy is required by Google if you have Adsense on your site, to stay in compliance. This is the fastest and quickest to set one up.

PIC ME UP A RELATED PIECE, WILL YA

10. Link Within – a cool way to display related articles on your site. When you set this plugin up on your blog, it fetches related articles, but with an accompanying picture. A super highly under rated way to lower your bounce rate and keep visitors on your site longer. It’s popular on all my blogs as readers seem to really like it.

COLOR ME BLIND

11. Tiny MCE Advanced – this neat plugin adds extended functionality to the wp editor, such as background color for text, quotes, additional font styles then what’s default in WordPress and more. I use this one whenever I plan to spice up a site with cool fonts and more color.

MISS CONGENIALITY I AM

12. Most Commented Widget – do you have popular articles with lots of comments? Feature them on your site with the use of this plugin. See it in action on this blog in the sidebar.

SOCK IT TO ME!

13. Exclude Pages from Naviation – you ARE so learning all my secrets today. This power house plugin enables you to hide (or exclude) pages from showing up in your navigation bar. For example, let’s say you decide to offer up a new service on your blog, but the plan is to promote it strictly via Facebook. You don’t want your regular readers to haphazardly stumble upon the page, without being fed a proposal first. So you exclude it from navi and only those who come via your Facebook marketing efforts see it.

Or let’s say you want to set up a series of “child” About pages, such as an About this blog, About my income, About my car, etc. But you don’t want these child pages cluttering up your navi bar, exclude them. Zap!

note: many newer WordPress themes have this function built in, if that’s the case. Then obviously you won’t need this plugin. But if your theme doesn’t support “page exclusion from navigation”, this is a must have.

READER Question

These WordPress plugins are my personal faves, which I use on a repeated basis and can’t do without out. Which are your personal faves and why?