So, everyone by now knows the major must-have plugins for WordPress like W3 Total Cache and YARPP, but there are some less spectacular simple plugins out there that are a must for your blog. So here’s one for the sake of SEO and reputation of this blog, a semi-intelligent post about the not so obvious but still must have WordPress plugins. Most of them are just as simple as useful and don’t strain the performance of your blog.
All plugins are running on this WordPress MU site version 3.2.2 and are doing what they promise but obviously no guarantees from this side, try at your own risk.
1. My Custom CSS
Still a lot of WordPress themes don’t allow for custom css apart from editing the theme files yourself, but next time you update the theme you’ll lose it all. Same goes for css changes to plugins. My Custom CSS is a really simple but efficient solution to centralize and safeguard all the CSS changes you made. The plugin is reported to be compatible up to WordPress 3.2.1 but it’s running here on the latest version (3.2.2) and perfectly working in a WP-MU setup. Developed by DarkWolf.
2. WP-Table Reloaded
[table "2" not found /]Ever tried to make tables looking as nice like this in WordPress? Without WP-Table Reloaded that would be a darn right nightmare. This plugin allows you to make any table you want and store it centrally so you can re-use it over and over again. The feature list is quite impressive but still it’s a fast and lean plugin:
Features summary:
- manage tables in your WP admin area
- show them in your posts, on pages or in text widgets using a shortcode or anywhere else in your theme using a template tag function
- possible table features include (may be enabled for each table individually)
- any content, even HTML, you like
- table structure can contain colspanned and rowspanned cells
- first row will be table headline (HTML tag <th>)
- last row will be table footer (HTML tag <th>)
- alternating row colors
- row highlighting (when hovered with the mouse)
- print table’s name above or under the table
- print table’s description above or under the table
- use the DataTables JavaScript library to allow pagination, sorting, and filtering of table data
- individual styling of your table via CSS Styling possible (this may be used for different column widths or text-alignment)
In order to take full advantage of the power of this module I suggest you use it in combination with My Custom CSS so it allows you to really tweak your tables the way you want it.
All details here and download here.
3. Twitter Facebook Google Plus One Social Share
Social share plugins are numerous not many really fit my needs. Basically I want a clean, fast and decent looking share bar and most share bars are all over the place design wise. Buttons that have different sizes, not aligned well so in short, most look crappy out of the box. Also I don’t want a load of javascript above what’s important, the content itself. This share bar does almost all that, it only needs some minor tweaking for setting the right margins so everything lines out well but the end result is exactly like I want it.
Don’t worry, it allows for more social networks than just these three but for me it’s enough, I don’t want the site to slow down because of a lot of javascript of share buttons that are hardly used anyway.
Key features:
- Automatically display the social share buttons Above the post, below the post, both above and below or floating left side of post. Manual display option available.
- Flat/Round border style with/without background color. All easily configurable through settings.
- Javascript is by default loaded in footer (recommended). This is the most efficient way to load scripts for social share buttons. This will make sure that your site contents are loaded first and the script loading do not interfere with them. Also site loading speed is better by doing so which is an important criteria for SEO. Option to load the script in header as well, if you wish to.
- Left side floating option is the latest trend these days. The top and left spacing can be configured according to your site layout. Using simple CSS and not ajax for better performance. Also floating bar can be fixed on that position or absolute and can be configured easily through settings.
Developer page here and download here.
4. Broken Link Checker
Well, this plugin does what it says and even detects when Youtube videos have been removed but the page still exists. Why have this plugin? Simple, it allows you to keep your content clean and up-to-date. It also is great for your site’s SEO since no search engine likes a site full of dead links.
Features:
- Detects links that don’t work, missing images, deleted YouTube videos and other problems.
- Periodically checks links in posts, pages, comments, custom fields and the blogroll.
- New and modified entries are checked ASAP.
- Notifies you on the Dashboard if any problems are found.
- Lets you edit all instances of a specific link at once.
- Gives you a list of all links ever posted on your site, with the ability to search and filter it.
- Lets you apply custom CSS styles to broken and removed links.
- Highly configurable.
Developer site here and download here.
5. HTML Javascript Adder
HTML Javascript Adder allows to insert HTML, javascripts, shortcodes, advertisements, flash embed codes, plain text etc in the sidebar via UNLIMITED widgets with advanced targeting on posts, pages and archive pages.