WordPress is an amazing platform.  The plug-ins available make it even better.  Here are a few plug-ins I use for my blogs and Web sites.  Most of these plug-ins are available at http://www.wordpress.org.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an important part of growing your blog. I would recommend either of these SEO plug-ins every time you start a new blog:  All in one SEO Pack and Platinum SEO Pack
• Google xml site maps: Site maps help Google and other search engines find all our your pages.
• Ultimate Google Analytics, Google Analyticator or Google Analytics for WordPress: All three of these allow you to use your Google analytics with WordPress.
• Sociable:  Automatically places buttons at the base of each post so visitors can share your content at their favorite social media sites.
• WordPress Stats: This is the standard for keeping track of basic statistics for WordPress blogs. Cystats in another one I’ll plug in once in a while.
• Podcasting: I use both podpress and podcasting for sharing my podcasts
• eShop has worked well for e-commerce.
• Zemanta: This plug-in gives you contextual content recommendations. I like this plug-in because it helps save me time trying to think of all the key words I need for post tags.
• WishList: If you want create  a membership site, try WishList. This is not a free plug-in, but worth the money.  They really are engaging their users with support and information. http://member.wpwishlist.com/
• I’ve been using Simple:press for the forum at prosperousartists.com.  It has a ton of features.  If you are not interested in a lot of features I’ve also heard good things about WP Form.
• WP super cache is a good plug-in if you are looking to increase load time speed.  I’ve used it.  It’s a pain if you are updating your settings on your blog.  Make sure you deactivate it if you have a lot of work to do.

I don’t use these plug-ins, but I’ve heard good reviews:

• NextGEN Gallery: Flash gallery to display your photographs, it’s always been a popular choice.
• HeadSpace2 SEO
• Contact form 7

Tags: google, google analytics, Plug-in, search, search engine Optimization, Twitter, Web search engine, wordpress

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 6:31 pm and is filed under blogging, Seo, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.