Essential WordPress Plugins

There are so many WordPress plugins you can use to enhance your blog.

And since we all have so little time, check out this short list at Blogging: How-to’s, Technical Tips and Best WordPress Plugins.

Here are my favorites, because they help make WordPress search engine-friendly: Optimal Title and Clean Archives.

And here are other plugins I'll need to test: Google Sitemaps, Log 404, Search Meter, and Ultimate Tag Warrior.

Abe Olandres has a list of SEO-friendly WP Plugins which you might consider installing, too.

What's so great about plugins? WordPress comes with a basic installation which simply allows you to easily publish to your web site. It is precisely this simplicity that leaves many a blogger wanting for more.

For example, do you want to display the most Recent Comments? Or how about easily showing a flash audio player (for those into podcasting)? And what about quickly setting up a Contact Us Form?

Yes, you can do a bit of programming and scripting, but why reinvent the wheel? Simply use an existing plugin, and your WordPress site automatically gains the needed functionality. The thing is, there are hundreds of available plugins, so sifting through that increasingly growing pile can be quite challenging.

In the end, you'll be happy with (at most) ten plugins. So keep on tweaking and gaining more visibility and traffic for your blogs!

(Now if only there were a WordPress theme that encloses post titles in H1 tags... Most of the themes enclose the name of the blog in H1 tags and the post title in either H2 or H3 tags.)

[ First posted on 11/22/2006 by Manuel Viloria ]