What a great year it has been! Before this year draws to a close, we wanted to finish the year out right with a list of our favorite plugins (and yours!) for 2011:
(Credit)
1 – WordPress Editorial Calendar
I’ve just recently discovered this one, and it is incredible if you have multiple authors or if even if you just run a personal site. Frustrated about keeping an editorial calendar only to find that putting it into practice leaves you wanting? This plugin is a must for you.
Download: WordPress Editorial Calendar
2 – Photodropper
Not appropriately crediting images can slow you down and get you in trouble (even though Flickr sets images all rights reserved, but I digress…), using the Photodropper plugin is a productivity beast. Type in your search words, scroll through the Creative Commons sharable images (with attribution), and not only will the plugin add the image to your site but will even through a quite fancy looking attribution credit – see below!
photo credit: TheBusyBrain
Download: Photodropper
3 – WordPress.com Stats
Even though it doesn’t always match Google Analytics stats (keep in mind they access and record data differently), it’s a fine way to see your referral and overall site traffic on the fly. Clean and straight to the point.
Download: WordPress.com Stats
4 – Akismet
Akismet is a mainstay of any WordPress site. Another hit by Automattic, the time savings is well worth installing. While it may throw some good comments into spam (and you should periodically check for false positives), all in all still does a fine job. (h/t Bill Boorman)
Download: Akismet
5 – Sharebar
Sexybookmarks used to be where it was at, but Sharebar gives any social sharing plugin a run for it’s money. With version 1.2 recently out, Sharebar now has added Sharethis support as well as a look into sharing statistics.
Download: Sharebar
6 – WP e-Commerce Plugin
While not a new plugin, the extensibility of WordPress beyond “just a blog” always thrills me. If you enjoy WordPress and the simplicity of having your whole site into a single interface, give it a try.
Download: WP e-Commerce
7 – Redirection
For all your 301 needs 😉
Download: Redirection
8 – qTranslate
Awesome plugin for any multilingual site, great editor features for multiple translations and even allows for multi-language sitemaps.
Download: qTranslate
9 – LinkWithin
LinkWithin is a wonderful addition to your WordPress toolbelt. You’ll need to give the plugin your email address so that you can be assigned a unique ID, but then you’re all set to go with 3-5 fancy looking related, thumbnailed posts will appear under all of your posts. Personally, I’ve seen a notable increase of time on site and other such user engagement metrics as a result of LinkWithin.. (h/t Gabriella Sannino)
Download: LinkWithin (requires signup)
10 – After the Deadline
I like this plugin because it not only proofs for spelling and grammar errors, but it also tries to provide guidance for writing posts more concisely. (h/t Derek Edmond)
Download: After the Deadline
What’s your favorite WordPress plugin? Let us know in the comments, and Happy New Year! 🙂
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i’m sure, we will see some totally new and revolutionary plugin in 2011. Yeah, last year i found many great plugins. Some of the plugin were rated low….still they were fabulous….if one really wants to know the best…one sud go in deep search for new plugins on wordpress.org
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How great is the Internet and its communication possibilities? I was just notified of new Tweets; one in England and another in USA-Utah. Both were spot lighting WordPress’ 10 Greatest Plugins!
@C_beth Walters you got to the post from 2 different people? Awesome.
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Nice post. Some new plugins that I will have to check out.
Keep blogging
Nice tips, thank you Brian! I also recommend the Apture PlugIn.
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Awesome collection! I’ve been working with the Editorial Calendar for a month so far and I totally love it!
Link within also kicks major butt.
Those other ones are interesting, I’ll check em out!
I never liked Akismet, cannot understand why people always put in in the best plugins, what is the big deal with it?
I’m going to try a bunch of these on my site here: Penelope’s Oasis. I already incorporated LinkWithin while reading this post.
Thanks for the tips!!
The NextGen Gallery plugin is also a very useful one that was not mentioned in your post – makes it easy to create photo galleries which include a slideshow option.
Your list is also very helpful – I like the Photodropper tool as well
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