My top WordPress Plugins for 2012 - A while back I was asked by one of our readers, what plugins, and how many plugins do I use for the Magnet4Marketing blog? So I thought it would be great to share with you some of my favourite WordPress plugins for 2012 and a selection of the ones I’m currently using and would recommend others to try out.
I currently use a maximum of about 10 plugins on the Magnet4Marketing blog; however there are a few other plugins which I use throughout the year from time to time.
Primary WordPress Plugins for 2012
Akismet
This popular plugin service is used by millions of WordPress users and is designed to help you filter comment and trackback spam. Most WP blog’s already have Akismet placed in the plugins folder, but as your blog becomes more and more popular, and you start to receive more and more comments and spam, it is worth signing up for an Akismet API key and making full use of Akismet.
CommentLuv
This plugin is designed to encourage readers to engage and leave comments on your blog, simply by rewarding them with a link back to their last blog post. I’ve been using the CommentLuv plugin since the birth of this blog and look forward in the coming months to upgrade to the premium version of the CommentLuv.

CommentLuv in action
Do Follow
This is simple plug and play plugin that is used to remove the attribution in the comment section of your WordPress blog. Making your blog a dofollow can encourage more comments and is a great way to share the link love. Unfortunately more and more blogs are now choosing to remain a .
Google Analytics
This plugin is a must have and makes it easy to install the Google Analytics tracking script into your WordPress blog.
Online Backup for WordPress
There are a number of backup plugins for WordPress available; the WP Database Backup is one of them with over 1 million downloads. However I’m currently using the BlogVault Premium Backup plugin, with this plugin I can automate it to create partial of full backups of my WP blog including databases and send it to a storage vault, or I can manually backup and download to my desktop and onto an external backup storage device, which I’m currently doing.
Ranged Popular Posts
This cool plugin will allow you to display the most popular posts on your blog by number of comments in your sidebar. Get Ranged Popular Posts plugin for your blog…
Sharebar
I recently started to use this plugin as an alternative to the Socialize plugin which I’ve been using, and is also a great social plugin. Sharebar is absolutely awesome and I’d highly recommend getting it installed on your blog.
Sharebar makes it easy for you to integrate the most popular social sharing icons into your posts and pages on your blog. The recently updated version now allows you to embed Google’s +1 button very easily.
Social sharing icons include, Facebook, Twitter Retweet, Stumbleupon, Digg, Dzone, Share this, Buzz, Reddit, Yahoo, Design float and email.
WordPress SEO by Yoast
This is one of my all-time favourite plugins for WordPress; the WordPress SEO by Yoast is like no other SEO plugin. If you’re currently using the All-in-One, which is a great plugin in itself… but somewhat limited, replace it with the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin as it is far more advanced. Below you’ll find some posts with tutorials on how to get the most out of WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin which we recently covered.
On-Page SEO: Essential Tips for Newbie Bloggers
15 Essential SEO / Webmaster Tools for Bloggers
Post / Page SEO Tips Using WordPress SEO by Yoast Plugin
WP Super Cache
This plugin helps to make my blog pages and posts load much faster, by serving saved or cached pages of my site instead of loading heavier PHP scripts each time a query is sent. With almost 3 million downloads it’s a must have on any serious WordPress blog. Download and install WP Super Cache…
WPtouch
With more and more people now browsing the web on mobile devises, this plugin is a must have if you want to increase visibility of your blog. Once activated you instantly create a mobile version of your blog which loads quicker and allows users to read your latest posts whilst on the go.
Those are essentially the plugins I’m currently using for both my blog’s at Magnet4Marketing and XtremeBlogger.
EasyAzon Amazon Affiliate Plugin
The EasyAzon Amazon Affiliate plugin is a powerful solution for adding your Amazon affiliate links to your WordPress blog posts and pages. I’ve been using this plugin for a little under a month and I absolutely love it, it has certainly helped to increase my CTR.
Other Recommended WordPress Plugins for 2012
The following plugins are those which I use when needed, but I also recommend that you check them out also.
Better Delete Revision – deletes unwanted revision posts hogging your database.
Clean Options – Removes orphaned files from your database
Limited Login Attempts – Helps you keep tab on the number of failed login attempts made on your blog.
Remember when installing plugins into your WordPress blog to ensure that they are sourced from a reputable developer, and that they have a great user rating and consequently also has large number of downloads. Try if possible to avoid installing shabby looking plugins with low ratings and ones that have been reported broken.
If you have some of your own recommendations I’d love to hear them, please share them in the comment section below as always.