I’ve been running many blogs, I have even built many websites for customers using Wordpress.  This includes using Wordpress as a CMS, or as a blog system.  In every case there are a few core features that each site needs, and the plugins I keep going back to deliver these features just simply work.

Here’s my list:

1. Akismet

This one is a no brainer, it’s already included in every Wordpress Installation and the plugin works very well.  Akismet has been key to blocking the spam on many sites I’ve had the pleasure of working on.  It’s easy to use.  All you need to do is activate it, and get a key by creating a Wordpress.com account.

2. MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer

I don’t know if this plugin is necessarily the number 2 most important, but in the order that I get them installed this is number 2.  Pinging your blog posts is kind of an overused feature that isn’t entirely effective anymore.  But it’s still available and still can provide some benefits even if just a small amount of marketing.  The best part about this Wordpress plugin is that it ensures that you don’t over ping from your blog on accident.  Any time you edit a post, or schedule a future publish date, your blog can be pinging the same posts over and over, or even pinging when the post hasn’t published yet.  This plugin makes sure that it doesn’t happen, even provides a nice log so you can see it’s effect.

3. Dagon Design Sitemap Generator

This is a Wordpress Plugin that dynamically generates a visitor sitemap.  It’s lightweight, looks decent on a fresh install.  It’s easy to customize.  Has a lot of settings on the admin such as being able to set up the pagination which I think is important for the search engines.  This is not an XML Sitemap, this actually becomes a page on your site.  Visitors can use it to see all your pages, and the Search Engines will crawl it and find a link to every page.

4. Supr by StumbleUpon

I really like this plugin.  You can sign up for an account with su.pr add in your logins for Twitter and Facebook, then add the API keys into your Wordpress Admin and every time you post it will automatically post the title and a shortened link to your Twitter account and Facebook account.  If you are just starting out in blogging it can be a great way to spread what you are doing amongst your friends to support you.  As a business it’s a great way to spread the word especially when starting out.  Also from their control panel they provide tracking for the clicks, which is very handy to monitor the effectiveness.

5. TweetMeme Retweet Button

Here’s a plugin that adds a nice little graphic on your posts.  It makes it easy for people to retweet your posts right after they visit your site to read it.  It also shows how many times it’s been retweeted.  It will always show 1 if you are using the Supr plugin because you tweeted it yourself, if you have a couple friends supporting you it’ll easily get tweeted a couple more times.  It’s important to market your site, and your own group of friends can be a great place to start.

5.1 All in One SEO Pack

A quick bonus recommendation.  Personally I prefer to use the Thesis Theme, which includes many SEO improvements already and this plugin isn’t necessary.  But if you don’t have the pleasure of using a theme with these features built in, then I would highly recommend this plugin.  It adds in canonical URL’s, allows you to set custom meta tags, custom page titles and the list goes on.  This is also very valuable for CMS type sites.

I’ve been working with Wordpress it seems like forever. I’ve tried so many different Wordpress Themes that I couldn’t count them all.

You have free ones, and if you try them you know you get what you pay for. But free ones can still work if you are a developer, they’ll at least put you at a starting point to make your own creation.

There are a lot of paid ones as well. As in any market some better than others.

It’s all about what features you need, and how well each theme can fill those needs.

The best paid theme I’ve ever had the pleasure of using, is the Wordpress Thesis Theme. There are many themes/templates out there that meet specific needs for a niche set of websites, but the Thesis theme is probably the most flexible theme I’ve found.

And they just released a new version with all new features:

• custom file editor in your WordPress dashboard
• dropdown navigation menu
• comprehensive font color controls and new design controls

There are a lot of other improvements in regards to the general design of the theme as well. Plus what more could you want with the included SEO abilities. I think this one theme replaces the need for several plugins, which is very cool if you think of plugins in terms of overhead. (watch our blog for an article on this later this week)

About Thesis — Find out more about Thesis and the DIYthemes philosophy

Here’s their motto:

Thesis Theme Motto

They really meet this in my opinion. It’s always being improved upon.

I’m going to put together a video later this week to show off some of the Thesis features.

I know when I go to another blog using Wordpress, one of the first things that comes crashing through my mind is – “I wonder what plugins this blog uses“.

So, I thought I’d do a quick post here showing you what plugins I use on this blog.

Be warned though – there are a LOT of them, and more being added all of the time.  See, I test plugins just about everyday.  I want to see which ones actually help, and which ones are a waste of time and energy. As I test more and start using new plugins, you’ll be able to come back to this post and see which ones have been added, and which ones got the boot!

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