Top plugins your WordPress website must have:

1. Akismet – This plugin is the standard for spam protection on your blog and an absolute must if you are allowing comments. This is a little plugin that comes prepackaged with most WordPress installs, however, rarely used because most people don’t realize it’s importance. Are ou tired of those bots infiltrating the comment section of your blog? Do you want to get rid of those annoying, “getcheapnikessocheapineedtoyoutocometomysite.com” ad placements once and for all? Akismet has offered a free solution that works great and is still at the top of my list of “Top must have WordPress plugins”.

2. WordPress SEO by Yoast – By far the most important plugin you will place on your Wordpress site. This plugin is jam packed with incredible, crowd building features right out of the box. Unlike those “other” SEO plugins, WordPress SEO is user friendly and very easy to use, with a plugin tour that takes you through the plugin from the start. Yoast offers very in-depth documentation on this plugin as well as a definitive guide to higher rankings for WordPress sites.

3. Gravity Forms – So i know what you are wondering, “How can I beter engage with my audience, giving them easy access to contacting me?” Im sure you have searched and found that there are hundreds of solutions out there. Through your searches you have realized why most most form plugins are free, They are not worth even a penny. I know your pain, I felt the same way. My whole life changed in one day when I was introduced to Gravity Forms. Not only was this an incredibly easy form builder, It gave integration options with services such as MailChimp andPayPal. One of my favorite features is the fact it has conditional logic. This makes it a great tool for creating custom sign ups and other more intense forms. All in all, this is not a free plugin but worth every dime none the less.

4. NextScripts: Social Networks Auto-Poster – NextScripts has definitely made my life a lot easier with this social network auto-poster. Its is hard to stay up with all of my followers on all my different networks while yet maintaining my busy life style at the same time. This plugin allows me to automatically share new posts with all of my networks, instantly! That’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest,Stumbleupon and more, all notified as soon as you hit the publish button on your new post. Now that’s what I’m talking about… an it’s FREE!

5. Child Themify - Have you ever made what seems like thousands of changes to a theme only to have them all erased by one update? This is followed by a few tears and a regret for even getting into this type of work in the first place. WordPress tells us the best way to handle this is with a child theme. With a child theme you can make all your changes separate from the parent theme, thus it can not be effected by updates. Child Themify is a one-click solution. Choose your theme and click “create a child theme”. Fill in the name of your child theme and vuala… there you have it. Your very own custom child theme. Thank you for this wonderful plugin John P. Bloch.

This list is ever growing. Feel free to comment below with any of your favorite must have plugins and we will make sure to check them out. Remember, any thing built great was built on a great foundation. Let Apostolic Web Works build your next project.