Once you have uploaded and installed WordPress on your Domain you will want to Optimize it using popular and functional Worpress Plugins. Here is a quick list of my recommended ‘Must Have’ Plugins and a short description of what each one will do for your blog.

What is a WordPress Plugin:

A WordPress Plugin is simply a feature or little program that essentially extends the functionality of wordpress and can allow a very high level of customization.  When you start your blog it is very difficult to go through and figure out which plugins you should use and which ones to avoid so I decided I would share with you what I call my “MUST HAVE LIST”

Mandatory Plugins:

Google XML Sitemaps -This plugin will generate a sitemap that search engines can recognize allowing them to index your site much better. Great Search Engine Food!

Dagon Design Site Map Generator – This plugin in contrast from the last one will generate a sitemap designed for the Human reader. Makes you blog much easier to navigate if someone is lost or trying to find something specific. Improves User Experience!

“ALL in One” SEO – A Must Have Plugin that Optimizes your blog and all your posts by improving the ON PAGE Ranking Factors. The sole purpose of this Plugin is Improved Search Engine Rankings which = More Traffic

WP Greet Box – This plugin lets you show a different greeting message to your new visitors depending on their referrer url. For example, when a Twitter user clicks through from Twitter, they will see a message reminding them to tweet your post if they like it. – Just another way to stand out from the crowd and Improve User experience and also make your posts more viral

Disqus – Is a Comment System on Steroids that replaces the default wordpress comment system! It easily enhances the discussions on blogs, creates threaded comments and allows people to login with other web 2.0 credentials there by sharing the conversation in many more places.

Thank me Later – Automatically sends out an email message when someone posts a comment on your blog. It’s a friendly reminder/thank you and encourages readers to engage in future discussions. Great to attract ‘One Time readers’ to revisit or engage who might otherwise forget about your blog.

Dashboard Post It – A simple ‘Post It’ Widget you can add to your dashboard that will allow you to leave yourself or another Author a message.

Traffic Geyser Social Poster - This plugin requires a Traffic Geyser membership. Every time you publish a new post it will send a message to your Traffic Geyser account and blast it out to all the Social Bookmarking accounts associated with your TG Account.

Tweetmeme – Allows you blog post to be easily Re-tweeted. You can see what the button looks like on this blog post. It will also display how many times the post has been re-tweeted.

Sexy Bookmarks or Share This - A plugin that adds a way for your readers to easily share your post on many of the other social sites available. You can fully customize and pick which sites you would like to include.

Google Analyticator - Google Analyticator adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google Analytics logging on any WordPress blog. Essentially you can track where your traffic is coming form. Very improtant to know.

MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer – Ensures your blog does not get banned form the pinging services. If you have been bloggin for awhile you have probably been banned and didn’t even no it.  Pinging allows you to get indexed quickly and increases your traffic so it’s an important function to optimize.

WP Auto Tagger – This plugin will automatically suggest tags for your post based on the content. Can be handy if you forget to tag your blog entries.

WordPress DataBase Backup – Allows you to easily back up your core database files.

When you build your first blog these are the plugins I highly recommend you install before you begin your posting regime. These small plugins will greatly enhance your reader experience and optimize your blog for rankings and traffic. You can easily install your new plugins from within your dashboard.

Here is a short video that shows you exactly How to Install a Wordpres Plugin.

Make it a great Day,

Roger Silen