Top 5 Wordpress Plugins to Optimize your Website

If you think Wordpress is just for bloggers, you're mistaken. More and more companies are using the Wordpress platform to build attractive, dynamic websites. Why? Two reasons, it's easy and it's cheap.

Easy: Wordpress is offered by all major hosting packages as an APPLICATION, that get run on your hosting packaging. (buy hosting package -> buy domain -> link domain to hosting package -> install Wordpress App: Done)

Cheap: Hmmmmmm Wordpress is free. (Check out Easy Build A Website for hosting and domain as low as $50 for the year!)

Now you've purchased your domain and hosting package and set them up. You've followed the steps to install your free version of Wordpress and ... what now?

Well, Wordpress provides your with a dashboard. On the dashboard you have access to everything from creating pages (like Contact us, About, Products....) to select from hundreds of free Themes (the overall look, pictures and colors of your site) to setting up different users (people how have access to this dashboard). This is also where you will have access to the PLUGINS.

Plugins are small programs that are designed to run and perform a specific function.

If you an think it... there is a plugin for it!

and so, without further adieu here are my Top 5 Wordpress Plugin Picks

#1) Akismet by Automattic : This plugin is AUTOMATICALLY installed when you originally install Wordpress. AND IT IS FREAKING FANTASTIC! This plugin stops comment spam. You can activate it for free but it is so wonderful that I strongly suggest you donate something to the developers. Prior to activating Akismet I was getting HUNDREDS of spam comments (these are comments from people just hoping you'll publish their comment so that their URL will get a backlink on the site) their comments didn't make any sense or if they did I could see by their email address that they were promoting something strange. Akismet stopped all that! It's worth it's weight in gold!

#2) Page Links To, by Mark Jaquith: This plugin allows you to have a page that redirects the site visitor to another URL. (confused?) My website Smashing Coupons has a page on the menu bar that says: CellFire. Visitors that click on that tab to see that page, will actually be redirected to the CellFire website.

#3)Quick Cache by PriMoThemes.com / WebSharks, Inc.: I recently discovered this wonderful plugin. It has sped up my website a 1000 percent. My Coupon website was so slow it was a wonder I was getting any hits at all... in fact, it seems like most people got tired of waiting and would like on the Google Ad instead of the coupons I offered. Quick Cache changed all that. Very easy to use. (I tried W3 Cache which is touted as one of the best and it was just too confusing)

#4) Facebook Page Publish by Martin Tschirsich : by I have been using this plugin for years and it is absolutely fantastic. it adds a little check mark to your page or post that allows you to tell Wordpress whether you want to update your Facebook Page with your latest content. Check out my Smashing Coupons Facebook Page... https://www.facebook.com/pages/Smashing-Coupons/181220891932532 Facebook wall posts are ALL automatically updated from my Wordpress blog with this plugin... no need to manually update this page. Cool right?

#5) WordTwit, by BraveNewCode Inc. : This is my second most favorite social updater! This plugin tweets when you update your site! It can tweet with the title of the post, an excerpt then a tiny url link back to your site.. it's awesome and again, I've been using it for years and through all of the changes to Twitter. My Twitter Account SmashingCoupons is automatically updated, I don't have to even go in there to let people know that I've updated my site! AWESOME

Because there are literally thousands of plugins available for free in Wordpress it's important to realize that if you think you should be able to do something... you probably can. If you have thought it... chances are, someone else has and they have either hired someone to build it... or built it themselves!

Here are a couple of Honorable mentions for plugins.

CJ Datafeed by Hytekk., If you are doing any kind of affiliate marketing and use Commission Junction, this free wordpress plugin is worth it's weight in gold. It creates an individual post for each product in a Commission Junction Datafeed... So, if you have a furniture website and a feed form a commission junction partner that sells furniture, this plugin will create content from that feed in your site. NICE. (requires a little tweaking and things... but very very nice for free)

Google XML Sitemap by Arne Brachhold : Every website that wants to be found needs to have a sitemap. This is like a map that helps search engines find things on your site. This, of all the sitemaps, is the easiest to use. You just click Build sitemap and the plugin does the rest... it also automatically updates when your site is updated!

List Category Post by Fernando Briano: This is a cool plugin that takes a little getting used to, but basically allows you to display things inside your post or page based on their category! It's pretty neat