Here are 7 great plugins from WordPress that can add some cool features and extra customization to your WordPress site. Some are easy to use and some are more advanced.

WP – Choose Thumb – This is a cool plugin that allows you to add a thumbnail to any post or archive page by adding a simple line of code to your index file. You do however, need to go back in to all of your posts and select the the thumbnail you would like to show as your thumbnail. That can be time consuming.  If you’ve already uploaded an image in your post, it won’t show unless it’s selected. Other than that, I like the styling of it. I like this better than the Thumbnail Excerpts plugin.

Exclude Pages – Great plugin because it shows a check box in all of your pages to allow you to easily exclude any page from  any listings in your page navigation menus.

Custom Excerpts – Do you use the template tag <?php the_excerpt(”) ?> in your theme? Did you ever notice all formatting is stripped out?  Custom Excerpts allows you to set a custom excerpt text, length, and to choose HTML tags to allow. This is a very easy way to format your code without messing with the core files. Finally, your links will show in an excerpt. The only problem I’ve come across it when using the <!–more–> code. It strips out the automatic permalink that can say “Click Here to Read More” (or whatever you call your link).

All in One SEO Pack – I still like this plugin. I’ve used it on almost every WP site I’ve developed. It gives you a place in each page and post to insert a Meta title, keywords and description.

NextGEN Gallery – One of the best gallery plugins I’ve used. It’s an easy way to show multiple image albums in one place. See my portfolio for an example. Make sure you edit your thumbnail in each gallery though or depending on your image size, your thumbnails could look bad. All in all, I’d say this plugin is worth it if you need an easy way to keep track of images or photos to display on your blog.

WP-Simpleviewer – This plugin lets you add SimpleViewer Flash galleries to your posts and pages. If you want a Flash gallery without the hassle of constantly changing an XML file, this is a great plugin. You can update your settings right in your WP admin. You still need to upload your images via FTP and understand how to change your folders permissions settings in the directory and sub-directory. I would say this is for more advanced users. But, if you can’t find the “how to’s” for this plugin, Click here for the support forum.

TinyMCE Advanced – I find this plugin very useful.  Especially with how WordPress automatically strips formatting in posts and pages.