Enterprise Mastermind

Well here’s the first of my monthly Top 10 Wordpress Plugin roundups of 2009. Some plugins are the same as previous months, 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 – November 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. ‘Branded Admin’ Plugin

Go to download page
If you are a web designer like myself, you will no doubt have set up a few Wordpress based websites for some of your clients. This plugin enables you to rebrand the /wp-admin pages to follow your own styles. Great if you want to remind your client just who put in all that hard work re-skinning and hacking that theme as they set about trashing your lovely site.

2. ‘Branded Login Screen’ Plugin

Go to download page
Completely hide the fact that your site is a Wordpress Installation (or at least make it less obvious) with this plugin and the plugin listed previously. Does what it says, allows you to rebrand the login page with your own graphics.

3. GD Star Rating

Go to download page
Want to put a rating systems on your post content? How about your comments? This nifty plugin allows you to do that and much more. Have statistics generated and displayed in your sidebar by using the GD Star rating widget and have full control over the look and feel of your stars (or whatever graphic you choose!) Looks great too! The author has even put together different star sets for you to upload.

4. Old Post Promoter

Go to download page
Allows you to promote old posts back to the top position on your home page and back into your RSS feed. The Old Post Promoter randomly chooses a post from posts in your blog and updates the timestamp. When the timestamp on the post is updated, the post will appear to be the latest post on your WordPress blog, returning it to the front page of your blog. Ideal if your blog sin’t going to get updated for a while but has planty of content to keep new visitors interested. **IMPORTANT – DO NOT USE IF YOUR PERMALINK STRUCTURE INCLUDES DATES – UPDATE YOUR PERMALINK STRUCTURE FIRST!**

5. Wordpress Backup

Go to download page
Something we should all do on a regular basis – backup. This handy plugin backs up your upload (images), current theme, and plugin directories. You can specify a regular scheduled backup that can be then sent to an email address of your choice. PLEASE NOTE: You will still need to make sure your database is backed up seperately!

6. 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!

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. I find this plugin indispensable.

8. My Adsense

Go to download page
Great plugin that helps you manage the Google Adsense ads that you wish to display on your blog posts or sidebars. Easy to use and fully featured.

9. In the Loop

Go to download page
Ever needed to add things to the end of every post or page but had to hack the theme to do it? Well if you don’t want the bother or don’t know how then this plugin may be for you. With this plugin you can add any code you like to your posts and pages without ever having to mess with templates or theme files. The plugin provides an options panel with two input boxes. One is for content you want to appear before your post, the other for after it. Each box comes with a set of options to control whether to show it on Teasers, Single Posts, Pages, The Feed and whether or not to execute PHP. Genius.

10. RSS Includes Pages

Go to download page
And this is STILL at number 10 because I just can’t dispense with this simple plugin. 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!