We’ve chatted about formats and blogging methods here before, but how many of you are WordPress users? If you are self-hosted, then you know all about plugins and how fabulous they are. It’s one of the main reasons I love using WordPress so much!
Anyway, today I thought I’d share a handful of my favorites. Maybe I’ll even convince you to join the ranks of WordPress 😉
Akismet
Used by millions, Akismet is quite possibly the best way in the world to protect your blog from comment and trackback spam. It keeps your site protected from spam even while you sleep
This one makes life easy and I don’t have to manually delete or deal with shenanigan-type comments. Imagine if spammers used their skills for something good?
Click To Tweet by Todaymade
Add click to tweet boxes to your WordPress posts, easily.
I love this on blogs! I don’t remember where I first saw it on a blog, but it makes sharing your favorite posts easy and helps break up the review.
Disqus Comment System
The Disqus comment system replaces your WordPress comment system with your comments hosted and powered by Disqus.
There’s plenty of comment plugins out there and many are good, but for me, Disqus has been the most reliable and easiest to manage. Plus this makes it easy for me to respond!
Google Analytics
Enables Google Analytics on all pages.
I’m pretty sure we’ve all heard of Google Analytics. This just helps get it setup for WordPress 
WordPress Database Backup
On-demand backup of your WordPress database. Navigate to Tools → Backup to get started.
I heard about this from my friend Lydia and it automatically emails you a backup of your blog. I was manually trying to stay on top of it weekly, but you know how that goes. So every week I get an update I can save…perfect!
Bonus Time! I call this a bonus because it’s technically not a plugin, but thought it might be helpful :). I’ve mentioned using Buffer on this blog before and I use Hootsuite for work, so I was curious which y’all prefer. For me? Buffer.
Why Buffer?
- The stats are easier to read
- The social media sites don’t log out.
- Images! When you schedule a tweet with an image, the image shows up as an image (thus you get the pretty picture break in the Twitter feed), Hootsuite it appears as a link in Twitter. Lame.
- It’s easier to schedule posts in buffer. There’s less steps and it’s quicker to change if needed.
Alright! What are some of your favorite plugins? Do any of you have one to making pinning to Pinterest easier? I’m always looking for more!
