Now you can download a free .zip file containing all the plugins listed! See here for more details and instructions.

Setting up a Wordpress blog? I’ve had plenty of people ask me which plugins I recommend for a new Wordpress blog. These are not all the plugins I use, but they’re the ones which are musts for almost any blog.

• Akismet or Spam Karma 2

  No blog is spam-resistant. If you allow comments or trackbacks, you simply must have something to control the spam. There are two main spam filtering plugins.

  Akismet comes with your blog. To get the “key” which unlocks it, sign up at Wordpress.COM for a free account. You can use the same key with all your blogs. If Akismet isn’t working well, then try using Spam Karma 2. And vice-versa, if you have problems with SK2, try switching back to Akismet.

  I have experience with both and each has worked well even if neither has been perfect.

• Wordpress Automatic Upgrade

  The automatic upgrade plugin allows you to cleanly and simply upgrade your blog every time a new version comes out. You don’t have to worry about downloading/uploading anything, you can do it all from inside your wp-admin area. There’s a step by step version you can click through or one that just runs on its own (depending on how much control you want). All you have to do is either set it to go or just hit next.

  A nice change they made on the most recent edition turns your plugins back on automatically…that broke in the previous editions, but they’ve fixed it.

• All in One SEO or Headspace 2

  Search engine optimization (SEO) is a complex business. If you want to optimize your post without changing its quality of writing, these two plugins can both help you out. They allow things like setting up extra keywords (tags) for a post which won’t be shown on the post’s page but will turn up for search engine results. You can also change your post’s Title tag to be something more keyword rich (but you don’t have to change the post title that’s visible on the page. So I might put “Best Plugins New Wordpress Blog” in the title box in the SEO plugin section for this post. But its title is still “Must-Have Plugins for Your New Wordpress Blog.” You can also put in different summaries.

  Of the two plugins, All in One SEO is much less complicated. Once you’ve set it up, it’s easy to use. Doesn’t require a lot of time learning or entering the information. You can easily turn it off for any particular post.

  On the other hand, if you already know you want to go all-out with SEO, then the Headspace 2 plugin might be the route to take. You can actually use both these plugins together, but some of their functions are redundant. For learning how to use Headspace 2, I recommend these three pages: from the original designer, and part 1 of the webhelper tutorial, part 2 of the webhelper tutorial

• CForms Contact Form

  Your readers need to be able to contact you. That’s why I recommend that every blogger set up a contact page immediately. You can include your e-mail address, but I also suggest including a form for people who don’t happen to have their e-mail open but are already on your contact page. It’s probably faster and more convenient for them. Having a contact form is also perfect if you don’t want to give out your e-mail (even as a picture) on your site for fear of spam.

  I recommend the CForms contact form which I use here. It can be modified to fit your blog’s color or your page size using CSS. You can create a number of different forms and use them on different posts and pages.

  As a note, this plugin is not in the pack as it would not properly fit. It can be downloaded here: CForms Contact Form.

• Feedburner Feedsmith

  The Feedburner Feedsmith plugin allows you to redirect your site’s natural feed to your feedburner address. That way, you can keep track of your readership all over at feedburner, even if people sign up by typing in your site’s feed or using the “automatic feed detector” in their RSS readers.

  As an example, suppose that your feedburner shows you have 150 readers. You don’t know that 50 other people have somehow subscribed to the feed that comes directly from your site. When you add this plugin, you suddenly see all 200 when you check feedburner. Any stats you get about them also help you better understand your readership.

• Google XML Sitemaps

  Google isn’t the oldest search engine, but it’s certainly the dominant force on the market. This plugin creates a sitemap which makes your site more accessible to Google’s search. As a bonus, it also works for Ask.com, Yahoo, and MSN (the other big three).

  Here’s some information on what XML sitemaps are and the FAQ for this plugin.

• No-Follow Free

  No-Follow Free is a little present for your regular commentors. Wordpress automatically labels the “site” field of comments as a “no-follow.” That means that commenting on your site won’t help the person’s pagerank or help them accumulate backlinks. It’s meant to discourage spammers. But using this plugin turns that off (frees your site from no-follow) and rewards your commentors.

  Concerned that people will take advantage of it? Well, you can set up No-Follow Free so that only people with a certain minimum of comments for that site will be followed. And you can add keywords which will automatically turn no-follow back on.

• Post Post

  The PostPost plugin allows you to set up default text that will appear in various places on your blog. You can set something up to appear before or after every post, before or after every post that’s on its own page (vs. the site’s main page), before or after pages, and before or after your feed.

  You may not use any of the former, but the last function is priceless. It allows you to hold subscriber competitions very easily, just put the “secret keyword” into the box for before or after your feed, depending on where you want it to appear. It won’t show up on your site, but it will show up in your feed. A number of people use it to put affiliate links in their feeds or even on their blog. Or if you want a “Click to subscribe” link in front of every post, this is the place to do it. You can use X/HTML to format it with links, etc.

  The great thing about this is that unlike text in the post itself, this can be edited or deleted blog/feed-wide simply by changing or removing the text. You may not want it right away, but it’s good to put up there so you can activate and use it as soon as it become relevant

• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

  Want to give your readers more relevant content when they’re done reading a post and keep them on your blog? YARPP does just that.

  Unlike “recent posts,” this will allow them to see that you’ve posted something else on the subject even if it was months or years ago. Since it shows the title, there’s also more direct motivation than there is to click on tags or categories in hopes of finding something related. It’s right there. YARPP also has an excellent management area which allows you to control what types of posts show up.

  I had previously recommended the old-school related posts plugin, but it’s a pain to set up and doesn’t have all the management options as YARPP. So I’ve changed it in the pack and this post.

• SRG Clean Archives

  Every blog should have an archives page. The Wordpress archives plugins for the sidebar are decent, but they’re not nearly as useful as this clean archives plugin. It allows you to create whole pages with collapsible lists by month.

  Because it lists all the titles on one page and doesn’t require clicking again and again to older pages (though it has a more detailed option too) like the Wordpress version does, users can just look for interesting titles in your entire history. More motivation for them to stick around instead of getting bored.

• Subscribe to Comments

  Engaged readers are key for a healthy blog. One way to keep your readers involved in the discussion surrounding an article and coming back for more is to set up the subscribe to comments plugin. This way, people can opt to get an e-mail each time the post is updated.

  Use caution, however. If you leave the “subscribe” box automatically checked (options will let you have it be checked or unchecked by default) people will be more likely to accidentally subscribe and may participate in the discussion. But many will feel that you took advantage of their comment and burdened them with the responsibility of unsubscribing. Not a good way to keep your readers happy.

• Wordpress Database Backup

  For the love of God and all that is holy, backup your blog. Between server failures, malicious attacks, and user stupidity error, your site is in grave danger of becoming FUBAR.

  This plugin gives you the option of manually backing up your blog as well as setting daily/weekly/etc automatic backups which you can have e-mailed to you. If you opt for e-mails, you don’t have to keep more than the last few copies. Just backup. You’ll regret it if you don’t, and peace of mind can’t be bought.

So there you have it. The plugins that I install on every blog I set up and the reasons why. If you’d like to download them all in one pack, click below (safe and free!). For more details, see the pack’s page.

Downloaded a total of 36 times

and download CForms Contact Form here because it didn’t fit.

Do you know other plugins that you think are critical to Wordpress blogs? I invite you to share which and why in the comments.

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