Lock down your self-hosted WordPress website

Use this list of best-of essential security plugins. These are all free of coarse and most of them are well supported, most.

• Akismet

  Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not.

• Secure WordPress

  Little basics for secure your WordPress-installation.

• SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam

  Adds CAPTCHA anti-spam methods to WordPress on the comment form, registration form, login, or all. This prevents spam from automated bots.

• WordPress Database Backup

  On-demand backup of your WordPress database. Search for WP-DB-Backup in the WordPress free plugin directory. This plugin can also perform scheduled email backups in ZIP format emailed to you.

This may be a short list but these powerful WordPress plugins will provide the best security for your self-hosted WP install. Search for more plugins at the WordPress free plugin directory.

This post proudly sponsored by BeerSmith Home Brewing Software and Free Domain Names at FatCow Web Hosting!

After using WordPress for so long on this Fatty Matty Brewing blog, I decided to use WordPress as a CMS (content management) with a few new clients’ websites including Greenspirit Farm and Free Congregation of Sauk County. Each of these unique clients has different business communication needs from WordPress and with the huge amount of WordPress plugins available, I knew I could pretty much accomplish any requests for website customization.

This list of WordPress plugins gives your website flexability to perform tons of fat website functions.

My Favorite WordPress Plugins

Plugins Used on the Fatty Matty Brewing Brewlog

• Akismet – A must have spam catcher for ALL WordPress websites!
• BrewPoll – For all you beer bloggers… Adds a BrewPoll icon to each post on your blog.
• WordPress Database Backup – On-demand backup of your WordPress database. Have you backed up your WordPress database today? Do this before you upgrade to WordPress 2.8!

WordPress Plugins Used on the Greenspirit Farm website

• All in One SEO Pack – Improve your website’s popularity on Google with super SEO.
• Force User Field Registration – Forces new users to register additional fields. As a WordPress admin, it is nice to know that your website’s members are human.
• Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO!.
• Login Configurator – Sick of looking at the WordPress logo on your website? Get your company logo on the WordPress registration / login page.
• Multi Column Category List – Want to create a WordPress Page with a list of categories? See the Recipes Category list at the bottom of this page. Requires the use of WordPress Page Templates and some custom coding.
• Page Links To – This plugin allows you to point a post or page to any URL you want. Very useful if you want a WordPress Page to link an external URL.
• Simple Login Widget – If you are using WordPress as a CMS, this simple widget will show just the login/logout and register links instead of all the RSS and Meta Feed crap.
• WP Render Blogroll Links – Display your blogroll or WordPress links on a page like this!

Plugins Used on the Free Congregation website

• Drop-down menu – Add a cool drop down style page menu to your WordPress theme.
• Event Calendar – After a ton of searching for the perfect Event Calendar plugin – this one is the BEST!
• Inline Posts – Allows you to include dynamic WordPress posts in your static WordPress pages (and in other posts). See an example here.
• Simple:Press Forum – as far as I can tell (and there are not many to choose from) the best WordPress Forum Plugin. See a brand new installation of this WordPress Forum plugin here.