Statistics say there are around 5,000 WordPress plugins on the Internet. Some are better than others and you have probably already seen many 'top lists' featuring the best ones. Main problem with these lists is that a lot of plugins tend to repeat and you have hard time finding cool new plugins.
Presenting you now with the hidden gems of WordPress plugins.
Media Library Gallery
What?
Automatically creates a gallery with every image in your media library.
Why?
Your blog will probably have tens if not hundreds of images that you uploaded over the time. By using this plugin you will create the browsable gallery of all these images for your users.
And also, all these images will create new, indexable content on your site (hello Google Images search traffic!). All free.
Front-end Editor
What?
Front-end Editor is a plugin that lets you make changes to your content directly from your site using AJAX.
Why?
Often you will find a typo or need to change wording in your posts. Instead of going to the back-end you can just click in the post and edit it in real time. It also works with comments, excerpts, tags and custom fields. Big time saver.
Amazon S3 Integration
What?
This WordPress plugin allows you to use Amazon’s Simple Storage Service to host your media for your WordPress powered blog.
Why?
Amazon S3 is a cheap and cost effective way to scale your site to easily handle large spikes in traffic (such as from Digg) without having to go through the expense of setting up the infrastructure for a content delivery network.
Another plugin worth notice is WP-Offload which uses similar service with a free trial.
Feed Styler
What?
Feed Styler is a WordPress plugin for users who are comfortable with CSS and would like to be able to style their feeds.
Why?
RSS is talk of the day today, but too many times I see broken RSS feeds, even for major sites. Including at least proper image alignment is the very least you can do.
This plugin is super easy to use and will make your feed look just the way you want it.
Fancy Excerpt
What?
The fancy excerpt plugin for WordPress replaces the default automatic excerpt generator with a sentence aware excerpt generator.
Why?
By now you are probably using excerpts in your archives, tags and categories to avoid duplicate content issue and increase page views. However WordPress default excerpts will usually cut your sentences in half - not a pretty sight. This plugin will make sure your excerpts look neat.
Limit Login Attempts
What?
Limit the number of login attempts possible both through normal login as well as using auth cookies.
Why?
It is simple, non-intrusive way to add an extra level of protection to your blog.
SEO Booster Lite
What?
The plugin detects and collects visits by users from search engines, especially from those pages listed on page two of the search engine.
Why?
The plugin is a little gem for all you SEO fanatics. The widget will automatically place links to your posts that appear on second page of Google, using keywords people actually typed, in hope of moving these posts to first page (and increasing search engine traffic by up to 10 times).
Seesmic Video Comments
What?
This plugin allows you to post video comments and video blogs.
Why?
Video comments add a new dimension when readers comment in two-way, threaded communication. It is more direct and interactive and probably the future of blogging. You can try this plugin right away in my comments section.
TDO Mini Forms
What?
This plugin allows you to add highly customizable forms that allow non-registered users and/or subscribers (also configurable) to submit posts.
Why?
User generated content.
Allow anyone to add to your site by posting articles and images, without letting them in into your administration. You have the ability to design the form and approve the articles.
Comment Redirect
What?
Redirect commenter who just made their first comment to a page of your choice.
Why?
It may be a good idea to present them with a page explaining in more depth what your blog is about, offer more interesting articles or RSS/email/twitter subscription options. Nice, elegant and everyone wins.
Other Resources
Check my own WordPress plugins.
See also:
Posted in: WordPress
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25 Comments
Hi, I found cool flash photo galleries plugin for WordPress. Named GRAND Flash Album Gallery – multi category flash skin based photo gallery with powerful admin. I used it in my blog. There are so many different settings. You can adjust the color scheme for your blog as you wish. There are many different skins. You can present your photo gallery in a wonderful way, there is a full-screen mode. This is a very cool plugin.
Wow, thanx for sharing, great digg, never seen it before!
Great list, is the best tips for wordpress.
interesting plugins that I never knew existed. Amazing list - I check the top 10 lists but never found these anywhere.
great plugins!!! Thank you for article
Thanks for sharing these they look really beneficial.
Thanks for the list..nice collection :D
Thanks for this list - I've already installed a couple of them on my Wordpress powered blog that should help me out. Cheers
I never knew that there are such great wordpress plugins. Thank you
The list could be larger though as there are a lot of great tricks.
Thanks for sharing....
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Hey, we're just getting the word out about our sitelaunch plugin. Don't know if you'd qualify it as a hidden gem, but thought to suggest it as an option.
you are the man. no you are the wp man.
Thanks a lot, I installed Limit Login Attempts, it's a good way to secure the blog.
Wow, this is probably the best and most unique "top" list of wp plugins I've seen. You list a very nice mix of plugins that help with traffic, extra marketing & other ones that are all very useful even for us bloggers that have been around for a little while.
Thanks so much & I plan on implementing at least 2-3 within the next couple of days.
Sophie
Great list. Also check out this great plug-in the helps to protect your media assets on Amazon S3 http://s3flowshield.com/?e=cloudberryman
thanks , i need to try TDO ans SEO booster lite !
Great list Vladimir. My mind is racing with how I could incorporate some of these into my various sites:)
Thank you. Very informative. Looking forward to checking these out.
I tried to install Front End Editor, but somehow, it crashes my plugin page in wordpress admin. I don't know why, but the plug ins don't appear. I had to manually delete the Front end editor folder from my plug in directory using ftp. I am using a total of 27 plug ins currently. Is it because of Front End directory plug in problem or is it because of too many plug ins? I have no idea. Can any body help with it?
Hi, I am the author of SEO Booster Lite and would like to thank you for mentioning my plugin :-)
I tried to be the first to record a video comment, but it seems seesmic did not like me.
Thank you again, and have a nice day!
Wow - interesting plugins that I never knew existed. Amazing list - I check the top 10 lists but never found these anywhere.
Thanks for this list. I'm not sure if they will all be useful to me at this point, but I did like the redirect one and will be downloading it first. I'll probably try some of the others as I have time.
Great list of plugins. I am not using any of these until now but I will surely use the comment redirect plugin and the feed styler
Great list! Can't wait to try these out. I've been thinking about using Amazon S3- this is a perfect reason to use it.
Going to check out your Wordpress plugins now.
Thanks,
Kim Doyal
Wow... I never knew that there are such great wordpress plugins. Thank you very much for sharing them. I shared it on twitter :)