This is the first post in a series I am starting about how I organize, especially in relation to this blog. Being organized is a rather large portion of what enables me to blog. For today, I am going to talk about the plugins I use. I am on self-hosted WordPress and so there are a plethora of plugins available for me to use. I can’t speak about all of the available plugins but I can tell you about the ones I use.
1. Akismet
Akismet is one of the most necessary plugins. It helps protect your comments from being continually full of spam.
2. Broken Link Checker
I use the Broken Link Checker plugin to scan my site for any broken links. When it finds a broken link, I can easily fix the link if I mistyped it or figure out what went wrong if I didn’t.
3. Comment Reply Notification
This little plugin is great because it notifies commenters when their comment has a new reply. People are much too busy to go check each post they have ever commented on to see if there is a reply. An email sent to let the commenter know there is a reply is very important.
4. Comments Not Replied To
I like this plugin as it lets me know which comments I have not yet replied to. It is very helpful to ensure that I am answering all of my comments.
5. Easy Content Templates
I use this plugin all the time. I have templates for reviews, Friday 56, Top Ten Tuesday, Month in Review, etc. This saves quite a bit of time when it comes to formatting a post the way I want it.
6. Enhanced Media Library
This is a plugin that helps me keep my photos organized. This is very helpful with all of the book covers that I need to keep organized in my media library. While this isn’t my favorite plugin, it is functional. If you have a better suggestion, I am all ears.
7. Shortcodes Ultimate
I love this plugin! I use these shortcodes all the time for just about everything from spoilers to tabs to columns, etc.
8. Personal Shortcodes
I used the tutorial from Ashley at NoseGraze to make a plugin with my own shortcodes. I made shortcodes for all the things I use frequently such as my signature. I also have a shortcode I edit rather frequently with my all time favorites.
9. Ultimate Book Blogger*
I finally broke down and purchased the Ultimate Book Blogger plugin in November 2015. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it all that much but I really do. I’m actually using the review archives which is something I didn’t think I would. It is a very nice plugin with a ton of functionality and I am so glad that I decided to purchase it.
So there are my nine favorite plugins that are very helpful on my blog. I hope you enjoyed this post and that, maybe, it was helpful.
*The Ultimate Book Blogger Plugin link is an affiliate link.
I have Askimet and Ultimate Book Blogger.
I think the Enhanced Media Library would be very helpful to me.
I use Jetpack, but I don’t know if it does the comments thing you mentioned. I should check into that. I’m also going to look at the Broken Link Checker. Thanks for sharing.
A few I think are great are: Contact Form 7, P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler), and Post Duplicator. The last one saves me tons of time setting up memes and features that I do on a regular basis.
I’m glad it was helpful.
I’ll have to take a look at those plugins you mentioned. Thanks for sharing.
I hope you have a great end of the week!
I love UBB, but don’t have a ton of other plugins that I’m attached to. I do think it would be a great idea to use more shortcodes – I just haven’t taken the time to figure it all out (I did save Ashley’s post about it, though. One of these days …)
It took me a little while to figure out shortcodes, but, once I did, it made life quite a bit easier (at least or what I use them for).
Thanks for visiting and I hope you have a great weekend!
oh LOVE this post! most of these plugins I don’t have and I should. I have a thing for plug ins for good and for evil. I like that they help me stay organized but unfortunately some of them had crashed my blog 🙁 thanks for sharing all this wonderful info Amanda!
I know what you mean about plugins crashing the blog. Jetpack has done that a few times and so I’m trying to use it as little as possible.
Thanks for visiting and I hope you have a great rest of the week!
I switched to WordPress to get some of these, especially Comment Reply Notification, Akismet and the UBB review archives! I also love the Editorial Calendar and the Expanding Archives plugins.
I’ve used the Editorial Calendar a bit but never as much as I could. I find that I prefer my paper and pen method of scheduling posts rather than the online calendar.
Thanks for visiting and I hope you have a wonderful rest of the week!
I broke down and decided to invest in CoSchedule this year. I’m not sure how I lived without it. I used to dread scheduling my Social Media and now I just flow from writing my post to scheduling social media. Works like a charm!
I love Easy Content Templates (TOTAL TIME SAVER) and UBB. UBB is why I made the move from Blogger to WP. I realized there are some plugins that I use that other might not know about, I might considering doing a post similar to this soon.
I have actually been sort of considering CoSchedule. I am rather terrible with the whole social media thing and I would love to get better.
I would love to see more posts about plugins. I am always curious about what others are using.
Thanks for visiting, Terri. I hope you have a great rest of the week!