Useful tools for Wordpress Users

When trying to set up a website network we spent a lot of time searching for useful tools to help make wordpress site even better.

I thought some of you could also make use of them. These are primary related to performance, SEO, Security and user interaction. Also keep in mind only use what you need so you don't load up your wordpress site with plugins you don't use wasting resources.

1. W3 Cache = Performance Plug in
Fantastic plug in; if you have a Wordpress site...get this!

It takes caches of your pages to make them load faster for your users. Make your users/viewers happy so they stay on your site longer...it also helps with SEO in more ways than one
- Lower bounce rate increase ranks (it really does; we had a site with 70% staying longer than 5 seconds and it was in the top 3 promptly...when it was 60% leaving within 5 seconds, the site dropped to the 2nd page)
- Faster site performance

WordPress › W3 Total Cache « WordPress Plugins
- It's free and it works really well; can't complain
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2. PHP Script = Security
This script is very useful if you want to check whether there are any malicious code in your website.

We have had times where our website was hacked without our knowledge and what was once on the first page dropped off the charts. It was brutal and a lot of profit lost.

It isn't the perfect solution but it's free and it should help you find the malicious code so you can remove it

WP Secure Plugin also does a great job:
WordPress › Secure WordPress « WordPress Plugins
- We've tried it on a few of our site and it does what it says it does.

Another alternative seems to be :
WordPress › BulletProof Security « WordPress Plugins
But never tried it so can't comment here.

3. Social Proof
Very simple plugin that helps with social proof:
WordPress › 1-click Retweet/Share/Like « WordPress Plugins

4. Make your Template Wordpress & Joomla
For those of you looking to create your own wordpress or joomla customized template. Found this site a while ago and thought it might be useful:
Template Builder
(It seems to be something like artisteer but it's free...very flexible for the most part)

5. SEO Plugin
There are so many plug ins out there for SEO although I don't think you can leave out a SEO wordpress plug in....we thought we'd share some that we used and found effective. (There are probably many more great SEO plug ins but can't really comment on those we haven't used)
Personally we prefer to use:
WordPress › All in One SEO Pack « WordPress Plugins
- We've been using this for years already and it works nicely. Simple and effective
- Probably also one of the more used SEO plugin, Another advantage , it was release quite long ago and regularly updated proving consistency and reliability to a certain degree
It does it's job, helps optimize our website better and it's simple.

However if you want something that guides you page by page (not always accurate however), you can try Wordpress SEO:
WordPress › WordPress SEO by Yoast « WordPress Plugins

This is by no means an extensive list however just some which I thought might be helpful. Please add your own suggestions