My Ultimate WordPress Plugins

Plugins can extend WordPress to do almost anything. They are easy to download and install – and they are also free. There are hundreds and hundreds of WordPress Plugins available – each one extending WordPress’s functionality in a different way.

It is easy to get lost in the huge list of plugins and get tempted to install more than you need and miss the ones you really need.

Though each plugin might add some additional functionality to your wordpress blog, you will not need most of them. So don’t waste your time installing more than you need.

photo credit: mroach

I use WordPress for almost all my sites and here is my ultimate wordpress plugin list:

Akismet

This plugin automatically captures all the spam comments your blog posts will receive. In all wordpress installations, this plugin is available by default. You need a wordpress key to activate this plugin. You need to get the wordpress key only once and then you can use the same key across all your wordpress blogs.

All In One SEO Pack

By default the wordpress blog post title is used as the title of the page as well. Now, this is not very search engine optimization friendly. Blog Post Page title is the most important real estate for SEO purposes. So how do we have a unique page title (not post title)?

All In One SEO Pack takes care of this – it allows you to have a custom title, keywords and description for each of your blog post. You can download it here – All In One SEO Pack

Adsense-Deluxe

If you are going to be using adsense in your blog posts – say at the end of each post – you don’t want to be pasting the same adsense code at the bottom of each post. Adsense-Deluxe will help you create a label for each piece of code and all that you have to do is type in this label anywhere you want adsense to appear in your post. You can download this plugin from Adsense-Deluxe.

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin automatically generates sitemaps for Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and MSN – It also submits these sitemaps to the respective search engines. You can set the frequency at which you want the sitemaps generated and submitted. You can download this plugin at – Google XML Sitemap.

Photo Dropper

I absolutely love this plugin – This plugin makes getting images for your post super easy. You can search the huge library and then insert the image you like. It automatically installs the copyright links as well. You can download this plugin at – Photo Dropper.

Simple Submit SEO / Social Bookmarking Plugin

This plugin displays buttons that allow your post to be submitted to the social bookmarking sites (Digg, del.icio.us, stumble upon, and buzz). There are many plugins which do the same thing but I love the simple interface of this plugin. You can download it here – Simple Submit SEO.

Subscribe To Comments

When you comment on a blog post, you would most likely like to read the comments others make in the future – This plugin allows your blog commentators to continue receiving the comments – It is totally optional. If they would like to continue receiving the comments, they can – if not, they can opt out. You can download this plugin here – Subscribe To Comments.

That’s it – These are my absolutely favorite, must have ultimate wordpress plugins. Once I install wordpress from my hosting provider’s control panel, I install the above plugins and then I start blogging (:-).

What are your favorite plugins? If you would like to share, please leave a comment below…

Best,