2016-01-30

WordPress Plugins You Shouldn’t Miss Out

One of the reasons why WordPress had been gaining popularity non-stop is because of their plugins (both free and paid). WordPress plugins make our lives easier, bring you more traffic, make you more money and gain you more time in the process. Good choice of plugins forms the key foundation of a successful blog. In this review, we will cover 50 essentials WordPress plugins. The purpose of this article is to introduce and highlight the main features of the plugins only, it is not going to be a detailed review. Some of them may be familiar to you, while some can be pretty new and up to you to try and find out whether it works for you.

LONG POST AHEAD

1. Wordfence

We should never take security for granted. Losing your content or control over the blog can be devastating. Steps should be taken to prevent such occurrences. The Wordfence WordPress security plugin provides protection against hacks and malware. After installation, the plugin does a deep scan on your website, themes and plugins. In the process of securing your blog, Wordfence can supposedly make your website up to 50 times faster. The plugin is free (and sufficient for most), however paid-features are available as well. Last but not least, it gives a summary on on the scan providing you insights on which area has problems or vulnerable. Scanning on a 100+ blog took less than 5 mins, but you may experience different results.



Features Overview:

ability to block users, robots, known attackers or malicious networks

login security

firewall to block fake bots and security threats

monitoring features

multi-site security

caching features using Falcon Engine

IPv6 compatible

supports major themes and plugins

2. iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security)

This is another popular plugin when it comes to securing WordPress blog. iThemes Security works by hiding vital areas of your site, protecting access to important files, preventing brute-force login attempts, detecting threats and blocking known attackers.

Features overview:

1 click protection, and highlights to you areas that need to be patched up

iThemes Brute Force Protection Network – blocks user that attempted to break into other blogs from breaking yours

Protect via SSL, passwords and blocks attack on file system and database.

Constant monitoring of your blog. Emails notification after too many failed login attempts or when a file had been modified.

Hiding common WordPress vulnerabilities, and preventing hackers from knowing too much about your site details

Recovery – does backup to allow you to reinstate quickly in case of an attack

3. Captcha

BLOCK THEM ALL

Most of us have installed Akismet, which manages to filter a good amount of spam. But it doesn’t hurts to go one step further and implement a Captcha feature on your blog to reduce the spam. The bigger your blog, the bigger your need to fight spam. Introducing SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam, a plugin compatible with WordPress, WPMU and BuddyPress.

Features overview:

blocks spam from bots

able to implement to forms on comments, registration, lost password, login and more.

options to fine-tune your settings, such as deciding where you want the Captcha to appear, and turning it off for registered users, and modifying the CSS to fit your blog/preferences.

best of all it’s FREE! All features provided. Donate if you like and want to support the author.

4. W3 Total Cache

If your blog is taking longer time to load, or you want to speed up the loading, consider W3 Total Cache. This is a personal favorite of mine and am using it on all my blogs with no conflicts. Faster loading of pages means more happy visitors, and desired results for you.

Features overview:

improve page loading

as per author’s description, this plugin is recommended by web hosts like Page.ly, Synthesis, DreamHost, MediaTemple, Go Daddy, Host Gator and countless more.

at least 10x improvement when fully configured

optimized progressive render of pages

save up to 80% bandwidth via minify and HTTP compression of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and feeds

mobile support

Minification of posts and pages and feeds

Non-blocking JavaScript embedding, and more

5. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)

YARPP has been around for several years and is one of the leading plugins that comes to mind when we want to have related posts suggested to readers, in order to encourage them to stay longer on our sites. Also it is a useful way to recommend articles that the reader is probably keen on.

Features overview:

option to display the related posts in list, or thumbnail format

option to disable by categories or tags if you don’t want them

to rate relevancy, set the weightage on titles, bodies, category and tags

can apply to posts and pages

pick up the pro version if you need the following:

customize thumbnail,

display and promote sponsored content, or

implement new side bar format

detailed traffic reports

6. UpdraftPlus

A very important plugin to have. Nothing hurts more than losing your content due to malicious online attacks, negligence, fault of web hosting company, or corrupted database. Save yourself the heartache by doing backup regularly. UpdraftPlus allows you to do backup and restoration with a few simple clicks. A reliable tool that has over 600,000 active downloads on WordPress.org.

What makes UpdraftPlus better compared to other backup plugins, is it’s ability to backup to an online storage. You just need to authenticate and link up the services. Below is the list that are supported:

Features overview:

able to upload to a good list of online/cloud storage services

manual or schedule backups automatically

backup your plugins, themes, upload folder, and any other directories found within wp-content

local or remote backup

able to choose and have different settings to backup files or databases only.

failed uploads are re-tried

Free and paid versions available. Free is good enough for most bloggers.

get paid if you want

to migrate/clone sites

database encryption

network/multi-site support

send backup to multiple remote destinations

personal support, and more

7. Facebook Comments for WordPress

Social media is one of the most crucial source of traffic, and if most of your traffic coming from Facebook then this plugin may help you to maximize your traffic by providing convenience for your visitors to comment via Facebook. Note that you need to have an APP ID before you can use this plugin.

Features overview:

user friendly,

easy commenting increases interaction with your visitors,

quick installation and setup,

tested to be compatible with popular plugins,

settings to change style, color scheme, fonts, box width, etc

8. Custom Facebook Feed

This fantastic Custom Facebook Feed is created by the SMASHballon team and is really a powerful and all-in-one plugin for setting up a FB feed on your site. With this tool, you can look forward to increase social engagement with your readers, getting more likes, and improving SEO of your blog since feed is crawlable

Features overview:

customize your Facebook feed in many ways,

crawlable by search engines,

quick installation and setup,

optimized for mobile devices

able to display feeds from multiple pages/groups

use shortcode to embed where you need them at

able to show events from Facebook feed

further customize by using your own CSS

caching available

simple to setup with your Facebook page ID

supports Facebook tags, and many many more!!

9. New Google Plus Badge Widget

There are not many Google+ plugins in the WP plugin directory, and a number of them are not working well either, but I won’t be naming them. What I found useful is the New Google Plus Badge Widget. This is a simple plugin that does as per it’s name.

Features overview:

installation and setup within minutes

follow button and display followers count

settings for box width, color scheme, layout, page type, title, and more

beautifies your blog

better social engagement

10. Shareaholic

Shareaholic is a frequently used plugin for sharing posts via different social media networks. This is an all-in-one social media tool that gives you the opportunity to engage, reach out to more readers, gain more traffic and to monetize.

Full support for these applications: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, Reddit, LinkedIn, Gmail, Delicious, OneNote, Evernote, Stumbleupon, Digg, Tumblr, Hootsuite, Buffer, Fancy, Wanelo, Yummly, WeHeartIt, Flipboard, Printfriendly, Amazon Wishlist, Instapaper, Pocket, Odnoklassniki, Houzz, Hacker News, Inbound.org, Vk, etc

Features overview:

share buttons – 1 click for your visitors to share your posts on networks mentioned above

follow buttons – increase your social influence and followers’ base with these conveniently placed buttons

Official support for Google’s URL shortener (goo.gl) and Google Analytics

automatic intergration

multiple URLs shortener supported: Bitly (including custom tracking), J.mp, TinyURL, Goo.gl, Shr.lc

floating share buttons option- hover on the side of the page. May increase social engagement.

display related content/posts

optimized for mobile devices including iOS and Android devices

your website’s links automatically turned into affiliate links that can earn you money. Shareaholic worked with various partners to provide this feature. This can be turned off if you don’t need it.

11. NextScripts: Social Networks Auto-Poster

Want more time for yourself and have greater presence on social media? Look no further as this plugin automatically re-publish posts from your blog to your social network seamlessly. Reach out to more of your readers effortlessly by tapping onto social media.

Supported networks as of now:

Facebook, Twitter, Google+(Google Plus), Blogger, Tumblr, Flickr, LiveJournal, Flipboard, DreamWidth, Delicious, Diigo, Instapaper, Stumbleupon, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Plurk, VKontakte(VK.com), YouTube, App.net, Scoop.It, WordPress, XING etc

Features overview:

auto publishes to your social network

works with business pages, community pages and groups

Paid version only

scheduled or delayed posting

unlimited accounts for each social network

auto posts to Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn Company Pages, Reddit, Flipboard, YouTube

12. Pinterest “Pin it” Button

A picture speaks of a thousand words. If you use images frequently, Pinterest is going to be one of your best friend to gain influence and build your social network. This is a no-fuss plugin that gives your visitor a way to pin on a post or page. Activate and ready to use, no need to copy and paste any codes on your blog.

Features overview:

user able to choose which image to pin. The default is the first image.

can put the image anyway using shortcode. However the usual places are near the post, sidebar, on footer.

different button, size and shapes available for you to choose from

13. Pinterest Widgets

This is an all-in-one widget for Pinterest fans. Readers get to follow, pin their favorite images, see up to 30 of your latest and favorite pins. Shortcodes are available for easy implementation. If your focus is not on Pinterest, then plugin #14 on this review should serve your purpose well enough.

Features overview:

Follow button: Invite people to follow you on Pinterest from your site.

Pin widget: Embed one of your Pins on your site.

Profile widget: Show up to 30 of your latest Pins on your site.

Board widget: Show up to 30 of your favorite board’s latest Pins.

14. Instagram Feed

Another quality plugin from SMASHBallon. It can display feeds from multiple non-private Instagram accounts. Use this plugin to increase engagement with your fans. The feed allows visitors to glance through the thumbnails, and they can click on the “Load More” button to see more of your images. A must have for site owners with a big Instagram following.

Features overview:

thumbnail sizes can be increased or decreased

plenty of options for you to customize (including width & height of the feed)

optimized for mobile devices

follow button available

shortcodes available

15. WP to Twitter

Twitter is one of the key sources of traffic, so we need to utilize this social media fully. The plugin, WP to Twitter, automatically posts an updates whenever you created a new post, or made a revision on a post. Keep your followers updated, and save yourself the trouble of updating separately. Other than auto posting these updates to Twitter, the plugin also supports a number of URLs shorteners for you to beautify and/or track your links.

Features overview:

supports Google Analytics

use your post tags as hashtags

URLs shortener supported: YOURLS, Goo.gl, Bit.ly, jotURL, or Su.pr

rate limiting to ensure you don’t exceed Twitter API limit

above features are available on free version. For more details on the free and paid version, go here.

16. Broken Link Checker

One of the most frustrating things that your reader can encounter is an invalid link, and it makes a bad user experience. Avoid this by cleaning up your broken links using this plugin. It may takes a few minutes to an hour to do the scan depending on the size of your blog.

Features overview:

check links on your posts, page, comments and custom fields (optional)

detects URLs that are not working, images not loading and redirects

search and filter links by URL, or anchor text

conveniently edit the links from a single page within the plugin, rather than update each post individually

notification via email or dashboard

17. TinyMCE Advanced

A must have WYSIWYG editor. The default WordPress editor is lacking in many aspects, it does not even provide the feature  for you to add or edit tables, so this plugin helps heaps when you need to enter rows & columns of data. It’s an awesome plugin that even allows you to use Subscript and Superscript.

Features overview:

support for creating and editing tables

insert your lists with more options

change your font, and text size

time stamp

search & replace

emoticons

inserting of anchors, and more

18. Google Adsense

A plugin from Google themselves. Looking at the reviews gathered on WordPress.org, users seem to be divided on their opinions. However as this is an official plugin from Google, I believe this is going to get better in the  future, so unless you are manually inserting the Adsense codes yourself, this is something you may want to re-look at. Safer to use something from Google because of a “trust factor”, and you won’t worry about losing unnecessary revenue because of due to unofficial adsense plugin.

Features overview:

easily add in Adsense ads to your blog

manage ads quickly

able to exclude pages from having ads

one click verification with Webmaster Tool

19. Yoast SEO

Probably the best free SEO plugin available on WordPress, and will continue to do so with the continuous updates being made regularly. The WordPress plugin makes SEO easier to comprehend by breaking it down to sections. Within the plugin, you can manage the overall settings over 8 areas:

general – basic information on your blog

titles and Meta – modify template for your titles in places such as posts, pages, and more

social  – input your social media network URLs for the plugin to inform Google

XML sites – create a XML site map. Modify your settings here

advanced – settings for breadcrumbs, permalink and RSS

tools – extra inbuilt tools provided by YOAST

search console – e.g. list of 404 appears here for you to take action

extensions – more information on YOAST and plugins

Good stuff: when you are in the process of writing a post, the plugin helps by reminding you on what’s important such as having a good keyword density in the article, page title within limits, article is easy to read, whether have you added alt tag for your image, is article long enough, and more.

Features overview:

write better posts with the SEO checklists provided by the plugin

page analysis

tweak your WordPress settings to get the most SEO juice

meta, XML and RSS as mentioned above

built-in editor to edit .htaccess and robots.txt file

social integration – comes with a Facebook OpenGraph implementation and will soon also support Google+ sharing tags

multi-site compatible

import functionality from other SEO plugins

20. Google Analytics by Yoast

Other than having good SEO for your blog, tracking your performance of your blog and content contributes much to your success. The WordPress plugin is able to provide detailed analysis of your audience, demographics, clicks, search results, and 404 error pages, and more.  The tool from Yoast works by using Google Analytics, so you need to create an free account with Google. With over 10 million downloads, this is a proven plugin that can deliver results.

Features overview:

quick integration with Google Analytics,

demographics and interest reports,

visitors stats available within your dashboards,

uses the universal or the asynchronous Google Analytics tracking code,

track your search results, and 404 pages,

outbound link & downloads tracking

free and paid versions available. The above features listed are all free.

21. EWWW Image Optimizer

For photos blogs, this is a good WordPress plugin to reduce the file size of your image. Faster loading of pictures mean your pages load faster before your visitor jumps out of your site. Make your JPG and PNG images mighty small using lossless optimization techniques. Able to handle GIF animations, but after optimization,  you will not be able to edit it again, unless you do an “un-optimize operation” with gifsicle. EWWW Image Optimizer works with NetGEN, plugin #22, mentioned on this article.

Features overview:

automatically optimizes your image as you upload it,

can convert existing pictures on your website to the lowest filesize as well,

superfast – optimize hundreds of images in minutes

uses sophisticated algorithms to minimize quality loss, which is very different than the normal static quality/compression level

22. NetGEN Gallery

The most popular plugin for handling galleries. More than 13 million downloads and counting. If you are running a image intensive or photo blog, you may have heard about this plugin’s capabilities. The powerful tool enables you to mass upload, format, edit and organize images. Many options for controlling size, style, timing, transitions, controls, lightbox effects, and more.

Features overview:

watermark pictures in batches or by galleries

edit images, meta data and image tags,

image and thumbnail management,

centralized gallery management to manage your images in one place,

create albums to further organize,

the paid PRO version provides comment & social sharing capabilities, and more gallery displays for you to choose from.

23. Soliloquy

Another image-related WordPress plugin. With this tool, you can create a new slider as quickly as less than 60 seconds. The plugin is available in free and paid version. The only common complain for the free Lite version is that you have to upload the images you need, rather than using the existing media library that you have. Free features listed below.

Features overview:

slider loads the faster compared to other similar plugins

more user friendly

create endless sliders, and with images

drag and drop image uploading

responsive slider

insert the slider easily within your WYSIWYG editor

Meta editing of the images

Note that having videos in the slider is possible, but only on paid versions. More information here.

24. Meta Slider

Meta Slider is as good as Soliloquy, the main difference is the former has the function to let you select images from your WordPress Media Folder, rather than uploading images again. Another thing is that Meta Slider has different slides/themes for you to choose from.

Features overview:

As the Meta Slider is similar to Soliloquy  in most aspects, I’ll just list a few. If you need more, you can visit their site to find out more on the Lite and PRO versions.

slides/themes

Flex Slider 2 – Responsive, 2 transition effects, carousel mode

Nivo Slider – Responsive, 16 transition effects, 4 themes

Responsive Slides – Responsive & incredibly light weight

Coin Slider – 4 transition effects

SEO optimized slides

WordPress Multi Site compatible

Lightbox support

25. SumoMe

SumoMe is an amazing WordPress plugin must-have for any online marketer that is serious about building a business on the web. It is a multiple purpose plugin that assists to build your subscribers list, tracking of important stats, and boost your engagement socially online. It’s BIG on features. Take some time to play and get results with this super toy!

Features overview:

list builder – fancy lightbox pop-up to build email subscribers

share – buttons for your visitors to share your content

welcome mat – call-to-action when visitor reaches your website

many functions to fire up your social media activities

heat maps – identify where your readers are clicking

email box that is triggered by how far your reader scrolls

simple email integration with MailChimp, Aweber, Constant Contact, and Campaign Monitor

google analytics function

image sharer, and many more goodies!

26. Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is an all time favorite when it comes to having a “Contact Us” form on WordPress blogs. With a download history of over 34 million, the plugin has encourage lots of 3rd party developers to create different plugins that does different tasks, and have them compatible with Contact Form 7. Therefore if you are looking for something versatile and flexible, try it out.

Features overview:

supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, and Akismet spam filtering

supports drop-down menu, checkboxes, radio buttons

works with a fair number of plugins designed by other

27. All in One WP Security & Firewall

A quality WordPress plugin you can use to arm yourself against online threats. This 100% free plugin combines both security and firewall together. It offers basic, intermediate and advance security & firewall rules to protect your site. Based on the rules and options you have in place, the security tool can present to you how “protected” you are using a “points grading system”.

Something unique about this WordPress plugin – if spam irritates you, you will be happy that you can monitor the most active IP addresses which keeps on spamming you and block them with just a click.

Features overview:

does not slow down your site

user accounts security. Eg. stop user enumeration, tool to help you create strong passwords

user login security. E.g. monitor failed login attempts, Captcha

user registration security

database security to backup and restore

file security to identify/fix permission settings & preventing people from reading sensitive files on your system

blacklist functionality

firewall functionality

comment SPAM security,

brute force login attack prevention and more

28. Disable Comments

If you do not want to have any comments at all on your website, this WordPress plugin will serve your purpose well. Once activated, it globally disable comments on any post type (posts, pages, attachments, etc.). Comment related fields are also removed from the edit and quick-edit screens. If your objective is only to selectively disable comments on specific posts only, then you should use WordPress inbuilt feature instead.

Features overview:

globally disable comments on any post types

works on multi-site installations

useful to avoid spam

29. Page Builder by SiteOrigin

Ever wonder how to build beautiful pages effectively and quickly? Page Builder is your solution to design responsive and great looking pages. The plugin works perfectly with the standard WordPress widgets, and if you need more widgets for choices, you can check out this bundle from SiteOrigin.

Features overview:

works with practically almost any themes

drag and drop. No coding required.

live editing, and see your results in real-time

history browser for you to back track in case you made any mistakes

fine control via rows and widgets styles

100% free

30.WooCommerce

WooCommerce is leading plugin when it comes having eCommerce functionality on a WordPress platform. It’s constant updates makes it work very well with WordPress. Tested and used by millions, this can be considered as pretty stable and reliable. The WooCommerce plugin has plenty of both free and paid extensions, so this make it very versatile and flexible for both store owners and developers.

Features overview:

sell anything, be it physical or digital goods

offer free shipping or different tiers of shipping fees

provides you with full control for settings, designs, taxes, stock level, customer accounts, etc

plugin comes with ability to accept major credit cards, PayPal, BACS (bank transfers), and cash on delivery options

extendable, adaptable, and open source

lots of plugin extensions available such as Google Analytics, PDF Invoices & Packing Slips and more

31. Google XML Sitemaps

The WordPress plugin, generates a XML sitemap for search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog. It has been rated on WordPress.org as one of the most popular plugins over the last 9 years. The developers are confident that the plugin does not break, or slow down your website. So if you have a current SEO or XML plugin that is causing you grieve, time to give this a try.

Features overview:

generates XML sitemaps

notifies all major search engines every time you create a new post

32. Duplicator

The Duplicator gives administrators the ability to migrate, copy or clone a site from one location to another. Particularly useful when you want to do testing and validation. Please note that this plugin may not be suitable for beginners.

Features overview:

copy or clone a site,

can do backup too,

supports both serialized and base64 serialized string replacement

33. WPTouch Mobile

WPTouch is a WordPress plugin created to automatically convert your website to something that is more mobile-friendly. It has been the most popular WordPress mobile solution since 2008. Other than giving the reader a better user experience, the other benefit is your SEO rankings do dip due to not having a mobile-friendly website

Features overview:

transform your blog mobile-friendly within minutes

34. Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode

When activated, the plugin shows the visitor a “Coming Soon” or “Maintenance” page, depending on your nature of work. If you are working on a new website or launching a new product, a “Coming Soon” page gives your visitor information on what to expect. E.g. emails, promotion details, etc

And if your blog is under going maintenance, give your readers an estimated time/date on when the site is going to be up and running.

Features overview:

works with all themes

design customizable

multi-site support

BuddyPress support

uses HTML5 & CSS3

easily add Custom CSS and HTML

if you need more features, upgrade to the PRO version of Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode

35. WP PostRatings

WP PostRatings is a clean and simple to use plugin to mange your ratings. The ratings system shown on posts or pages. Essential information such as time stamp, IP address, post title and ID are provided for each rating that your content received. There are a number of rating images for you to choose from: hearts, ticks, numbers, thumbs. A WordPress plugin that does ratings perfectly.

Features overview:

adds AJAX rating system on WordPress blog’s post/page

free plugin

Alternatively, if you are looking for better features, you can consider another plugin, Rating-Widget. However it is probably more worthwhile for blogs that are getting at least 1 million page views per month, since the monthly cost starts from $3.99 per month.

36. WP Polls

Ever wanted to know what your readers want or their opinions? WP Polls is a good tool to use when you want publish relevant content that your visitors are interested on, or when you want to know what is the most popular topic on your blog, etc. Rather than guessing, it can offer you insight on what’s working, what’s good, and what’s bad. This is a free plugin that is easy to install and use. Place it either on your post, page or as widget.

Features overview:

plenty of customization available via CSS styles and templates,

supports multiple selection of answers,

start and end time of poll

polls stats

37. TablePress

Using TablePress to create and insert tables into posts and pages gives a total different experience. Compared to most conventional table features provided by WYSIWYG and table plugins, TablePress gives you the capability to sort out data, and even formulas can be evaluated. Instead of creating a table within the post editor, you create the table from the plugin’s dashboard, alternatively you can import the tables that you have created in Excel. One advantage of doing so is that you can subsequently re-insert the tables into as many posts as you want from the post editor.

Features overview:

tables can be imported and exported from/to Excel, CSV, HTML, and JSON files

additional JavaScript library adds features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for site visitors

38. Revive Old Post

Revive Old Post was previously known as Tweet Old Post. After the re-branding and upgrades to the WordPress plugin, you now have more social networks to post on to. Networks include Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. This is a valuable tool to use to promote your content in the background automatically, and get more traffic and awareness. There are free and paid versions, for more information, check them out here. Free and basic features listed below.

Features overview:

share new and old posts

determine the number of posts to share, and the intervals

hashtags can be used

categories and specific posts can be excluded

39. WP Optimize

If you are obsessed with getting the most out WordPress, WP Optimize is going to be one of your favourite and often used WordPress plugin. It works primarily by optimizing your database, and removing unnecessary database overheads and outdated post revisions. After using it, you will have the feeling you just brushed your teeth every morning. Recommended to use this before you do your regular WordPress backups.

Features overview:

removal of unwanted post revisions,

removal of spam and trashed comments,

able to setup schedule for optimization & email notification once done,

optimize database,

shows database statistics,

enable/disable trackbacks & comments for posts,

keep X weeks of data before clean up, and more

40. Responsive Lightbox

Responsive Lightbox allows your visitor to view larger versions of images and galleries in a lightbox. One advantage of using this image plugin is that it optimizes for mobile devices, so you can be certain that your readers on mobile phones and tablets are in (your) safe hands.

Features overview:

6 responsive lightbox scripts for you to choose from,

Automatically add lightbox to WordPress image galleries, image links and video links,

highly customizable & many settings available to tweak,

multi-site support

41. Juicer

Juicer is a relatively new WordPress plugin. However it is an interesting tool as it can aggregate and embed your social media posts on your site. Free and paid versions are available. The free version allows 2 source accounts only, and pulls new posts every 24 hours. Hopefully the developer can consider having more source accounts for the free version to encourage more users. Paid version starts from $19/month.

Networks supported:

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Google Plus, Tumblr, Pinterest, Tumblr, Vine, RSS, LinkedIn, Flickr, Vimeo, Hashtags, Yelp and DeviantArt.

Features overview:

aggregate all your social media posts into one place

unwanted retweets or duplicate posts can be removed using rules and filters

permalinks for all your posts

responsive grid for dynamic layouts,

infinite scroll

advance analytics, and more

42. Thirsty Affiliates

For website owners who wish to monetize via affiliate links, Thirsty Affiliates is one of the finest plugin that you can use. Using this tool, you can create pretty links and at the same time protect your commission from theft. Administrating your affiliate links is easy as you can manage them from a central location. The WordPress plugin is available in both free and paid versions

Features overview:

link shortening & link cloaking

DoFollow/NoFollow options

customizable link URL prefixes

full backup compatibility

For paid versions, you get the option to purchase whatever Thirsty Affiliate add-ons that are relevant to you

Autolinker – automatically link keywords with your affiliate links throughout your blog

Stats – historically performance of your links

AZON – import Amazon affiliate links with ease

Geolocations – geo-target visitors with specific country links

Google Click Tracking – add yours links to Google Analytics for tracking

CSV Importer – import and export your affiliate links conveniently

You can refer to a ThirstyAffiliates review that I have written earlier on go directly to the developer’s site for more details & download.

43. BuddyPress

BuddyPress helps you run any kind of social network on your WordPress, with member profiles, activity streams, user groups, messaging.  With BuddyPress you can easily setup a community for your company, school, sports team, interest or niche groups. The plugin is free and versatile, supported by hundreds of extensions, so definitely you can find something is useful or relevant for you.

Features overview:

capability to enable registered members to create profiles, have private conversations, make connections, create & interact in groups, and much more.

free and easy to use

44. Sexy Author Bio

Sexy Author Bio is WordPress author bio plugin that supports either single or multiple authors. This may be a simple thing, but it really makes a blog looks more complete and professional. It also gives your reader an opportunity to know more and interact with you. It is a light, but a very complete plugin that does good in what it is being made for. There are many customization available so you can make the bio box as beautiful or sexy as you want. It even comes with icon sets for you to use.

Works with:

Behance, Blogger, Delicious, DeviantArt, Dribbble, Facebook, Flickr, GitHub, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, MySpace, Pinterest, RSS, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, Twitter, Vimeo, WordPress, Yahoo! & YouTube

Features overview:

easy to create sexy author biography

can customize CSS for iPad, smart phones, and desktops [optional]

45. Shortcodes Ultimate

The Shortcodes Ultimate plugin comes with a huge number of shortcodes ready to be used. The highly rated WordPress plugin gives you the ability to easily create tabs, buttons, boxes, different sliders, responsive videos and more. This is going to totally transform your current theme to something you always dream about!

Features overview:

shortcode generator

easy to use, with many options for you to select

modern design, fully responsive, and lets you see live update

works with any theme

CSS3 powered

custom CSS editor and widget

Features above are free. If you are hungry for more add-ons and extensions, check out the premium addons.

46. Automatically Paginate Posts

If you are consistently writing very long articles, you may want to paginate your posts, as it helps to keep the reader’s attention as well as easier for readers to bookmark or share any particular page. Pagination of posts actually can be done manually by inserting the quicktag <!–nextpage–>, but then why waste time and risk error when it can be done automatically. Download the free plugin here.

Features overview:

supports post, page, and any public custom post types,

automatically does the job,

can specific how many pages to be broken over, or how many words per page

47. WordPress Popular Posts

WordPress Popular Posts is a very flexible plugin that allows you to display your most popular content based on your settings. It can also be implemented on multiple widgets if you require so. And yes, this is a popular free plugin. Download here.

Features overview:

display accordingly to popularity based on specified time periods

custom-post type support

multi-site support

customize your own layout

able to display thumbnail of your posts

48. Quick Page/Post Redirect

Moving to a new domain, or need to change your URL link for some reason, this WordPress will make your life easier. The All in One SEO Pack has two functions: Quick Redirects (301 Redirects) and Individual Redirects (for existing pages/posts). Do use this redirection tool with care and ensure that you do not have any other redirect plugins installed to avoid potential conflicts.

Features overview:

redirecting old URLs to a new URL so there is no 404

migrating – redirect old links to new links

49. Ninja Forms

Ninja Forms provides you with simple to complex functions for form creation. Other than the standard contact us form, you can create an impressive subscription form, a calculation form, etc. Designing the form is easy as you only need to drag and drop to create the form that you wanted. Also there are many settings for you to customize post-actions, such as providing a success notification when a form is submitted, or re-directing the visitor to a specified URL after form submission. There are many free and paid extensions/add-ons available that work with Ninja Forms that you can check on WordPress plugins directory.

Features overview:

drag and drop interface

no limitations to the number of forms, fields, emails, actions, or submissions.

anti-spam options

manage, Edit, and Export form user submissions

set required fields,

custom input masks, and more

50. All in One SEO Pack

All in One SEO Pack is different compared to other SEO plugins, mainly because of two reasons. Firstly, it generates META tags automatically, and secondly, this is the only plugin to provide SEO Integration for WP e-Commerce sites. For beginners, it works out of the box. For advanced users, you ha

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