Wordpress Essential Pluggins

[Geoffuk]

I'm just in the process of setting up my first blog. Its primarily just for spreading my site links at the minute but I intend to set up a 'proper' blog shortly.

I was wondering if anyone has any essential or recommended pluggins. I've got the obvious Akismet spam pluggin but thats as far as I've got.

Any advice welcomed!


Thanks,

Geoff

[gadget]

XML Sitemap .. absolutely essential.

[KirstyM]

Off the top of my head SEO Title Tag is a must-have for me!

[Frostie]

Geoff

Hopefully this will help;
Blogging Necessities | Web Affiliate Marketing Blog | Affiliate Marketing

In addition to these, I also make use of;
wp-ajax-newsletter - Google Code
SEO for your Wordpress Blog
WordPress-Ready Contact Form v.2.0WP - Beast-Blog.com
Sociable - Push cx

Should keep you busy for a while

[Azam.net]

Cheers Frostie.

I've been looking around for a good gallery/slideshow plug-in. Using this one at the moment, but it's not that great. Any recommendations of better ones?

[gadget]

I used to use the contact form but its spam filter wasn't sharp enough.
Also, I didn't see the benefits of the SEO plugin over doing it your self.

[Geoffuk]

Well thats certainly given me a few to go at. I've gotta admit though, I much prefer the 'install and activate' ones to having to deal with code. ........I suppose I'm just being lazy

Is there any risk of 'clogging up' with pluggins? Or is it pretty safe to just activate away?


Thanks for all the replies.

Geoff

[experienceadvertising]

Great resources in this thread...I have a question
Is it necessary to ping the rss directories after each post?

[gadget]

Originally Posted by experienceadvertising Great resources in this thread...I have a question Is it necessary to ping the rss directories after each post?

Check your settings in the options section. My is set to auto-ping but I think some of the skins aren't always auto-ping.

[Frostie]

For the contact form, it works extremely well if you update the question every now and then. If you simply install as it is and leave it, then yes, you will attract spam. I have never received any spam comments from any of my blogs.......... yet....

As for SEO'ing - yes you can do it yourself, however in terms of ease for specifiying keywords etc, its so easy and means very little hacking. Again, its down to trial and error, and personal experience I guess.

As for pinging servers, James Little wrote a very interesing post, listing lots of servers to ping;
Wordpress SEO Tips | Affiliate Marketing Blog by James Little

[Paul Wright]

I've posted up a quick synopsis of all the wordpress plugins I use on my affiliate marketing blog (all 18 of them), hope you find it useful or anybody else for that matter.

WordPress Plugins | Fish and Clicks

Cheers
Paul