Here’s a list of my favorite 22 wordpress plugins! One of the best things about wordpress.org is the plugins option. It’s a great way to take a blog and turn it into an amazing website, shop, platform, or whatever you can imagine. Throughout the years I found some amazing plugins that spice up the website. I’m happy to share them with you! In order to find these plugins go to “plugins -> add new -> and then search by its name or author” or follow the link and see if you can download it from the plugin’s direct website and then upload it into your plugins. {let me know if you are having a hard time & I’ll help}

 

Akismet | By Automattic | Visit plugin site

Cost: $0-$donate
Description: This plugin protects your website from spam comments & virus {so far it has protected my website from 3,274 spam!}

 

 

BackupBuddy | By The PluginBuddy Team |  Visit PluginBuddy.com

Cost: $75 – $197 {depending on how many websites you’re buying it for}
Description: This is one of the best backup tools for your wordpress. It’s scary to thing you could lose all your hard work because of a virus or a plugin that wasn’t compatible with your wordpress! I normally wouldn’t want to pay for a plugin but this is a must for every website.

 

 

Better Author Bio | By Arif Nezami | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This plugin lets you have a small description about the author at the bottom of the post. {You can see mine at the bottom}. The good thing about this plugin is that if you have multiple authors {as this website} you can see specifically who wrote each post and you can quickly go to all the posts that author wrote.
Example: 

Calendar Archives | By Amit Badkas | Visit plugin site

Cost: $0
Description: This is a great tool to show your posts in an organized, visual way. You can put this calendar on a page and it’ll display a calendar with images of your posts. It automatically grabs the first image you inserted in your post and makes that the representation image in the calendar.
Example: view mine here

 

 

 

Facebook Comments |  By Alex Moss | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This plugin lets people comment on your website with their facebook login so they don’t have to fill out your comment form. It’s also good because they have the option of their comment showing up on their facebook wall and if they do show it, it’s free advertising for you.
Example:

 

 

 

Facebook Likes You! | By Piotr Sochalewski | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This is another facebook plugin. It provides a like + send button on each post or page {depending on your settings} and allows your viewers to like a post.
Example:

 

 

File Gallery | By Bruno “Aesqe” Babic | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This is a great tool if you upload alot of photos at a time. If you have multiple amount of photos in a post and you don’t want to have to put one by one, this is the plugin for you. It organizes your uploads and lets you move them around and then put them in your page or post as a gallery or regular images. {This one saves me alot of time}
Example:

 

 

 

GRAND Flash Album Gallery | By Sergey Pasyuk | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0 for the basic one {that’s the one I’m using}
Description: I’ve tried a handful of flash galleries and I didn’t like any of them other than this one. They all had a huge logo advertising their sites on top of the gallery and etc. This one also has the option for people to view it Fullscreen or as a Slideshow.
Example:

 

 

 

Grunion Contact Form | By Automattic, Inc. | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This is a great contact form that you can also modify.
Example: My example here 

 

 

 

 

MailChimp Widget | By James Lafferty | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0 – $donate
Description: Mailchimp is a great service that lets you send beautiful newsletters to your subscribers. I highly recommend it. This is the plugin that lets your viewers signs up for it from a widget.
Example:

 

 

 

 

My Calendar | By Joseph C Dolson | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This is a cool calendar that lets you set up events. I use this for other websites more than mine, like the architecture club website. It’s pretty good for setting up events. I use it for this website only to tell my authors when they have to post a new blog post.
Example:

 

 

 

 

 

MyWebCounter | By webcounter | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: I’ve been looking for a great web counter for a while and I finally found a good one :] This is a simple one but works great!
Example:

 

 

 

Polldaddy Polls & Ratings | By Automattic, Inc. | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This plugin lets you setup polls for wordpress, it’s great to get your viewers input. The second part of this plugin gives you the option to let your viewers rate your posts.
Example:

 

 

 

post-views | By Suny Tse | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This is a great plugin that keeps track of your visitors and lets you know in a variety of ways how many people are viewing each post & page!
Example:

 

 

 

 

Related Posts Thumbnails | By Maria Shaldybina | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This plugin displays related thumbnails at the bottom of each post. I like this plugin and it worked great when I first got it but for some reason I’m having trouble with it now. I have tried a few other thumbnail related posts plugins but had no luck.
Example:

 

 

 

Super-simple Pinterest Widget | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: The name says it all, it’s a simple pintrest widget that shows your pintrest.com pins!
Example: You can see this plugin in my sidebar —->

 

 

View Random Post | By PHPoet | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This plugin lets you put a widget button that lets your viewer see a random post.

 

 

WordPress Font Uploader  | By Pippin Williamson | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This plugin lets you choose your own fonts for your website by uploading them. I LOVE this plugin, it definitively brought character to my website :]
Example: You can just look at the variety of fonts on my website :)

 

 

WP e-Commerce  | By Instinct Entertainment | Visit plugin site
Cost: Starts off at $0 but you can upgrade some stuff for money
Description: This is THE plugin that lets you transform your wordpress into a shop. It’s number 1 out there and best the rest by far.
Example: you can look at my shop to see a way you can set it up

 

 

SexyBookmarks  | By Shareaholic | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This plugin is a way for your viewers to share your posts to facebook, twitter and many other websites. It’s pretty clever !
Example:

 

 

 

Under Construction | By Jeremy Massel | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: Makes it so your site can only be accessed by users who log in. Useful for developing a site on a live server, without the world being able to see it.
Example:

 

 

Widget Context | visit plugin here
Cost: $0
Description: Widget Context allows you to specify widget visibility settings.
Example:

I hope these help you <3

If you find any other lovely plugins; share them in a comment below! :)

 UPDATE on 12/2/11 : I will continue to add plugins that I find over here so you can have them all in one place. If you do find other plugins that you enjoy, please share it with us! :)