Getting started

When we create a WordPress site, we typically use the following plugins on almost every site:

http://www.websitedefender.com/news/free-wordpress-security-scan-plugin/ – Good if you think you might have been hacked

http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/#utm_source=wpadmin&utm_medium=plugin&utm_campaign=wpseoplugin – Good for SEO

http://mattwalters.net/projects/wordpress-file-monitor/ – Checks to make sure you’re not being hacked

http://www.videousermanuals.com/white-label-cms/ – Good for customization of the backend and login area for clients. Also helps with minor lock down of the admin menu.

http://www.bad-neighborhood.com/ – Prevents against brute force attacks on login.

http://ocaoimh.ie/exploit-scanner/ – Yet another tool in the fight against being hacked.

http://mtekk.us/code/breadcrumb-navxt/ – Good and easy to customize breadcrumb trail.

We don’t use WordPress for shopping carts as their are much better out-of-the-box solutions for that. All other “plugin” type stuff we write in-house.

Using someone else’s plugins causes too much overhead in that you have to rely upon them to keep it up-to-date. If you write your own plugins, they are customized to exactly what you need and easy to fix if they break.

I recommend that you look into how to create your own plugins, or at the very least, how to use the functions.php file to it’s full extent. WordPress is powerful, but that’s mainly because of it’s flexibility for us end users to basically do whatever we want! 🙂