I run multiple WordPress sites and this is a list of my favorite Essential WordPress Plugins. I’ll update this post periodically with new plugins as they become reliable additions to my websites.
Essential WordPress Plugins List (Updated 6-25-2014)
Akismet – Awesome spam blocker.
Autoset Featured Image – Auto Set the first image of your post to Featured Image.
Custom Login Logo – Helps customize WordPress for your clients by hiding non essential wp-admin components and by adding support for custom login logo and favicon for website and admin pages.
EWWW Image Optimizer – Reduce file sizes for images within WordPress including NextGEN Gallery and GRAND FlAGallery. Uses jpegtran, optipng/pngout, and gifsicle.
Hashtag – Converts hashtag strings into clickable link in WordPress. If clicked it will search contents contain same hashtag.
Header and Footer – Header and Footer by Stefano Lissa lets to add html/javascript code to the head and footer of your blog.
Jetpack by WordPress.com – Jetpack enables you to connect your blog to a WordPress.com account to use the powerful features normally only available to WordPress.com users.
List Pages Shortcode – Introducing page list shortcodes for easily displaying a list of pages within a post or page. Both shortcodes accept all parameters that you can pass to the wp_list_pages() function. For example, to show a page’s child pages sorted by title simply add in the page’s content.
Quick Page/Post Redirect Plugin – Redirect Pages, Posts or Custom Post Types to another location quickly (for internal or external URLs). Includes individual post/page options, redirects for Custom Post types, non-existent 301 Quick Redirects (helpful for sites converted to WordPress), New Window functionality, and rel=nofollow functionality.
SZ – Google – Before using the plug-in sz-google pay attention to the options to be specified in the admin panel and enter all the parameters necessary for the proper functioning of the plugin.
Wordfence Security – Wordfence Security – Anti-virus, Firewall and High Speed Cache
WordPress SEO – The first true all-in-one SEO solution for WordPress, including on-page content analysis, XML sitemaps and much more.