Studio Hyperset

Studio Hyperset does a good deal of WordPress development for a number of different clients. And whenever I start a new WordPress project — just after completing the “Famous 5 Minute Installation” — I always add a the same set of plugins before going any further.

I’ve been doing this consistently for a good while, but it took me a considerable amount of time to collect the following plugin set and a considerable amount of heuristics to discover the most reliable versions of each type. As such, I thought others might benefit from, and save time as a result of, the following list.

In addition to Akismet and Matt Mullenweg’s Hello Dolly, of course, as TCM might put it, these plugins are the essentials:

SECURITY

• Chris Coyier and Jeff Starr’s Block Bad Queries (BBQ)
  Protects WordPress against malicious URL requests.
• bsndev’s Ultimate Security Checker
  Identifies potential security vulnerabilities and suggests fixes.
• WebsiteDefender and hallsofmontezuma’s WP Security Scan
  ibid., but I like a second opinion.

UTILITY

• McShelby’s Exec-PHP
  Allows developers to execute PHP (includes, WP functions, &tc.) in posts, pages, and text widgets.
• filosofo’s WP-DB Backup
  Schedules, backs up, and FTPs/emails a zip file of all WordPress database tables.
• wpxue and ym99a’s WP PHP widget
  Similar to Exec-PHP but creates a dedicated PHP-executing widget.

SEO

• arnee’s Google XML Sitemaps
  Automatically generates and submits XML sitemaps to a number of different search engines.

There are several other WordPress plugins I almost always use (SteveSmith1983's List Tags; alexkingorg and crowdfavorite’s Twitter Tools), and some might suggest a mobile theme like BraveNewCode’s WPtouch Pro is de rigueur in the smartphone-n-tablet age.

But I’d never start any WordPress project without the above seven plugins in place.