8 and 1/2 excellent WordPress Plugins you probably didn’t know about

In the last vote on Beeex.net, our readers voted for more WordPress Plugins, Themes and Goodies. So we followed your call and here comes the first WordPress Plugins post on this site! First in a row, of course

In this post, we collected 8 very good, yet not so widely spread WordPress plugins for you; as well as one plugin which is required for another one (that’s the ‘half’ one). All of them are great, simply because they add valuable functionality to your WordPress blog. The reason why you may not have come across them yet is that they, despite their benefits, haven’t been promoted too much. But we know of a whole lot of other bloggers out there who use them. Only they don’t talk about it. We do!
To install a plugin, you have to upload it to your wp-content/plugins folder and activate it in your Plugins menu.

• All 8 and a half plugins run on WP 2.3.2 without a problem. You can find more information about each plugin by clicking on the source link. If you’re in a hurry though and you’re eager to start, you can use the direct download link provided with each plugin. They all come with a Readme file.

So, here goes: The 8 and 1/2 excellent WordPress plugins you probably didn’t know about… until now!

1. WP-Sticky (direct download link)

This WordPress plugin lets you set any post as “sticky”. That means that it will always be displayed as the first post on your blog. It’s very useful if you, for example, want to create a “month’s best” or such, which you want to have displayed on top of all other posts at all times. Whatever you write and post after that, will be listed under your sticky post as usual.

To download WP-Sticky, you can click on the above link. Alternatively, you can download it directly using the direct download link on the right.

2. Fancy Pull-Quotes (direct download link)

Have you ever seen these in-text pull quotes? A short sentence or quote written in bold letters in a bigger font, with the post body wrapping aroung it? Here’s the plugin to do it. You simply put your desired text in a ‘pull’ tag. You can define its appearance easily in the options menu. Worth a try!

3. JAW Popular Posts Widget (direct download)

This is an excellent plugin that we use here on Beeex.net as well that unfortunately, doesn’t work for WordPress 2.6 anymore (we’re hoping for an update and will update you on that as soon as it is released!). You can see the widget to the right under our sponsors. It displays the most popular (most viewed) posts. The benefits for your site are that it adds credibility, as your readers can see what others liked most.

1/2. Popularity Contest Plugin (direct download link)

The JAW Popular Posts Plugin requires this plugin to work, as it pulls the stats from the data gathered by it. Popularity Contest is a neat plugin itself: it adds a tab to your WordPress Dashboard and shows you a detailed list of which post has been accessed how many times, and a lot more.

4. DoFollow (direct download link, unzipped PHP file; right-click and Save As!)

DoFollow disables the automatic rel=”nofollow” attribute added to external links in WordPress. This attribute is important for search engines such as Google – they don’t count a nofollow link as an inbound link. With this link, you enable backlinks (and also trackbacks) to be counted as inbound links. This is a good thing for anybody who will comment on your site.

5. WP 2.3 Related Posts (direct download link)

This nice plugin displays articles on your blog related to a post the viewer is reading. It uses the newly introduced WordPress Tags for that. That’s why it only works with WordPress 2.3 or higher! (You should keep your WordPress updated anyway. Here’s the link to the newest version) (Update: This plugin is outdated. We featured a replacement in this new post: 10 excellent & promising WordPress Plugins!)
Installation is easy, but requires that you open up your single post script (usually single.php) to insert a single line of code. You might want to put it directly under the php the_content tag (that’s where we put it. Right, we use this plugin as well!)

6. No Self Pings (direct download link)

If you’re annoyed with WordPress’ automatic self-pinging, you can download and install this little goodie. It prevents your WordPress blog from pinging itself. That means that when you link back to an older post on your own blog, there won’t be a trackback entry placed in that post’s comment section. Trackbacks from sites other than your own blog are not affected.

7. WP Relative Date (direct download link)

This plugin adds a relative date to your posts and comments next to the date, such as Today, Yesterday, 2 Days ago, 2 Weeks ago, 2 Seconds ago, 2 Minutes ago, 2 Hours ago. Giving your readers this information adds to the overall style of your blog and creates a sort of relevancy!

8. Subscribe To Comments (direct download link)

Our last excellent plugin in the list of 8 and 1/2 plugins you probably didn’t know about is this goodie: It adds a small checkbox under the comment box, asking if you’d like to subscribe to this comment thread. If activated, an email is sent to the reader’s email address automatically when someone posts a new comment in that thread. It’s a great plugin, adding a lot of ‘personality’ to your blog: it encourages users to return to your site and keeps them in the discussion.

There you have ‘em, the 8 and a half excellent plugins you probably didn’t know about – until today. We hope you liked them and you can put them to good use!

One last note: You might want to check back in the next few days, as we’re already working on the next giveaway for WordPress bloggers. Stay tuned, subscribe to Beeex.net!

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