Sorry, I got a little sidetracked while writing this post in the kitchen. First, my five ultimate favorite kitchen plugins are:

1. The Toaster

My favorite snack in the morning, afternoon, and night is buttered toast with pickles…mmmm, mmmm.

2. The Egg Cooker

One of the greatest inventions on this planet, the egg cooker. Nothing beats cooking a bunch of eggs on Sunday, then having an egg and muffin everyday for breakfast.

3. The Vita Mixer

My wife makes a mean shake!

4. The Juicer

I make a mean juice…with mostly vegetables the little rug-rats still love it.

5. The Pressure Cooker

Even just for rice, this appliance is one of the miracle marvels. Hey, anything that cooks something faster and softer is going to be on my top list of anything.

Ok, sorry again for that tangent. If you’re here for my favorite WordPress plugins, here you go:

1. Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin

There isn’t anything much worse than having a blog and never being excited for comments. When you see that you have a new comment the first thing that should go through your head is, “Sweet beans, I got a comment!” not “Oh, it’s probably just spam.” If you’re having WordPress spam problems try this plugin on for size. There is the Akismet plugin too…although you have to pay for it if you’re making money off your blog. Oh and I’ve heard that it has been known to filter good comments too.

Growmap adds a simple little checkbox at the end of your comment form (See my comment section for an example). This little checkbox is so much less obtrusive than those ugly, hard to read, captchcas. Surprisingly this simple plugin has dramatically helped. Occasionally I do get a few spam comments, but it’s few and far between. Download Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin.

2. ReplyMe

This one came to be a favorite after a friend recommended it. For some weird reason WordPress (by default) does not email a commenter when you’ve replied. I really don’t understand why they haven’t built this in yet (don’t get me wrong I love WordPress, this is a minor gripe, but it seems so obvious and important). At an rate, Replyme does it for you. Replyme also has plenty of customizing settings, allowing you to personalize the message sent. Download ReplyMe.

3. Google XML Sitemaps

Without getting too technical and nerdy on you, Google XML Sitemaps makes it easier for Google to index (scan and reference) your site. The plugin generates and submits/notifies Google, Yahoo, and Bing of your new Sitemap file. Anytime you make a significant change to your site, the plugin rebuilds your sitemap. Download Google XML Sitemaps.

4. CommentLuv

This one is for fun, and can incentive other bloggers to leave comments. In a nutshell, if another blogger wants to leave a comment on your site CommentLuv gives them an option to link back to their own lastest blog post. You can also decide whether that link can be followed by Google (building links to your site is the number one method of reaching first page results on Google). Download CommentLuv.

5. Analytics360

This one is for you, and you only. Checking analytics can be a little bit of a pain. You have to log into Google, then go to Google Analytics, press a couple buttons just to see your stats. With this plugin most of your stats are one click away. Be sure to read my step by step post on how to add this plugin to your blog. Download Analytics360.

Bonus plugin…and free download!

6. Rob’s Social Share

This plugin is homegrown…kinda. I had been looking, for a long time, trying to find a plugin that would make my posts share correctly on Facebook and Google +…no luck! What do I mean by “share correctly”? When some one shares one of my posts on Facebook or Google it should share with the correct title, description, and most importantly the correct image. Have you ever tried to share something on Facebook and it gives you 20 images to choose from and most of them are unrelated to what you’re sharing? That’s because, as the author and owner of your site, you have to pre-specify what Facebook should use when some one wants to share your post.

Well, like I said I haven’t been able to find a plugin that makes this dead simple. So I pieced one together myself. Click here to download the zipped file, and upload to your own WordPress blog.

Once you’ve downloaded the plugin, read how to install and use it.