Once you have completed the basic setup of your WordPress website, it’s time to add more functions by installing plugins.

Here is a basic list of plugins that I integrate into every WordPress website I build.

Basic WordPress Plugins List

Dagon Design Sitemap Generator
FD Feedburner Plugin
Flexi Pages Widget
Google XML Sitemaps
HeadSpace2
My Page Order
NextGEN Gallery
Related Posts
Robots Meta
Secure Files
SEO Slugs
Subscribe To Comments
Wordpress Automatic Upgrade
WordPress Database Backup
WordPress File Monitor
WP-DBManager
WP-SpamFree
Fancybox
WP Security Scan
W3 Total Cache

Yes, you counted correctly, those are 20 different plugins… and if you have ever installed a plugin, you know how difficult a task it was to install these.

Search for the plugin on wordpress.org, click the install button, confirm that the installation was successful and activate the plugin.

Plugin nr 21 to the rescue, meet Plugin Central!

Plugin Central is a plugin created by Vladimir Prelovac, and it is a great time-saver.

This is always the first plugin I install using the standard process:

Plugins -> Add New -> Search -> Install -> Activate Process

Once you have done this, the magic begins. Go to the option “Plugin Central” under the Plugins menu.

The next screen gives you the option that you are going to use. Pay special attention to the field where you can paste the list shown above.
Of course, you can just type the names of other plugins you want to install.

Once you are satisfied with your list, click the “Install Plugins” button.

Depending on your host’s security settings, it might ask you for your FTP data such as FTP site, username and password. Or,  it will start to work directly.

The process of installing the plugins depends on your hosting environment, but with my Just Host based websites it takes under two minutes for all 20 plugins.

After the whole process has ran, you need to active all of the plugins, which takes about four clicks.

Go to the installed plugins page, click the top checkbox (Plugin), choose from the dropdown menu “Activate” and then push “Apply”.

Now all of your plugins are active. Some of them need some configuration (Google xml sitemaps, Wp Super cache and Askimet, etc) but most of them are running right off the bat.

Configuring the plugins will take some time, but you just saved a lot of time on the installation, so go ahead and set all the options that you want. I will be writing more about some of these plugins, but now it’s time for you to take action!

Want to read more about this topic? Go to Building a Website with WordPress.

Running a WordPress Based website produces a Lot of Pages.

But WordPress does not allow you to assign Pages to Categories, But this might be a great function to reduce the number of Links in your Page Menu.

So currently I am looking at the new Plugins from Andy Staines who creates some great Plugins like the "Page Category Plus"
Once I figured out how to use it, you will find the examples and Configuration and Usage Instructions on the Pages..

Want to read more about this topic? Go to Building a Website with WordPress.