Five Essential Wordpress Plugins
How to install plugins from within Wordpress
To use the one-click install, click "Add New" under "Plugins" on the left-hand side and search for the plugin name.
Clicking on a plugin will open a popup window with more information. Click the orange Install Now button to install the plugin. You will also want to check the "Installation" tab for any additional instructions such as where the plugin options and configuration settings are located once the plugin is installed.
Five essential wordpress plugins
Akismet Akismet now comes with every new Wordpress install, which makes it super easy to install. You will need to get an API key from Wordpress.com. Just create an account there - you don't have to do anything else with it, you just need it to get the API key.
One-Click Plugin Updater
This plugin does a lot more than update plugins. It is one of the most helpful plugins for setting up a new Wordpress site, because it lets you install themes automatically, without any mucking about with FTP. Subscribe to Comments This lets people who submit a comment check a box to receive notifications when other people post comments on the same post. This simple and sweet plugin really increases the conversations on your blog, because people see other readers' responses and are reminded to come back and continue the conversation.Wordpress.com stats or Google Analyticator
Wordpress.com will let you use their statistics processing on your own blog using the API key you got in step #1. This is the same stats engine they use on their Wordpress.com hosted blogs. Another option is to get a Google Analytics account and install the Google Analyticator plugin, which inserts the tracking code into your site. They are both powerful stats - Wordpress.com is more aimed at blog-relevant stats like Most Popular Posts, and Google Analytics is a general stats program which will do cool things like show an overlay on your site of where people click. You can install both and get even more data. =)Contact Form 7
This gives your visitors a place to contact you directly rather than leave a public comment - a very useful functionality, especially for business owners. Contact Form 7 lets you create multiple forms (if you need to), and customize each one. To use it, install and activate it and then create a new page called "Contact" and paste in the short code listed under Tools > Contact Form 7. For detailed instructions, go to the Contact 7 FAQ.
More recommended plugins
Here are some other plugins that are also popular and useful that you may want to check out:
CommentLuv
CommentLuv is an interesting plugin that works like this: When someone comments on your blog, and they enter their URL, CommentLuv detects whether that URL is a blog and has an RSS feed. If so, it puts a link to the commenter's last blog post underneath their comment. This increases the general interlinkedness of the blogosphere, and gives your reader's a little reward for commenting. It also increases the community around you blog by increasing the likelihood of your readers following each others' blogs.Yet Another Related Post Plugin
This plugin automatically suggests posts that might be related in a list following each of your posts. It helps increase people exploring your site, because after they are done reading one article they are presented with some others they might be interested in. As the title implies, there are a lot of plugins in this genre, but this one stands out by working out of the box yet being highly configurable if you wish.
