8 Must Have WordPress Plugins

One of the main reasons that I love WordPress so much is because of the plugins that are featured within your dashboard.  Plugin developers are my most loved people in the world, because they make my life and job so much easier.  I am going to list a few of the top WordPress plugins that you need to install and activate as soon as you install WordPress.

All-in-One SEO

This plugin is a must have whether you know SEO or you don’t. If you don’t know too much about SEO then this app does most of the work for you.  All you add is the title, description, and keywords.  If you are an SEO friendly person then this plugin still helps by making it easier and quicker to include meta descriptions and tags to each post.

WP Contact Form 7

If you are blogging for business or using WordPress as a static site, you still need a contact form.  If you don’t have the skills to create a form yourself, or don’t have the financial resources to pay somebody to do it, then just take a few seconds to install this plugin.  You can create customized contact forms that make certain fields required such as name and e-mail address.  You can control which fields to include and which to make required in the admin panel.

Akismet

With a WordPress site, you will have spam comments daily, bottom line.  There is no way around it.  One way to make it easier is to install the Akismet plugin.  With this plugin, you will be able to easily manage spam comments.  Akismet recognizes which comments are spam and automatically put them in a bin for you to just dispose of.  You will still want to quickly check these comments to make sure that one didn’t slip through the cracks,

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin will create a sitemap for you that you will need for search engines like Google to use.  This plugin helps with any optimization that you are trying to accomplish with your blog.

PollDaddy Polls

Want a simple way to poll your customers or readers?  Then this plugin is for you.  The plugin is free to download and install and Poll Daddy is free to sign up for.  There are limitations to how many votes you can receive with a free account, but if you plan on running high volume polls, then I suggest that you sign up for a paid account with Poll Daddy.

WPtouch iPhone

Chances are you either own an iPhone, someone in your family does, or you know somebody who owns an iPhone.  This plugin automatically formats your blog to have a mobile theme and make it easier for mobile users to view your blog.  The navigation is very simple for the user.  Take a look at the screenshot to see it in work.

Honorable Metions

TweetMeme

I use TweetMeme personally because as a blogger, you should be proud of your content and want it to spread as fast and far as possible.  This creates a little icon right next to the title of the blog and easily allows readers to spread your content via Twitter.  It gives you reporting features as well, which I admit, I do not always use to my advantage.

Social BookMarks

This type of plugin is an absolute must.  I put this down in the honorable mentions sections because it is the one that I use, but there are a lot of other options out there.  It allows your readers to not just share your content on Twitter, but pretty much every social media outlet that is out there.  Once again, your content is to be spread.  If you don’t want people reading it, then you shouldn’t be typing it.

These are the mandatory plugins that I install in every WordPress blog that I set up or manage.  Leave some comments with your favorite plugins.
photo credit: Saad Irfan via photopin cc