5 Essential WordPress Plugins Every Blog Should Have
WordPress is easily the best blogging platform on the internet. Its easy to use, yet powerful enough to run huge websites. Some of the top websites in the world run on WordPress, including sites like TechCrunch, WSJ Blogs, etc.
Its very easy to customize WordPress. There are a ton of themes from free to premium ones that can make your blog look like anything you desire. But more importantly, there are a host of free and paid plugins that you can use to customize your blog and make it easier to read.
Here are five WordPress plugins your blog shouldn’t exist without:
1. All in One SEO PluginThis is an essential plugin for all WordPress blogs. It automatically takes care of generating meta tags and keywords for your blog posts. Without this plugin, you would have a hard time ranking high in search engines.
2. Advertising ManagerIf you plan on monetizing your blog, then this plugin is a must have. You can insert your ads almost anywhere in your site’s template. Moreover, this plugin supports the Open X ad marketplace, which means that you can configure it to show only the highest CPM ads.
3. Add to AnySocial bookmarking is a great way to gain additonal eyeballs. With this plugin, your visitors can quickly add your blog post to the most popular social bookmarking directories in the world, or email it to friends.
4. AkismetThis is a plugin made by WordPress itself and is included in most installations automatically. It acts as a spam blocker for your blog. Akismet is highly effective at blocking and automatically deleting spam comments. An absolute essential, especially if you run a popular blog that might get a lot of spam comments.
5. Google XML SitemapsSitemaps make it easier for the Googlebot to go through your website. This plugin makes high quality sitemaps automatically that can be indexed by Google. A must have if you want to rank high in Google.