The BluePrint: Plugins For A Better Blog

One of the biggest advantages of having a blog is the ability to talk to people in the comments.  That being said, the built in comment section is always enough.  There's spam issues, pings, and a whole host of other problems.  This is how we handle them:

There are several tools, plugins, and custom code snippets that we use at WPBeginner. Here is the list of our behind the scene plugins, code snippets, etc.

Edit Flow – We use Edit Flow to manage our editorial workflow. See our Edit Flow review.

Members – This plugin allows us to add new roles and limit content permissions by users. We use it specifically for role management on The Art Of Blogging. See our expert comparison of 5 best WordPress membership plugins.

Advanced Custom Fields We use Advanced Custom Fields to add custom fields into WordPress posts and custom post types.

Post Types Order – By default, you can order your posts by ID, author, title, date etc. But there is no easy way to use a custom order. This plugin lets us do that with an easy drag-drop interface. See our Post Types Order review.

Simple Page Ordering – This plugin works the same as the one mentioned above, it allows us to set custom ordering but for pages. See our Simple Page Ordering review

Excerpts for Pages – We use custom code snippet to display excerpts for pages in WordPress.

Random Post Redirect – This custom code snippet allows us to redirect users to a random post in WordPress if they add /random/ at the end of the url.

Title and Nofollow for Links – We use it to add a title and nofollow fields to insert link popup in WordPress. See our Title and NoFollow for Links review.

Restore Image Title – We use it to add title attribute to the images we add into WordPress posts. See our Restore Image Title review.

WP Mail SMTP – We use it to make sure our WordPress emails are getting delivered to the inbox. To learn more, see how to fix WordPress not sending email issue.

That’s all for now. We will update this page when we start using some new plugin or tool on The Art of Blogging

If you found our blueprint helpful, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.