WordPress is by far the most popular blogging platform around. The ability to install plugins is a major factor in this and there are a lot of plugins available! Most of these plugins you even get for free.
I am going to list some of my favorite plugins that I use on most of my blogs. Read, learn and try them out for yourself!
1: Akismet [http://aksimet.com]
Akismet is the nr one tool for handling blog spam. It automatically looks at your blog comments and take out the spam. It is highly effective and efficient. WordPress comes with this plugin pre-installed; all you have to do is activate it. You need a WordPress account and your WordPress API Key to activate it. You get your API Key from the WordPress dashboard and profile, look at the top left side of the page.
2: All in One SEO Pack [http://tinyurl.com/wpseopack]
As you probably know SEO is very important if you want to be found in the search engines. With this plugin you can manipulate all your META tags, Title, description and keywords on your blog – yes, even for all your posts.
3: Google Analytics [http://tinyurl.com/wptracking]
If you have a Google Analytics account (and I recommend you do), this plugin will ease the installation of the Analytics tracking code. If not, get your Google Analytics account now . Google Analytics lets you track almost everything on your blog, from avg. time spent on the blog, to links clicked and more.
4: Google Sitemaps [http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator]
This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog.
5: Twitter Tools [http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress]
This is a cool tool if you are a Twitter fan. The plugin is a complete integration between your WordPress blog and Twitter. Bring your tweets into your blog and pass your blog posts to Twitter. Show your tweets in your sidebar, and post tweets from your WordPress admin.
To install the plugins, go to plugins in your WordPress Blog, search on the plugin name and click to install. Another way is to go to the plugins pages, download the .zip file, then go to WordPress plugins and click upload, find the plugin on your computer, upload and install.
Ok, that is it for now, I hope you will enjoy these plugins as much as I do!
1 user responded in this post
Great list of plugins. I see the attraction to Twitter Tools. I use Ping.fm which allows you to send your blog posts to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and 50 other social media or bookmarking sites. It’s really very handy and there is a plugin: Wping.fm.
Thanks,
Steinar
PS – Here are my favorite WordPress plugins when setting up a new blog … http://bit.ly/5CbfSC
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