Hey guys, just wanted to help everyone out with a little list of the best WordPress Plugins out there now. This helps everything to gaining more traffic, to better functionality, to SEO, to just all around goodness for your site. Hopefully this helps everyone out.

This is a good list but I have an even bigger list of WordPress apps for free at http://betterlifemarketingtoday.com/hottest_wp_plugins.html   So if you like what you see but want more of what's out there to help your WordPress sites, then check it out.... It's FREEEEEEEE !!!!

· Google Analytics for WordPress: This tool is handy to be able to check your Google Analytics account right inside of your WordPress Dashboard. First, you will want to setup a Google analytics account and then once you install the plug-in, you can sync WordPress with your analytics account.

· SEO Ultimate for WordPress: This is a great SEO tool that has a TON of features. You may get lost so I would check youtube videos for instructions like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE_10_nwe0c<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office">  

Of course, if you cannot figure everything out then the next best option is the popular “All in one SEO” plug in.

· Cbnet Ping Optimizer Plugin: When you are writing or editing a post or page, WordPress “pings” or notifies sites every time you edit or hit save, etc. This actually can blacklist your site with these pinged sites and this plug in can help to stop that from happening.

· Broken Link Checker Plugin: This handy plugin will check through your site and look for broken links. You really want to stay ahead and delete these broken links or redirect them so as not to make Google angry. Once, installed you can check for broken links directly from your dashboard.

· MediaRSS: This is a great plug-in that just runs in the background. It embeds media into your feeds without you having to do anything. Just install and it’s ready to go.

· WPtouch Plugin: This plugin lets you transform your blog into a neat readable form for mobile devices. The best part is that you do not have to do any editing to your site. At first, I thought this wasn’t anything I needed to worry about. I thought “who would visit my site on their phone?” But people are using the phones for web searches more and more and once I installed this plugin and checked it out on my phone....WOW. It actually looks good and I didn’t do anything to it. This plugin is a set and forget one.

· Contact Form 7: This plugin is EXTREMELY useful if you want to create a professional contact form for your page. What I love is that you can also download the plugin “Really Simple CAPTCHA” and it works alongside your Contact Form to block robots from sending you email.

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· Global Translator:  This is a handy plugin that will translate your blog into around 48 different languages if it is needed. This is not a needed plugin but nice to have for foreign visitors.

· Google XML Sitemaps: Everyone should have this on their blog. It easily creates a sitemap for your site which is essential. You will also want the plugin “Page Links To”. Once you activate the plugin, go into settings and go into XML-Sitemap and follow the instructions to create the sitemap. Then, click on the link to check it out and copy the web URL. Now create a new page from your dashboard and call the page Sitemap. As long as you already installed the “Page Links To” plugin then at the very bottom of your create page window should be a box that says page links to.... paste your sitemap URL here and save, then test it out to see if it works.

· SEO Auto Linker: This is an updated version of the plugin “SEO Smart Links” and what it does is automatically link words and phrases in your posts and pages. So you add words to the plugin and then what page or post you want those words to link to when they are used. Linking pages and posts to other pages and posts within your blog really help to increase your SEO.

· 404 Redirection: This is a great plugin that will take dreaded 404 pages and automatically redirect them to the main homepage URL of the blog. Great tool.

· WP Auto Tagger: Automatically finds tags based on your post content. Great for adding relevant tags if you do not want to add them yourself. If you have an autoblog that drips content then this plugin is an absolute must.

· file:///C:\\\\DOCUME~1\\\\CASAVA~1\\\\LOCALS~1\\\\Temp\\\\msohtml1\\\\01\\\\clip_image001.png"><?xml:namespace prefix = w ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word"> Ultimate TinyMCE WordPress Plugin: When editing a post or page you may notice that there aren’t a ton of options in the formatting toolbar. (bold, italics, bullet) If you go to the very right of this toolbar you will see a button to “show/hide the kitchen sink”. This expands the toolbar and gives you a few more options but, really it is still limited. With this plugin you get a bunch of new options to really be able to edit your blog like needed. This is an essential plugin in my opinion.

· WP Hide Pages: Hides pages that you do not want visible on your theme. Sometimes with themes, you add a static page as the main page. When you do this, you could end up having a “home” navigation button and then a nav button to your homepage but it is labeled the name of the post. So really, you have two buttons that just lead to the home page. This plugin will let you get rid of that extra nav button. Extremely useful.

· Measure My SEO: $49.95 - This is a paid plugin developed by Jason Fladlien and Wilson Mattos that I highly recommend. Basically it takes all of your posts and gives you a SEO score by percentage. When you are in your post if you follow the SEO checklist then it adds to your score and if you score a 100% then you are good to go on that post. Love this plugin because it reminds me what I need to do.

· WP Member Champ: $48.50 – Cool plugin that allows you to turn your site into a membership site where the viewer would need to pay to get access to your content or downloads. It really is simple to use and professional. If you use Aweber it can also add emails to your list as they sign up for your site.

· WP File Lock: $47 – This plugin is similar to the WP Member Champ plugin except that it isn’t designed to make your site a membership site. It is really setup for a single product where once you buy the product you are given a username and password if you want to login later to download product. This stops people from accessing your download page without buying and also you cannot link to the page or the files. This plugin also integrates with Aweber and the payment options integrate with PayPal, ClickBank, or WSO which is pretty nifty.

· WP Super Cache: Generates static html files for your WordPress blog so that it loads faster. Google loves websites that load fast so this is a must for your site. Once you install and activate the plugin, go to settings, click on “WP Super Cache” and select the main option under settings, “Caching On”. Once you enable this, you are good to go and can keep all of the original settings. This plug-in is also pretty noob friendly and does not require careful configuration. If you know a lot about caching and think you are pretty technical, you can try the plug-in “W3 Total Cache”, but this plug-in requires testing and configuration. Only use if you think you can handle it.

- WP Squeeze Pro: $97 – Ok, this is a plugin with a hefty price but I wanted to add it to the list specifically because it is an awesome tool for newcomers or those that don’t know much about designing squeeze pages. It comes with 24 squeeze page templates and the customization and setup could not be simpler. If you are at all interested or need help with squeeze pages, check out the video on their page file:///C:\\\\DOCUME~1\\\\CASAVA~1\\\\LOCALS~1\\\\Temp\\\\msohtml1\\\\01\\\\clip_image001.png">

Again, hopefully this helped but if you want the complete list for free visit: http://betterlifemarketingtoday.com/hottest_wp_plugins.html 

- Rob Casavant