I’ve used WordPress for nearly 10 years now and I’ve installed and uninstalled many plugins. But I found myself coming back to many of the same plugins again and again. So, I started saving these plugin packages on my hard drive. As I built a new WordPress site I would FTP the plugin files I wanted to use to the new site’s Plugins directory.

Then WordPress introduced the Favorites feature. So I “favorited” all my favorite plugins on wordpress.org and when I select Add New on the Plugins page I can select Favorites and there are all of my old friends!

Dear WordPress: Please make it easier to install a group of plugins from the Favorite screen. A little check box and an “Install All Selected” button would be great!

Here’s a link to my list. And below are a few that I think are extra special or really useful.

• Yoast SEO: If the WordPress world were a tree this would be the big banana. Best for search engine optimization.
• Admin Menu Tree Page View: I like how I can see all my pages with one click.
• Add Category to Pages: What I wish WP did out of the box.
• Compfight: Finding legally useful images is a breeze.
• Google Analyticator: WP Dashboard view of howz it goin’.
• iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security) & Wordfence Security: My personal one-two security punch.
• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP): Because I’m lazy and I like me a little automagic every once in a while. (OK, I like automagic all the time.)