Recommended WordPress Plugins For Your Website

Recommended WordPress Plugins For Your Website 2016

ISSUE
You have a WordPress site and want to know the Recommended WordPress Plugins For Your Website.

APPLIES TO
DNS Texas hosted WordPress websites All WordPress websites!

CAUSE
This is an informational article.

RESOLUTION
There are many plug-ins available for WordPress, which is why it’s such a great system. Installing the right ones can protect your investment and cut down on SPAM, increase productivity and make your life as an admin easier! DNS Texas has compiled a list of recommended plug-ins for your WordPress site. You can choose to install or not to based on the type of site you run. You’ll login to your WordPress admin page and click the “plug-ins” section on the left. You’ll then click ‘ADD NEW’ in the upper part of the page and use the ‘Search Plugins’ box to find these titles. These titles are NOT in any special order.

1. KK STAR RATINGS – by Karnal Khan Used with POSTS – this plugin allows users to rate posts on your page with a simple ‘star’ system. You can customize the star names, how many stars are shown and colors.
2. LOGIN SECURITY SOLUTION – by Daniel Consissor Adds extra security to your WordPress site by fighting off brute force attacks. It can notify via e-mail of any brute force login attempts and requires strong passwords on your blog. If you are using Aggressive Virtual hosted WordPress, you can optionally add [email protected] to the “send notifications to” section so that we can also block repeat offenders at the firewall level. Recommended settings: all at default, except: “Deletion Interval” set to ‘1000’, “Deletion Days” set to ’60’, “Password Policy/History” recommended to set to at least ‘3’, “Idle Timeout” from between 15 to 60 based on your preference – we recommend ’30’ for regular bloggers and page updaters. We recommend ’60’ for heavy uploaders and video workers
3. SKT NURCAPTCHA – by Carlos Barbosa Used in the new user REGISTRATION area – this plugin stops SPAMMERS from even signing up on your WordPress site. It uses Google’s API for graphical captcha codes. You’ll need to create a key pair on the Google website, the link will appear in the plugin setup – it takes seconds and is simple to complete.
4. WP ADD MIME TYPES – by Kimiya Kitani Used in the files/uploads part of WordPress to allow custom extensions for filenames. If WordPress states that an uploaded file is ‘not an allowed type’, this plug-in can resolve this issue.
5. REGENERATE THUMBNAILS – by Viper007Bond Used at the system level to re-generate thumbnails after resizing, etc. Can perform the action on your entire site in a single sweep. A great tool if you make many photo changes and they are no longer displaying as expected.
6. CONTACT FORM 7 – by Takayuki Miyoshi Used to add contact form(s) to your website. Easy to use and customize. You can have multiple forms for multiple areas, if you wish. The form can e-mail all entered data, simply build your e-mail template and include any information you want from the form.
7. WP PHOTO ALBUM PLUS – by J.N. Breetveit Used to host photo galleries within your WordPress site. Uses shortform to display the selected gallery where you want it. Can be displayed within posts or on pages. Easy management, MANY customization options for a totally unique gallery if you desire.
8. CAPTCHA – by BestWebSoft Uses a math question as an anti-spam checkpoint. For new posts and replies, a submitting visitor must answer a simple math question for their post to be added to your site. Naturally SPAM robots and scripts cannot answer these random math questions, so this plugin can cut down on 99-100% of WordPress SPAM.
9. YOP POLL PLUGIN – by YourOwnProgrammer The perfect, easy to use polling plugin for your WordPress site! Display as a page or in the sidebar areas.
10. LAST UPDATED SHORTCODE – By BitAcre Creates a shortcode to display the date/time when a post/page was last updated. Places the tag at the bottom of the post/page. Easy install, just load it and it will activate, no special settings.
11. TAG PAGES – by Bjorn Wijers Allows you to add tags easily to your pages! This is great for increasing your page visibility to search engines and for when visitors search your site!
12. WP STATISTICS – by Mostafa Soufi & Greg Ross Provides complete statistics for your WordPress site. Geomapping, browser types, most visited pages and more! Easy install.
13. WOOCOMMERCE – by Automattic, Mike Jolley, JamesKoster, Claudio Sanches, Royho, WooThemes A powerful, extendable e-commerce plug in for your WordPress site which allows you to sell anything! Easy setup & customization with various plug ins for numerous payment gateways.
14. BUDDYPRESS – by John James Jacoby, Paul Gibbs, Boone Gorges, R-a-y, imath, @mercime, more… Allows running of social networks via your WordPress site. Member profiles, activity streams, user groups, messaging & more!
15. BOOKING CALENDAR – by Wpdevelop Ultimate booking system for online reservations and availability checking.
16. JETPACK – by WordPress A suite of powerful features for your WordPress site! Enhanced security, improved site performance, content tools, visitor engagement, social sharing, related posts, post by email and more! This plug in can also notify you in the event your site goes offline or is unavailable. This plugin also offers great integration to auto publish posts to Twitter & Facebook!
17. BROKEN LINK CHECKER – by Managewp & Vladimir Prelovac Monitors links found in your posts, pages, comments and blogroll. This plug in identifies any broken links that no longer work, missing images or redirects. You can update broken links from the plug in page to eliminate the need to update each post/page individually.
18. YOAST SEO – by Joost De Valk A complete website optimization package for your site! Performs page analysis, graphs meta data and publishes .XML sitemaps.
19. Sunshine Photo Cart – by Sunshine Photo Cart Watermark and sell your photos, paypal integration included.
20. Raw HTML – by Janis Elsts Allows processing of raw HTML without WordPress modifying the code.

We will continue to add new recommendations as they get brought to our attention and are tested to be useful, so check back often! If we missed a great plug-in, drop us comment below and add your suggestions!

HOW TO USE
All plugins contain their own usage directions. If they have settings available, you’ll be able to click the ‘settings’ button under the plugin name to customize them. Some plugins have no settings and once activated, just do their job.

DISCLAIMER
Use of these plugins has proven helpful to many, however, DNS Texas is not responsible for any issues that may arise. Use at your own risk!