WordPress is a blogging software that comes with a wealth of plug-ins to enhance your blogging experience as well as the reading experience of your users. In this article and the next few articles we will touch on plug-ins that is a must have for any WordPress blogs.
On my WordPress blogs I have quite a number of plug-ins that I use to enhance my blog. I will be listing the plug-ins that I use alphabetically.
Akismet
Description: Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under "Comments."
Akismet comes with WordPress by default. Without Akismet, your blog is sure to be bombarded by spammers. Some users might have not enable Akismet because it requires a WordPress.com API key. So below is a video on how to get a WordPress.com API key. You will have to register a www.WordPress.com account first.
Basically what you do is register an account with www.WordPress.com, login and get your Akismet API Key from your Profile page.
All in One SEO Pack
Creators Description: Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog.
Download – Get the All in One SEO Pack plugin from the official WordPress Plugin Directory.
If you didn’t get it already the SEO stands for Search Engine Optimizer. So basically it optimizes your blog/site so search engines can find you.
Contact Form 7
Creators Description: Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.
Download – Get the Contact Form 7 plugin from the official WordPress Plugin Directory.
Contact Form 7 is easily customizable and it supports multiple forms on a single blog. I use Contact Form 7 for all my forms.
FeedBurner FeedSmith
Creators Description: This plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber.
Download – FeedBurner was acquired by Google some time ago so you will need to register an account with Google or use your existing Gmail account. After you register you can set up you can download the FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin.
Get Recent Comments
Creators Description: Display the most recent comments or trackbacks with your own formatting in the sidebar.
Download – Get the Get Recent Comments plugin from the official WordPress Plugin Directory.
I love this plug-in. It shows me the most recent comments so I can quickly reply to the comments instead of going through each individual blog post.
This about concludes the Must Have WordPress Plug-ins Part 1 entry. Don’t forget to check back again in a couple of days for part 2.
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