One of the things we do as a social media marketing firm is to help clients design, build, and run blogs.  And when it comes to blogging, WordPress is probably the most powerful and most popular blogging platform around.  As an open source blogging solution, there are almost a countless number of themes and plugins available, making customizing a WordPress blog a snap.  Despite all of the wide open customization options, however, there are, in my opinion, ten plugins that every WordPress blog should be using.

1. Akismet - Akisment is a plugin that does an excellent job at protecting your site from spam comments.  Because it comes pre-loaded with new WordPress installations, most WordPress sites already have this plugin.  However, it’s important to ensure that you have it activated and that you’ve entered in your WordPress key, otherwise, it won’t do you much good.
2. All in One SEO Pack - Installing and setting up this plugin will do wonders for your SEO (search engine optimization) efforts.  It really does take a lot of the work out of optimizing your blog for search.  Any blog can benefit from this absolutely fantastic plugin.
3. Google XML Sitemaps - This plugin auto-generates an XML sitemap file for your blog, which is basically a roadmap for search engines.  Having an sitemap in place will help ensure that search engines like Google and Bing properly crawl and index your site.  Best of all, this plugin also keeps the sitemap file up to date.
4. Permalink Redirect - If you’re not careful, Wordpress will add all kinds of crap to the end of your post’s URLs.  This plugin helps prevent that, making your URLs cleaner and will help them perform better in terms of SEO.
5. Moderate Pingbacks - A pingback is essentially an auto-generated comment that appears on your posts, alerting you to a link from another link or site that is pointing at the post.  I find them useless and annoying because the bulk of these pingbacks are usually from your own site, the result of linking different posts together.  This plugin helps you manage these things and keep your post’s comment section getting slammed with pingbacks.
6. Secure Wordpress - This plugin takes care of little things that, if left unchecked, could potentially become a security risk for your blog.  With all of the dirt bags out there, installing this plugin will help add some peace of mind and security to your blog.
7. Sociable - Sociable allows you to add “share” buttons on the bottoms of your posts and pages, allowing users to share with their friends on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and a bunch of others.  You can easily decide which services you want to include.  If you’re writing posts that people like (and I hope you are), this plugin will allow your audience to share your stuff and help grow your audience.
8. TimesToCome Stop Bot Registration - Spammers of all sorts will use bots to register as a user on your blog.  They do this for a variety of reasons, none of which are good.  This plugin makes it very difficult for bots to register on your site, which left unchecked, could result in a mountain of spam comments and links getting added to your blog.
9. WordPress.com Stats - While I still use Google Analytics to track traffic to my sites, I still like to install this plugin, as well.  It provides an easy way to get an idea of what kind of traffic you’re getting and where it’s coming from.  Like Akismet, you’ll need a WordPress key to activate this plugin.
10. WP Database Optimizer -  As you add, remove, and edit things on your site, clutter begins to build up in your database.  This could result in your site loading slower, which is just not a good thing.  This plugin will help tidy up your database and keep it running fast.

Obviously, there are lots of other great plugins out there, and depending on the type of site that you’re designing, there may be others that you would deem as “essential.”  However, I think that these plugins are great additions to almost any site and will help make your blog better.  Are there any plugins that you think I should try?  What are your favorites?

-Dan Cheek
LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com
Twitter.com/LaserBurnMedia
(570)795-9467

Dan Cheek is the president and co-founder of Laser Burn Media, a full-service social media marketing firm located just outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Dan has over five years experience in working with social media as a marketing platform and has a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Wilkes University.   A veteran of the United States Army, Dan lives with his wife, Krissy, and his step-dog, Molly.