Which Plugins Do You Use For Your WP Site?

No matter how good your blog looks or how great the content is, it won't have any value if there's no readership. Right? The success of a blog or a site definetly lies in the hands of the audience that visits.

The goal here is to have regular visitors and of course have folks come back to your site on a regular basis. There are various methods that can be used to boost active readership and activity around a blog/site.

Whether you choose a blog over a website is not really the problem here, the main issue here is to turn every single reader into a loyal fan. Of course we've seen or read lots of tips and advices about traffic generation and everything that goes with it.

But this chapter is gonna be a bit different because we're going to talk here about Social Plugins that actually keep visitors entertained and allow them to share your stuff between their networks and leave comments.

Those plugins are called social engagement plugins and some of them are live and active on this blog also.

Enough talking now, let go straight to the point, shall we?

• AA's Digg Digg Alternative

This amazing pluging is a flooting toolbar for any WP site/blog. You can see this on this blog. The AA's Digg Digg Alternative Plugin is very clear, loads fast and allows you to add as much social media icons as you wish.

If you do not know the codes, no worries. The plugin itself is very easy to install. Simply go to the Plugins area on your dashboard and add a new plugin. Once installed, you activate and customize the plugin to your liking.

Just as simple as that, the process is straightforward and it appears immediatly on the side of your blog once activated.

• The CommentLuv Premium Plugin

This plugin was designed to keep readers interested and be able to share your content. That's exactly what it does, it's actually one of the best out there so far.

The CommentLuv Premium gives a lot of flexibility and allows you to manage comments and links on you blog. This plugin increases traffic dramatically and also allows you to select 10 posts of your own blog whenever you try to live some comment on another CommentLuv Blogs.

Contrary to other plugins, the CommentLuv Premium isn't free and comes at $97. There's a free version that you can download from your plugins in the dashboard area, but it isn't as flexible as the Premium version though.

CommentLuv Premium notifies you when there's an update available on the service and also gives you the chance to see how many times your links have been clicked and from which blogs the links are coming from. Isn't that great? at last a plugin that allows one to track your clicks.

NB: CommentLuv affiliate program is only available to Premium members

The CommentLuv Premium is an 8 in 1 plugin which includes the following:

- GASP which helps prevent spams

- Reply Me automatically alerts users when they get direct replies to their comments and also alerts guest authors when a comment is made on their posts

- TwitterLink increases the number of followers and allows them to also increase their audience by displaying their names in their comments

- KeywordName is just amazing and it's benefits are numerous.

I flicked through them simply to give you an idea of what it can actually do to a blog/site.

• Comment Redirect

This other plugin redirects first time visitors who just made a comment on your blog to a page of your choice. For example you could create a Thank You Page for new subscribers and ask them to like you on Twitter, link with you on facebook or whatever you like.

There are many options to this, one has to be a little bit creative and come up with something nice and simple.

• P3 ( Plugin Performance Profiler)

The P3 plugin scans your entire plugins list and detects those that slow down your blog. It might be overlooked by some , but I think it's nevertheless useful and could safe lots of headache when it comes to loading time of a site.

• Google XML Sitemaps

The google sitemaps is an absolutely must have for everyone. There is no need creating a blog/site if it can't be indexed by the engines.

No matter how much time was spent working on your site or how great your content is, it'll be useless if visitors cannot locate you. Make sure you download and activate this plugin as this is really really important and is free.

• Ultimate Maintenace Mode

This plugin allows you to create a maintenane message for your readers while you redesign or have some work done on your site offline. It's pretty easy to use and is worth a try.

• Simple Trackback Validation

The Simple Trackback Validation plugin tracks all incoming trackbacks in order to keep your site safe from spammers.

It checks the IP and URL adresses of every trackback link sent to you and confirms their validity. It's free to download from the plugins area on your WP dashboard.

• Login Lockdown

This a must have plugin for every serious blogger. We all know that, hackers constantly attack blogs and this plugin comes handy to avoid those attacks.

Login LockDown records the IP address and timestamp of every failed login attempt. If more than a certain number of attempts are detected within a short period of time from the same IP adress, the login function will be disabled for all requests from that adress.

• Fix RSS Feeds

If you ever decide to change the design of your site or even change your web host, your blog's RSS Feeds could easily be messed up. This is where the Fix RSS Feed will be necessary, it fixes all errors caused by this movement and keeps your feeds in place and up-to-date.

• BackUpBuddy

This plugin makes the migration to a new web host very easy. More importantly it saves all your content , Widgets, Themes and your entire WP installation. With this plugin in place, you needn't worry if you site ever comes to crashdown, it simply saves everything.

The BackUpBuddy isn't free of charge and is well worth the money for all the work and time it could save you.

Having shared some of the plugins that I use for my WP blog, I know that there are lots more out there that are also truly amazing tools.

I'll be happy to hear what you guys have to say about these plugins and also discover those that I do not know about yet. Please feel free to share on this blog and make sure you subscribe.