When I start a new blog, there are seven specific plugins that I always install. They are incredibly useful and conserve hours of time.
1.Akismet
Hands down, Akismet is the most useful plugin ever created. It automatically checks comments posted to your blog against their web service to determine whether or not the posted comment is spam. They claim to have eliminated over six billion spam comments.
Akismet automatically comes installed with every version of WordPress, but it is often not activated. If Akismet is currently sitting in your plugin folder unactivated, activate it! It can save you hours of reading and deleting spam comments on your blog.
Akismet Homepage
2.All-in-one-SEO Pack
All-in-one-SEO works wonders for those with little or no SEO experience. It assists you in adding proper titles, keywords, and descriptions to both your blog as a whole and individual posts as well. It is a very powerful tool that will greatly increase your search engine influence when used correctly.
All-in-one-SEO Pack Homepage
3.Cforms
Cforms automatically creates complex custom contact forms with ease. Select the type of input, add some text, and viola! You have a working form for your readers to get in touch with you. They are fully customizable and will save you hours of time. Also, you’ll want to take a look around the author’s site. It is beautifully designed and one of my favorite blogs to look at.
Cforms Homepage
4.Comment Relish
This plugin is a little less popular than the previous plugins, but it is extremely powerful when it comes to retaining readers. Comment Relish sends an automated ‘thank-you’ to new commenters on your blog. You can customize the thank you message to whatever you please. I usually encourage them to subscribe to my feed and tell them to email me if they run into an issues.
Comment Relish Homepage
5.Google XML Sitemaps
This plugin automatically creates a XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog and posts. The sitemap is used by major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Ask to assist them in indexing new and old content. This plugin spares the time and trouble it takes to create sitemaps manually.
Google XML Sitemaps Generator Homepage
6.WordPress Automatic Upgrade
Want to simplify the potentially deadly process of upgrading your WordPress installation? Well, this is the plugin for you. It automatically backs up your files and databases, allows you to save them, disables all plugins, downloads the latest version of WordPress, installs the latest WordPress, upgrades the database, and reenables all plugins. It does all of this in about 15 seconds. Not bad considering it usually takes 10-15 minutes to do it manually.
WordPress Automatic Upgrade Homepage
7.WP Easy Uploader
This is a relatively new plugin that I recently started recommending, but it is incredibly useful and now installed on all of my blogs. WP Easy Uploader makes the process of adding new plugins, themes, or files to your blog as easy as clicking a button. You no longer have to FTP in and manually upload the files.
WP Easy Uploader Homepage