15 best WordPress plugins for business

I admit it, I’m a WordPress fan. I’ve used the blogging platform for years now and attended some terrific WordCamp conferences which have only strengthened my affinity for WordPress.

I like the fact that WordPress is open source and supported by a community. I like the fact that WordPress now has 11,712 different plugins that help you customize your site. And I like that there are free and inexpensive WordPress themes that help you customize the look and feel of your site (my favorite theme provider is WooThemes).

I thought I’d both share and ask for feedback from my readers on the best WordPress plugins for business. I’m interested in knowing what plugins you love and why.

Here’s a list of the WordPress plugins I’ve found most helpful as I blog for my digital public relations consultancy and for clients:

Top 15 WordPress Plugins for Business

1. AddToAny — This socializes your site, allowing visitors to easily share your content on their favorite social media platforms. I like AddToAny because it identifies which social networks the site visitor uses and offers those share options first.

2. Akismet — This anti-spam plugin comes standard with your WordPress software.

3. All in One SEO Pack — One of the primary reasons to blog for your business is to maximize search placement for your most important keywords. Using this plugin makes optimizing your WordPress site for search a cinch.

4. Bad Behavior — This anti-spam plugin helps keep your blog free from link spam. That’s when people fill out comments just to benefit from posting a link to their site on your blog.

5. Contact Form 7 — I’ve tried many different online contact forms. In my opinion, this one’s the most reliable, easiest to install and customize.

6. Disqus Comment System — This socializes your blog comments allowing visitors to post a comment that is then displayed in their Disqus online profile. It’s a courteous thing to offer your blog visitors.

7. Google Analytics for WordPress — This puts regular Google Analytics on steroids. It’s great if you’re interested in measuring results achieved from your blogging efforts. And if you’re not interested in that, don’t bother blogging for business.

8. Google XML Sitemaps — This is another plugin that helps your WordPress site be search engine friendly. Use it to beef up search placement.

9. Plugin Central — This plugin makes using all the other plugins a piece of cake. It allows you to install and update plugins right from your blog’s administration panel instead of messing with FTP.

10. Really Simple CAPTCHA — This plugin helps prevent spam from your online contact form. It’s used in conjunction with the Contact Form 7 plugin described above.

11. Relevanssi — You know how Google Search works, right? Using the Relevanssi plugin provides your blog visitors with a partial-match search that returns results based on query relevance, like Google Search.

12. Subscription Options — I like the simplicity of this plugin. It allows you to display social media platform icons that link the visitor to your RSS feed, Facebook and Twitter.

13. What Would Seth Godin Do — This plugin allows you to display a custom welcome message to new site visitors and a different message to returning visitors.

14. WP-Hashcash — Another anti-spam plugin. You can never have too many anti-spam plugins can you?

15. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin — This plugin adds a list of related posts to the bottom of your posts, based on keywords and tags used in previous posts. It’s very handy.

To check out the complete WordPress Plugin Directory, click here.