Wordpress Plugins

[JoeQuery]

Seo Ultimate - Your standard title tag, meta descriptions, custom meta fields, etc. They put a footer link at the end of your site, but you can take it out if you wish.

Efficient Related Posts - Place related posts at the end of your articles.

[Jenni_HeartInternet]

Seconding All in One SEO Pack.

[stevewiideman]

I'm also a huge fan of the new Yoast SEO for Wordpress plugin. If you're worried about losing data, simply login to phpMyAdmin and export the table before transitioning to a replacement.

We did a detailed write up on the plugins most used by developers via LinkedIn. Google XML Sitemap and All in One blew the rest away: http://www.seosteve.com/seo-tools/top-ten-wordpress-plugins-for-2011.html

Here are the ones I'm using with new WP installs:

• Yoast Wordpress SEO
• Google XML Sitemaps with qTranslate Support
• Dagon Sitemap Generator (HTML)
• .html for Pages
• W3 Total Cache (to Amazon S3 or other CDN)
• Tweetmeme Retweet Button
• Disqus Comments Platform

[Dan-Petrovic]

To add to the list of great plugins:

• TYNT: http://mikhailkozlov.com/tynt-insight-for-wordpress/
• SEO Smart Links: http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/wordpress-plugins/seo-smart-links
• Link to post: http://julienappert.com/developpements-wordpress/plugin-link-to-post
• Better Related Content: http://www.nkuttler.de/wordpress-plugin/better-related-posts-and-custom-post-types/

[ldestrooper]

I preferr to not use plugins and rather hardcode everything into the theme, it may dramatically improve your website speed. Altough it does depend on your HTML/PHP/CSS skills.

I do however use the following on some of my websites:

Analytics 360 - Great when connected to Google Analytics, you no longer have to go there for the basic data.

All in one SEO - Fairly common used plugin, there may be better ones but i does offer some good customization.

[DonnieCooper]

I agree. Not only for speed, but there's less chance of things failing in the future if a plugin is depricated. I just finished a site with 200 pages, and rather than using the 'standard'All-inone SEO pack, I decided to use php to automatically generate the title's, meta descriptions, main photo, etc (all based on the url of the created page). I haven't tried analytics 360, but I will now, thanks Laurent!!

[ldestrooper]

Always welcome, if you are running a mailchimp campaign, it will combine both data into 1 graphic. So you can see on your traffic stats when you have done a blog post or did an e-mail campaign, very helpfull!

[krissy-cca]

I currently have some already listed but I also use:

• Facebook Share plugin
• Google Analytics plugin (although Analytics360 is one I have been considering due to the fact you can view some detail within WP admin)

DD

[Goetzman]

3rd

[christinarule]

Do you use all in one seo plugin for the pages or for each blog post? I never really likes All in One Seo because it seemed to redundant to have to enter in additional information for each blog post. Maybe I am using it incorrectly, everyone seems to swear by it.

[mattotoole]

Christina,

This is a very real issue! In my experience with clients, it's daunting for most people to write a good blog post, and then have to paraphrase it 2-3 times for the title tag, meta description, and teaser/excerpt.  I try to teach people to write good headlines that'll  serve well as title tags; then concentrate on the article itself.  Also, Google does a better job creating clickworthy descriptions than we may like to admit.  Most people's time and effort is better spent creating good content, than tweaking all these little things.

That said, there's still value in tweaking.  I use themes that have this capability built-in -- to keep plugins to a minimum, plus they're better themes to begin with.  If this isn't an option then I do use All in One SEO and Yoast Wordpress SEO.  All in One SEO has scripts available to export/import the data to popular themes and other plugins.

[mattotoole]

I use a lot of different plugins for different sites, but the ones I have on every site are:

• Google XML Sitemaps
• Akismet, for spam control
• Wordpress Database Backup -- there are many other backup methods but please use something

[copykatrecipes]

I have had a lot of problems with the google analytics plugin turning itself off.  Shocking I know, but I don't check my stats every single day, and sometimes I find that plugin to have turned itself off.

[gfiorelli1]

Forget All in One SEO and go with Wordpress SEO by Yoast.

Also consider his Google Analytics for Wordpress

[Ecreativeworks]

On most sites I use the following plugins:

• All in One SEO Pack
• Google XML Sitemaps
• WP Super Cache (reduces server load & can reduce page load time)
• WP-Recaptcha (slows but doesn't stop comment spam)
• Trackable Social Share Icons (to be fair, we just developed this ourselves, so I'm biased )

[christinarule]

Thanks!!! Very helpful!

[Hurf]

I second that recommendation Gianluca! All in one has served me well in the past - but not Yoast's Wordpress SEO is my weapon of choice.

[onlinemediadirect]

laurent I wish I had the knowledge to do this.

[onlinemediadirect]

why Choose Yoast over all in on ?

[ldestrooper]

I have switched to Wordpress SEO by Yoast also. It works less complicated then All in One SEO and i think it might run a little faster. Featurewise i think they are on the same level.