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The Definitive List of Must-Have WordPress Plugins

So you've just installed a fresh WordPress blog and want to get the most out of it.

There are some essential WordPress plugins you will want to at the very least check out.

Below in no particular order or some of the plugins that I highly recommend installing and setting up right off the bat.

If I've left any out please let me know any plugins you believe are worthy of a definitive list like this.

Essential WordPress Plugins

1. Google XML Site Maps

This plugin will generate a special XML site map which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog. With such a sitemap, it's much easier for the crawlers to see the complete structure of your site and retrieve it more efficiently. The plugin supports all kinds of WordPress generated pages as well as custom URLs. Additionally it notifies all major search engines every time you create a post about the new content.

2. All In One SEO

Automatically optimizes your WordPress blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization).

3. Auto Links & Related Posts

SEO Auto Links & Related Posts, is a combination of related posts and auto smart links plugin. The auto links feature will automatically convert post title, meta keywords, and post tags found inside the blog posts into an internal link.

4. SEO Slugs

The SEO Slugs WordPress plugin removes common words like 'a', 'the', 'in' from post slugs to improve search engine optimization.

For example, when you publish a post with a title like this:

"What You Can Do Immediately For Higher Rankings",

WordPress automatically assigns a long filename to your post, called a post slug:

/what-you-can-do-immediately-for-higher-rankings

SEO Slugs plugin strips common words like "what", "you" or "can" out of your post slug to make it more search engine friendly. With SEO Slugs plugin activated, the slug for our example blog post would look like this:

/immediately-higher-rankings

The slug is generated on saving a post (so you get a chance to look at it before publishing, and change it), or on publish. It won't overwrite an existing slug. You can force a new slug generation by deleting the existing one.

5. Akismet

Should already be installed just need to activate it, well worth it to fend off the spam comments.

6. Socialize This

Socialize This is a WordPress plugin that allows the user to easily generate Social Widgets (Icons) and spread to word about their blog posts. It works out-of-the-box with little to no configuration required.

7. Subscribe to Comments

Subscribe to Comments is a robust plugin that enables commenters to sign up for e-mail notification of subsequent entries. The plugin includes a full-featured subscription manager that your commenters can use to unsubscribe to certain posts, block all notifications, or even change their notification e-mail address!

8. Twitter for WordPress

Twitter for WordPress displays yours latest tweets in your WordPress blog.

9. WordPress Database Backups

Simple WordPress Backup allows you to back up your WordPress Database with just one click.

Creates a full dump of your WordPress MySQL Database.

ATTENTION: alpha Release use at your own risk! Test it before using in your productive environment.

10. WP PageNavi

Adds a more advanced paging navigation to your WordPress site.

11. W3 Total Cache

The most complete WordPress performance framework.

12. Affiliate Ninja

Using Ninja Affiliate, you can automatically convert any keyword in your blog to an affiliate link instantly. You can also cloak your affiliate links, track them and manage them right from your WordPress text editor. I use it on all my WP blogs.

13. Redirection

Redirection is a WordPress plugin to manage 301 redirections and keep track of 404 errors without requiring knowledge of Apache .htaccess files.

14. No Self Pings

Some people really like that WordPress sends pings from your own site to your own site when you write posts; it gives them a trail of related posts.

Some people do not like this behavior; it clutters up their comments.

15. Advertising Manager

Easily place Google Adsense and other ads on your WordPress blog. Simple to use, with powerful management and optimisation features.

16. ShareThis

Adds links at the bottom of posts to share via Email, StumbleUpon, Digg, Facebook, Twitter.

17. WP-PostRatings

Adds a complete post rating system to your blog.

How To Add Internal Links Automatically With Wordpress

We all know of the added benefit of placing internal links throughout your site but doing it manually can be a real pain.

That's where SEO Auto Links & Related Posts comes in handy.

Let's say you have a blog about flooring.

You're writing a post about how to install vinyl tile and you mention the different types of glue used.

You've already written an extensive article all about glue so you don't want to explain it in detail so you link to it.

With this plugin all you have to do is go to your settings and add the keyword 'glue' and the URL you want it to go to and then from now on every post you'll ever write will automatically create a link for that keyword.

On my template site you can see it in action with the keyword "admin options".

You can even go so far as to set them as dofollow or nofollow

How To Set Your Auto Links

Add all of your categories' names + links to get your new auto link archive rolling.

Setting a keyword link couldn't be any easier all you need is the word and the URL.

First you need to go into your plugins panel and find its configure link.

Enter your auto links in the box.

Type the word first then a comma and then add your URL.

You can also set the number of links it will do per keyword and change the title format. I suggest you keep it to a low number so it's not distracting, 1 or 2.

And lastly don't forget, this plugin also has a related posts function if you need it!