Top 100 WordPress Plugins – The Best Of The Rest
I do love a good list post – especially when it comes to publishing them on WPMU. The most recent one I did was The Top 100 WordPress Plugins For Your Site. At a rough guess, I got a positive response rate of about 80%. Meanwhile, 20% of the commenters consider me Satan incarnate for daring to produce such a list.
What’s really interesting is that out of the 20%, there was very little in the way of constructive criticism. I am more than willing to admit that things can always be done better, but if you’re just going to say that you don’t like what I’ve done, you’re not going to get much out of me. I would love for you guys to offer up your suggestions as to how my top 100 plugins list could be improved upon in the future.
Anyway – I am wandering off topic here. Before I had even published the Top 100 WordPress Plugins post, I already had this post planned (in anticipation of the dissenters). There is absolutely no doubting that some worthy plugins didn’t make it onto the list. You cannot produce a Top 100 list of anything without there being some discrepancies.
So this post is a noble attempt to redress the balance. Some of you were kind enough to suggest plugins that you believe should have been included in the original list. Here is a small selection of what I consider to be “the best of the rest”. Enjoy!
Duplicate Post
No prizes for guessing what this plugin does. To be honest, I would expect this kind of functionality to come as standard in WordPress, but since it doesn’t, we can happily rely on this plugin to do the job for us.
As you can see from the above screenshot, Duplicate Post integrates seamlessly with the WordPress user interface – you will barely notice it is there. If you regularly produce posts from a specific template, this could make your life a little easier.
WP-Members
I don’t know about you, but the idea of creating a membership site used to seem like a rather intimidating process to me. But as is often the case, there is a plugin available that does the heavy lifting for you.
In short, WP-Members restricts access to your website to only those who are registered members. It allows registration from within your site’s theme (as opposed to the traditional WordPress login box), with the option of embedding fields for additional contact information.
WooCommerce
I am a fan of all things Woo and as such am happy to include this plugin. It also helps that they’ve done all the hard work in explaining the capabilities of WooCommerce in this snazzy video:
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WPtouch
I really like this plugin. Whilst responsive themes are totally awesome, there are many reasons why you might be stuck with something non-responsive. And since a growing number of people will be checking out your website from a mobile device, it is important that you cater for them accordingly.
And that is where WPtouch comes in. This plugin will transform your site into an application-like theme – something that all mobile device users will be instantly familiar with. It is a great solution for anyone who is looking for a quick and easy way to make their website comfortably browsable across a wide range of platforms.
Dynamic Widgets
This is definitely another plugin that belongs in the “should come as standard” group. Dynamic Widgets gives you the ability to display or hide widgets depending upon certain conditions.
As you can see from the above screenshot, there are an enormous number of criteria by which you can choose whether or not widgets are displayed.
Is That All?
There were more suggestions made in the original 100 WordPress plugins post, but only five made the cut. The others were:
Feel free to make any additional suggestions in the comments section!
Creative Commons photo courtesy of trekkyandy
