Top 10 Essential Wordpress Plugins

A few days ago I wrote an article on how to set up a Wordpress blog. To follow this up, I have compiled a list of 10 essential plug-ins you need to use in order to make full use of your new blog!

There are literally hundreds of plug-ins to choose from, some are more useful than others and in some cases, there are several plug-ins to choose from which all offer the same functionality.

These are the 10 plug-ins, in alphabetical order, I cannot do without on AffiliateDragon.com and my other websites.

1. Add to Any

Social bookmarking has become an important part of spreading the word about what you post on your blog. The Add to Any plug-in automatically appears on every post you make and makes it easy for your readers to submit your content to numerous social media websites such as Digg, del.icio.us, Propeller, Reddit and Technorati.

2. Akismet

If your blog allows comments then spam can become a real problem. Fortunately, Wordpress is bundled with the Akismet plug-in which was also developed by Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg, just make sure you activate it! Every comment you receive is sent through Akismet’s spam-detecting servers for analysis and theoretically it should only present to you the legitimate comments for you to approve or deny. No system is 100% perfect, so all the “spam” comments are available for you to go through for seven days before they are permanently deleted.

3. All in One SEO Pack

The All in One SEO Pack is essential for you to maximise your content’s visibility in the search engines. Once activated, you can add META tags automatically to all of your posts and pages but it also gives you the flexibility to fine-tune every new post you create. You can add custom title, keyword and description tags to every new post and page you create!

4. Get Recent Comments

If you want to display a list of what your readers are saying about your posts, or you just want to brag about how popular you are on your homepage, the Get Recent Comments plug-in does the job perfectly. You have control over the number of comments, length of excerpts, order them by date, ignore certain categories and lots more!

5. Google XML Sitemap Generator

The Google XML Sitemap Generator compliments the All in One SEO Pack plugin superbly to really maximise your search engine optimisation efforts. Every time you create a new post or page, the plugin automatically adds this information to the sitemap and lets the likes of Google, Yahoo and MSN know every time you update your blog.

6. phpBay Pro

If your blog is about a niche subject in which there are products available, you may want to consider adding phpBay Pro functionality. The plug-in displays eBay auctions to your keyword specifications, Providing you with automatically updating content which will earn you commission should one of your visitors go on to win the auction or use the Buy It Now facility. At $49, it’s the only plug-in on this list you have to pay for, but there is a limited version in phpBay Lite which is free to download.

7. Twitter Tools

If your blog is a personal one, then you should add Twitter Tools for complete integration between your Wordpress blog and Twitter account. The plug-in allows you to display all of your “tweets” on your blog and also post new tweets to your Twitter account from within your Wordpress dashboard.

8. Wordpress Video Plugin

The most comprehensive video plug-in enables you to add videos to your blog from an ever-increasing list of services, such as Youtube, Google Video, Metacafe, Myspace TV and Yahoo Video. It is the ideal plug-in if your blog needs a lot of video media, such as a football affiliate website.

9. WP Related Posts

As your blog grows in content, you may want to offer your readers similar posts to the one they have just read, in order to promote “stickiness” and keep them at your blog for longer. The WP Related Posts plug-in generates a list of related posts from the tags you add to every article you write.

10. WP Super Cache

If your blog is likely to receive sudden traffic stampedes from social bookmarking websites like Digg or Stumbleupon, it is worth adding the WP Super Cache plug-in. What it essentially does is create static versions of your pages and serves them to your readers without having to query the MySQL database, meaning your server will not melt when dealing with a massive splurge of social media traffic!

Any of Your Own?

If you have any Wordpress plug-ins you simply could not live without, please add them as a comment below!