Favorite WordPress Plugins
Must-Have Plugins:
All-in-One SEO Pack**
easily set up descriptions, keywords, etc. for your site–check out WP Beginner’s User’s Guide to the All-in-One SEO Pack
Google XML Sitemaps**
auto-generates a sitemap of your site to submit to search engines
WP-DB-Backup
must-have plugin: emails your database backups to you daily or weekly. be sure to manually backup your wp-content folder via FTP once in a while, though, to safeguard your themes & uploaded images. (if your site is too large for this plugin, try WP-DBManager, which has an even more robust list of features.)
Akismet
it doesn’t quite catch it all alone, but it’s a good start at combating spam in WP
NoSpamNX
combined with Akismet, I have zero spam thanks to NoSpamNX!
Health Check
keep up-to-date on whether you need to upgrade your PHP version or anything else before the next WP upgrade
Subscribe to Comments Reloaded
give your readers the option to keep up with the rest of the comments on a specific blog post
FD Feedburner*
easily point your feeds to your FeedBurner account (check out WPBeginner’s step-by-step guide for setting up FeedBurner)
Google Analyticator*
puts your Google Analytics stats right in your dashboard–and easily eliminates Google from tracking visits by you and other site authors (see instructions & more from WPBeginner here)
Simple Feed Copyright*
puts a copyright notice at the bottom of your feed posts
WP Facebook Open Graph Protocol
wrong thumbnail showing up when your posts are shared on Facebook? this plugin not only takes care of that, but gives you access to sharing stats from Facebook as well. simply install, specify your site name, default image (your logo or button), and your Facebook ID (obtained by going to http://graph.facebook.com/insertyourusername).
*may also be set up via functions.php file, but these plugins are the easy route
**these out-of-the-box plugins may both be replaced with the robust WordPress SEO by Yoast, but it requires complicated setup and is not for the beginner
Additional Features:
Contact Form 7
any number of highly customizable contact forms for your site
Auto Post Thumbnail
automatically sets the first uploaded image as the featured image thumbnail when you hit “publish”
Digg Digg
quick-loading social sharing buttons (though WP Beginner offers a great floating set, too! and for ease-of-use, AddToAny wins the prize)
Editorial Calendar
if you schedule your posts in advance, this drag-and-drop plugin may be a lifesaver!
Advanced Plugins:
Search and Replace
change your site URL and need to change every image link? easy. want to eliminate your last name from your posts? simple.
Widget Logic or Dynamic Widgets
define appearance of widgets based upon what pages, categories, etc. they should be in (WL allows you to write all the PHP rules yourself — DW gives you checkboxes for each page/category/etc.)
Generate Post Thumbnails
if you began blogging in something other than WordPress, this plugin is invaluable for using thumbnails–it generates thumbnails from the first image to appear in the post, even if it’s on an external server!