I build almost all our websites in WordPress and then depending on customer requirements I either use existing plugins or create my own. Over time I’ve noticed the same plug-ins being used over and over again so these days I have a folder with the latest version of Wordpress and these three plugins all ready to FTP to new sites.

More Fields

This plugin is just essential. It allows you to add additional fields to your blog posts or pages in a nice easy to configure plugin.  Custom Fields have been a feature of WordPress for some time but they lack a useful interface and that’s exactly what More Fileds does for you.

A good example of more fields in action is in this recruitment website we recently built. In this instance the jobs are created as special blog posts and all the job details such as salary, location, etc. are stored as custom fields. This also means that I have an RSS feed for new jobs up and running right out of the box.

More fields lets you turn WordPress into anything, a car dealers website,  property portal, jobs website, product reviews, etc.

Note: More Fields requires that you can customise your wordpress theme to display the additional fields in your posts or pages so you will need FTP access and a basic understanding of php and html.

More Fields Plugin Home Page

Cforms

Whenever you want to create a form for your website visitors then Cforms is the way to go. Cforms is one of the most complete WordPress plugins out there and it can handle anything from a simple contact us form right through to multi-page application forms with file uploads, etc.  Captch’s, required fields, success pages, date pickers, drop-downs and radio buttons and the ability to easily style your forms are just some of the many features.

CForms Plugin Home Page

Tinymce Advanced

Clients aways want to make tables and the toolbar on the default editor lacks this feature. While it is possible for users to go into the html editor and build their table there, that’s not a workable solution for most. Tinymce Advanced lets you take control of the toolbar and decide what you want and where, including tables.

TinyMCE Advanced Plugin Home Page