WordPress plugins can make your blog more useful and friendly for your visitors. You’ll find everything you need to turn your blog into something that is every bit as great as you would have imagined. There are a lot of blog plugins out there are that are good to use, the five that are listed here are at the top of the list.
Akismet
This plugin actually comes standard with your WordPress installation. You need to get a WordPress.com API key to activate it, but after that it’s really simple. It virtually eliminates spam commenting! Akismet is smart enough to put suspected spam into a separate folder, and it even learns from you as you go. Always activate this plugin for the best results with your blog. It saves you a lot of time also!
Related Posts
Linking to different pages in your blog from every page is a great search engine optimization tactic. The problem with blogs is that it can be so hard to dig through old posts that are related and manually link them in your new post. Related posts solves that problem! It will automatically insert some relevant posts for your blog. It’s very hands-off and very effective. Both visitors and search engines love this plugin.
All in One SEO Pack
Once again, optimizing your site for the search engines is going to be one of the best ways you can make money with your blog. The higher rankings you achieve, the more traffic your blog receives. The more traffic your site receives the more income your site will make! The All In One SEO pack will make things easier because with it you can specify tite, description and keywords.
WordPress Database Backup
Backing up your blog is crucial if you value your business. There is always a risk that something could happen to your web server, it could be strike a blow if your lost your data. This plugin allows you to easily back everything up by pressing a few simple buttons.
Top Commentators
This plugin is really cool and it encourages a lot of interaction on your blog. It lists the people who have the most comments within your blog. People who comment on your blog really like this because they gain extra exposure. You are happy about it because people will really get into posting to be the one at the top. It also gives social proof. First time visitors to your blog will be more likely to stay awhile if they see other people valuing the sites content. The fact that they can see others participating is a great thing.
There are an incredible number of different plugins out there that are ready for you to use. Install these essentials and you’ll be well-prepared to become the great blogger you’re going to become.
You may also wanna check the following plugins:
1) Google Sitemap
2) Postviews+
3) Related posts (YAARP)
All in one SEO pack is one of my favorite and is the best wordpress plugin for me. It do helps a lot when it come to optimizing your wordpress blog. You may also want to check out xml sitemap.
Still pretty green with the blogging and SEO stuff but your posts are definitely giving me a lot of information to think about and work with. thanks for the list.
Nice list.. I am using all of mentioned except last one.. I should reconsider installing and that plugin. What do you think about popularity contest plugin? I am waiting for release of that plugin for newest version of wordpress (2.9.2)..