WordPress is one of the easiest to use and most powerful blogging platforms around. The versatility of WordPress is its greatest feature, it has the ability to act as a blog and also as a static web site. The ease of use when it comes to both updating your site as well as maintaining it is phenomenal.
[ad]One of the WordPress features that holds the bulk of the power of the software package is the utilization of plugins. Plugins allow your blog to perform or display specific functions and are highly customizable in almost every way. They are also easy to use as generally all it takes to put them into use is activating them in the admin screen of the WordPress platform.
Here is a look at some of the most valuable plugins you can use to enhance your blog.
Akismet – Probably the first plugin you should activate, it helps keep spam comments from needing to be moderated, and will save you hours and hours of time, over and over again.
All In One SEO Pack – A great SEO plugin that gives each post its own Title, Keywords, and description. If you want get your blog ranked by the search engines, get this pluging!
Subscribe To Comments – This plugin is a nice way to get an RSS feed for the comments to each post.
WordPress Database Backup – This is essential as it helps lessen the chance that all of your blog info will be lost. This plugin automatically backs up all of your database information and emails them to you at the exact time each day or week you specify.
AdRotator – This is a simple to use plugin that allows you to enter a list of banner or box ads, even text ads, that will be displayed on your site. Then, each time a new page is opened or the same page is refreshed, a new ad appears in that one spot that you have specified. This can also be used for cycling random photos or quotes too.
Sociable – A very cool plugin that puts links to all the popular social networking sites like StumbleUpon and Digg at the end of each post. This is very handy as it allows your readers to bookmark them right there at the site of the post they are already reading. You can see the plugin in action below this post.
Related Posts (YARPP – Yet Another Related Posts Plugin) – This is a powerful plugin that allows readers to view other posts that you have written and they might be interested in. Massively increases your pageviews, and decreases your bouncerate (read more about bouncerate). And again, you can see the plugin in action below this post (check out the suggestions I would say! 
)
[ad]Google Sitemaps – A nice plugin that helps to insure that Google knows about each and every post and page that makes up your site. Call it a necessitiy. It is one.
NextGen Gallery – A very easy to use photo gallery plugin that allows you to place single images, slideshows, and full blown galleries into posts and pages.
Using all of these WordPress plugins, and others as well, you have the ability to convert your standard blog into a web based masterpiece. The plugins provided for use with the WordPress blogging platform are the single best reason to choose WordPress as the package that runs your blog. With the wide variety of options available through the thousands of available plugins made for WordPress, it will be no time before you have one of the best blogs on the internet working for you.
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I would like to add WP-Spam free and WP-Super Cache!
Pubudu Kodikara´s last blog ..Come Out of that Dark Cave if You Want to Blog!
@Pubudu Kodikara: I totally agree about WP-Super-Cache, and WP-Spam_free, or any other comment spam stopper such as akismet.
Great article with a great list of plugins. The WordPress Database Backup is a MUST HAVE! For the AdRotator plugin, there is a commercial alternative which I wrote with some very useful features. Its called the WordPress banner rotator plugin and it can be found here: http://tribulant.com/products/view/2/wordpress-banner-rotator-plugin . Thanks again for this article! All the best, Antonie
Antonie Potgieter´s last blog ..Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-12-13
@Antonie Potgieter: Thanks for adding your usefull plugin Antonie
Akismet – is ok but its false positive rate is horrible. I still use it though.
All In One SEO Pack – been using since self hosting
.
DB backup is m00t for me since Godaddy does it.
Google Sitemaps – essential yes.
I also use (long list)
Adsense integrator — must have.
After the deadline — I am horrible at grammar.
Bad behavior (so do you).
ComLuv (so do you).
Crawl rate tracker — keeps be on top of google indexing my site.
Do follow – being nice to my readers.
FD feedburner plugin because feedsmith no work with 2.9
Follow me — twitter widget
GD star rating…
Polldaddy
Sexybookmarks – sharing plugin
Tweatmeme
WP-optimize…databases can be piggys.
WP Great box
WP Super Cache.
Brad´s last blog ..General • Re: What is your favorite OS?
@Brad Thanks for sharing your list of WordPress plugins! I must say there are a few that I didn’t know yet, and that do seem interesting, I even installed some of them in the meantime, like Tweetmeme (as you can see
).
But, have to correct you though: I also use Do Follow, SexyBookmarks, and Super Cache!
BTW: I was unable to find WP Great Box, what does it do?
@All Others: Feel free to share your list of plugins!
All In One SEO Pack is my favorite plugin, good article, thanks for sharing.
and nextgen gallery for my fotos.
Agy´s last blog ..Test
All in one SEO is really a great plugin! However, since using the Headway theme, I don’t need SEO plugins anymore, since it is all implemented in Headway. Same goes for the photogalleries, I use the same theme for my photography blog.
But really, if it is not implemented in the theme, All in one SEO is a MUST have plugin.
It still amazes me how All-in-One-SEO Pack and Sociable are two of the most referenced plugins I’ve ever come across, with YARPP followed closely behind. Just goes to show you that people love plugins that do a great job, are coded well and do exactly what they say they do on the box.
Regards,
Karl
Karl Foxley´s last blog ..WordPress Banner Rotator Plugin Ad Squares Affiliate Widget
Very much true, and indeed, these are two of the most used plugins I believe.