If you’re running Wordpress like me and many other bloggers, you’ve undoubtedly had to choose which plugins to install. And you’ve probably seen a ton of the same posts out there called “The 10 Best Wordpress Plugins” or something like that.

So what am I going to do?

The same damn thing!

I mean, I have favorite plugins too. So why shouldn’t I have my own list?

Here’s my list of favorite plugins, some of which I use already and some I need to install!

First, two plugins already included in your Wordpress install:

Database backup
Backup your WordPress database without opening PHPMyAdmin. A real timesaver.

Akismet
Probably included, but you’ll need to activate it with a Wordpress API key from a wordpress.com account. It’s a lifesaver when it comes to comment spam.

Now, 19 good ones to add:

Redirect to Feedburner feed
Redirects anyone reading your regular feed to your Feedburner feed. That way you get accurate stats.

Related Posts
Displaying a list of related posts is a great way to keep people reading. If they finish a post and are immediately presented with others they may like, they are less likely to leave.

Favorite Posts
This allows you to mark posts as “classic” and then displays a list of these posts on your sidebar or where ever you wish.

Most Popular Posts
Check this out and look for the “popularity contest” plugin. It displays the most popular posts based on page views, number of comments, etc.

Permalink Redirects and Migration
The plugin from fucoder.com makes sure that each blog entry is only accessed from one URL. The one from deanlee.cn allows you to change your permalink structure without losing visitors at the old URLs. Both are important to keep your link structure search engine friendly.

Random Post
This one does not amaze me, but it can be a neat thing to have somewhere on your blog. Users click a “Random Post” link and go to a random post. (Coolness factor: It is used on TechCrunch.com and JohnChow.com.)

Encourage RSS Subscribers
This is the “What Would Seth Godin Do?” plugin. It allows you to insert a little box in each post reminding new visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed. It’s based on cookies and can be used in different ways, so check it out!

Digg This (and That)
It puts “Digg this” links on each post, and displays a real “Digg this” button once it detects an incoming link from Digg. Digg That was created due to the original “Digg this” being buggy, but now “Digg this” is top-notch.

WP-Cache
Cache your blog for better site performance and faster load times.

Adsense Deluxe
Easily insert Adsense (or similar ads) into each blog post. It even makes sure that a max of 3 ad units are displayed per page.

Subscribe to comments via email
Just like the name implies, it lets visitors subscribe to comments via email (instead of doing a separate RSS feed.)

Reply to specific comments
Lets commentators reply to other commentators. You’ve probably seen this used at ShoeMoney.com and JohnChow.com.

Show recent comments
Place a list of recent comments in your sidebar.

Show top commentators
Shows a list of the people who have commented the most, with a link to their site. A great way to encourage comments.

Let users rate your posts
Will show a rating (out of 5 stars) for each post based on reader votes.

Add ads before or after your posts
Allows you to display ads before or after your posts, even in your feed. Works fine with Adsense and plain html links.

Email your users
Email all your blog’s registered users.

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Looking for more plug-ins?

Try http://wp-plugins.net. It has a wide selection!

[This post originally appeared at InternetMarketingSucks.com]

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If you’re heading out to any Fourth of July picnics in the next couple weeks, feel free to use as much relish as you want. But if you’re blogging, be careful if you get into any Comment Relish.

Comment Relish is a Wordpress plugin that will send a welcome email to any new commenters.

I was considering using it myself, until it crashed John Chow’s blog for two hours!

I guess it’s pretty good for new blogs, but it could crash a blog with lots of comments.

See, it runs through all your comments to see if the current commenter has left a comment before. That way it can dispatch a welcome email to the new guys. Problem is, that query can really take a toll on your MySQL database!!

All is not lost though. The Patchlog made an edited version of Comment Relish you could try.

Hopefully there will be a new version of Comment Relish sometime without these problems.

Until then, stick with sweet relish!

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For anyone new to Wordpress that isn’t using the Akismet plugin, I have some advice for you: Start using it!

When I first started with Wordpress, I didn’t know what Akismet was. I only knew that you needed an API key, and since I didn’t have one, I just ignored it. Boy was that a bad decision.

I heard about the wonders of Akismet when I was searching for ways to stop all this blog comment spam, so I bit the bullet and started using it. It was extremely easy to get started, and your blog probably has Akismet bundled with it to begin with.

First, get an API key. To do that, just head on over to www.wordpress.com and sign-up for an account. If you only want the API key, you can choose “just a username, please.” Then they will email you your account information, including the API key. (The key is near the bottom of the email.)

Then just go to the “Plugins” tab in your blog and activate Akismet. Enter your API key where necessary.

Like magic, your comment spam will disappear!

Well, it won’t really disappear, but Akismet will hide it so you never have to deal with it. It will save lots of time and will save you from the let down when you get excited about comments which just turn out to be spam

Since 95% of all blog comments are spam, I recommend installing Akismet right now!

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Isn’t it great when you really want something expensive, and right before you buy it, you find something just as good for free? I love that. (Now if you find it after shelling out lots of money, it definitely sucks…)

But on the other hand, it’s funny to see a product launch that is basically a paid version of something already available for free!

This product is called Wordpress Affiliate Pro. Before I start bashing it, I’ll admit that I have never used it or seen it in action. I’ve only read someone else’s review of it. And from what I’ve heard, it apparently allows you to add affiliate links in your blog without doing HTML coding. Sounds just like the AutoLinks plugin I already have, which works great, and it’s free!

So, I’ll have to pass on this new product.

You can see the squeeze page at: http://www.wordpressaffiliatepro.com

Then if you fork over your email address, he’ll let you see an even longer sales letter! What a bargain! Then hand over a mere $67 and you might get the product… :-/

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After seeing the numerous bloggers who had integrated “Digg this” and other links directly into their blog posts, I became a bit jealous and pissed off, as you could expect. I need all the help I can get, so I set off in a search for how to put these infamous little icons on my blog…

And luckily I found a site telling me how. It gave me the code and everything. Turns out you just put some code in your single.php or comments.php file and then it does everything automatically after that!

The post is from a while ago at exploding-boy.

So I opened up my files and pasted the code in there. And guess what - it didn’t work! So I tweaked the code a bit to no avail…

Luckily though, some other bloggers were there to save the day - people had posted comments like “thanks for the tip, I’ve used it on my blog.” Great! I can check out how they did it and I’ll be all set!

To my surprise, these bloggers tricked me - none of them actually had the code on their blogs! At least not on the ones they linked to, so it did me no good. So much for the friendly blogosphere!

I had had it, and decided to draw on my very own php coding skills to figure it out. (By the way, I have no php coding skills…)

But luckily I do have some mental reasoning ability and figured out how to tweak my links so they work! Well, it looks like they work…

Want to know how I did it?

1. I used the proper html linking tags, with proper quotation placement. (The very basics.)
2. I changed the & to its html equivalent in the links themselves. (More basic html.)
3. I added a question mark to any > in the php code that didn’t already have one. (This was the key step.)

I think that was it.

Oh yes, one last tip: Add this code near the bottom of your theme’s single.php file or the top of your comments.php file, depending which file is present in your theme. (Sorry if you aren’t using Wordpress!)

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