One of the most awesome things about WordPress is the seemingly endless list of plugins you can add to it. And most of them are even FREE!!

Here is a list of plugins that going forward, I just won’t be without (and I suggest you get them too!)

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-jump-menu/

Gives you a dropdown menu in the upper right corner of your admin screen, so you can instantly jump to whatever page/post you want in one shot. HUGE time saver if you have a lot of content in your site!

http://www.nebraskadigital.com/2010/12/27/plugin-organizer/

Lets you change the loading order of plugins, which is sometimes very important if plugins are conflicting. But even more important is this plugin will allow you to selectively load plugins only on certain pages! If you have plugins that are loading on every single page all the time even when they aren’t needed on certain pages, this is what you’ve been waiting for.

http://blog.bokhorst.biz/3626/computers-en-internet/wordpress-plugin-shortcode-exec-php/

Allows you to create your own simple [shortcodes] that will execute whatever PHP code you want them to. I’m using this LIKE CRAZY now, it’s like being able to create your own plugins anytime you want in a matter of seconds.

http://www.qurl.nl/dynamic-widgets/

Selectively enable widgets per page, per category, per post, per pretty much anything you want.

http://planetozh.com/blog/my-projects/wordpress-admin-menu-drop-down-css/

Do you think it’s stupid that WordPress has all its navigation down the left hand side? Me too! This plugin will turn it into a horizontal menu at the top of your blog’s admin. Take advantage of your widescreen monitor and stop scrolling so darn much!

http://lopo.it/duplicate-post-plugin/

A massive time saver! Click one link and duplicate any page or post, edit as needed, and save. Fantastic when you need to make recurring copies of something that are mostly the same every time.

http://www.webtechwise.com/plugin-test-drive/

VERY helpful when developing, you can enable a plugin only for a specific username or IP address. Test that crazy new plugin out first, before you enable it for your whole site!

Oh and in case you’re wondering, every single one of the above plugins is FREE!

Have I mentioned how much I love WordPress these days? 

Jonathan