If you’ve never heard of WordPress, you better acquaint yourself quickly. It’s not a mandatory skill for most jobs, but keep in mind, as of March 2012, WordPress is on over 60% of websites around the world which makes it the most widely used and popular content management system (CMS) currently in existence. There are approximately 19,707 plugins freely available in the WordPress Plugin Directory which are responsible for 308,645,125 plugin downloads.
These plugins are for everybody even if you’re a newbie that just created a WordPress blog and needs some advice, or you’re a professional that uses WordPress as a business website; or better yet, you’re somewhere in between. Although we love these plugins, you don’t have to download them; don’t worry, we won’t be mad.
A little while back, we published our Top WordPress Plugins post and had much success, including having to add new plugins that were shared by users. This is the follow-up and therefore, does not contain the plugins in the 1st article (check both for a full list). If we’re missing some, please let us know.
Best Free WordPress Plugins in 2012
Adsense Made Easy
Creates a widget that allows you to add Google AdSense to any widget sidebar or area of your theme.
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/adsense-made-easy/
Broken Link Checker
Checks your website/blog for broken links (links that go to websites that no longer exist) and missing images then notifies you on the dashboard and via email if any are found. This is great for SEO as broken links lower your website quality score.
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/broken-link-checker/
Captcha
Plugin simply asks the visitor to answer a math question to determine whether the visitor is a human being and not a spam robot when posting a comment and when logging into the dashboard.
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/captcha/
Category Order
This allows you to easily reorder your categories the way you want via simple drag and drop.
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/order-categories/
Comments Switcher
Allows users to comment on your blog using their Facebook credentials instead of having to register to your site. We prefer this one as it allows for integration with the regular commenting system.
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/comments-switcher/
Official StatCounter Plugin
Adds the StatCounter tracking code to your blog. We emphasize search engine rankings transparency and this plugin not only shows where a user came from, which search engine was used, but also shows the ranking of the keyword and the page it was linked to on Google.
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/official-statcounter-plugin-for-wordpress/
Permalink Finder
Never get a 404 page not found again! If you have restructured or moved your blog, this will find the right post or page.
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/permalink-finder/
Post Ratings
Rating system for your WordPress blog’s post and page that shows up on Google search results next to the link.
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/post-ratings/
Pricing table
Easily generate pricing tables that actually look good.
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pricing-table/
Related Posts Thumbnails
Shows related posts and their thumbnails under each post.
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/related-posts-thumbnails/
Social Slider
Links to your social networking sites’ profiles in a box floating at the left side of the screen.
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/social-slider/
Some other plugins can be found at our previous Top WordPress Plugins page, but there are still many other plugins available and we would love to hear your suggestions! Which plugin can’t you survive without?
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