Here’s my latest offering of what I view to be the best new (or old!) plugins available for WordPress. Some plugins are the same as on last month’s list, and this is because they can’t be bettered and so must remain. I would recommend that you try these plugins for yourselves but do emphasise that you read all documentation and that I take no responsibility for any problems caused by the installation or use of these plugins. For more great plugins please see Top 10 WordPress Plugins – October 2008.

If you think there is a plugin worth a mention here or you have developed a plugin and would like it reviewed please comment or contact admin@enterprisemastermind.com

1. Kaltura Interactive Video Player Plugin

Go to download page
I was asked to review this plugin for my readership by the folks at Kaltura. In a nutshell this plugin allows you to show video on your pages and posts whilst allowing others to add their own videos, comments, annotations and remix and edit existing video. It does lots more besides and is great fun. Read more here.

2. All in One SEO Pack Plugin

Go to download page
I found this plugin so good I just had to write a review. This plugin will optimise your WordPress blog so that your posts and pages are indexed more efficiently by the search engines. It is fully featured and lets you single out individual pages for optimisation. Great stuff. Read more here.

3. WordPress Database Backup

Go to download page
This one is a long term survivor on these lists because of its importance. I cannot stress enough just how important it is to backup and as a Web Developer I have learned the hard way in the past of the importance of regular backups, not only of your website data itself but also the database. The plugin itself is easy to use with simple backup options including the ability to schedule an email that includes your database backup as an attachment. Genius.

4. Akismet

Bundled with WordPress and for good reason. Without a spam blocker such as this your comment queue would be full of trash in no time at all. Requires a WordPress API key to function. If you haven’t got this plugin activated already, do it now!

5. Feedburner Feedsmith Plugin

Go to download page
The purpose of this wordpress plugin is to redirect clicks to your standard blog feed links to your feedburner RSS feeds enabling all subscribers to subscribe to the same thing. Very useful if you still have the standard wordpress RSS links in your theme but don’t want to mess with the code.

6. Max Blog Press Unblockable Popup

Go to download page
Got a newsletter no-one will subscribe to? No-one noticing your latest product? Ram it down their throats with this unblockable popup plugin. Joking aside, popups are irritating to some but research shows that they increase subscriptions/sales so why not give this free plugin a go?

7. Google XML Sitemaps

Go to download page
If you don’t know how beneficial Google Sitemaps can be to your blog then read my articles on SEO. Once set up this plugin will inform Google of any changes or additions made to your site automatically.

8. WordPress Auto-Tagger

Go to download page
This nifty little plugin chooses appropriate tags for your posts by looking at whats popular over at Yahoo and comparing search results with your posts content. A big time saver.

9. Redirection

Go to download page
Redirection is a WordPress plugin to manage 301 redirections, keep track of 404 errors, and generally tidy up any loose ends your site may have. This is particularly useful if you are migrating pages from an old website, or are changing the directory of your WordPress installation.

10. RSS Includes Pages

Go to download page
Still at number 10 because nothing else does this (as far as I’m aware). If like me you use WordPress as a CMS to build websites as well as blogs you will no doubt have found that Pages are not included in the RSS feed. Well, with this plugin your problems are over. Simply install, activate and voila, your pages will appear within the feed.

Check back next month to see which plugins I’m recommending!