One of the great things about Wordpress is the community that has contributed Wordpress plugins, which are available at no charge to all Wordpress users.  Many of these are useful in certain situations or for certain types of blogs, but there are 5 that in my opinion are must-have plugins for all Wordpress blog.  Here they are in no particular order:

  • WP-Contact Form – Many e-mail spammers scour the web looking for e-mail addresses.  Having your e-mail address available makes you vulnerable to these people.  This plugin helps keep your e-mail address secure from spammers by requiring people to use a form to contact you.
  • WP-Database Backup – This plugin creates a nice backup of your blog.  You can choose from 3 methods of backing up your site, including via e-mail.  If you have an e-mail service with a high storage allowance such as GMail, this is probably the best way to go. 
  • Related Posts – Arguably the most important plugin Wordpress has to offer.  This plugin shows a designated number of related entries below your post (or wherever you want to place it).  This is ideal for anyone, but especially for those that get a lot of search engine traffic.  It goes a long way to keep web surfers on your site. 
  • Add Related Posts to Your Feed – Adds the above mentioned Related Posts to your feed (requires Ultimate Tag Warrior or Related Posts plugin).
  • All-in-One SEO Pack - This plugin combines everything you could need for optimizing your site for search engines.  You are able to set your homepage Title, Tags, and Description information.  Then you can set it up to do the same for your individual pages, as well as add a designated number of words to your individual pages description.  (See more information here)
  • Google Sitemaps – Generates an XML-Sitemap file of your website that Google, Yahoo!, and MSN use to index your blog.  This ensures Google is aware of all of your pages, as well as any updates you’ve made to posts that were previously indexed. 
  • Gamer’s Pack – Plugin that makes your website easily viewable on the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, and Sony PSP gaming systems.  I’ve also found it helps when trying to view your website on a cell phone. 
  • Permalink Redirect – Does a permanent 301 redirect.  This ensures that search engines don’t penalize you for duplicate posts when they index your site (with and without the www).
  • Akismet – Comes default with current Wordpress installations, but requires activation.  Will catch most all spam before it hits your website.
  • Bad Behavior – Prevents known spam bots from accessing your website and works with Akismet (mentioned above).

Honorable mention:

  • Ultimate Tagging Warrior – This is the ultimate tagging plugin.  It allows you to do a variety of different tagging styles. If you’re interested in more info about this plugin, Lorelle has a great Ultimate Tagging Warrior Guide that I found very useful.  I’ve also set it up to use my UTW tags as the meta tags for my individual pages by setting up my categories to show up as UTW tags, then told my All-in-One SEO plugin to pull my UTW tags and use them as meta tags.

So, there is my list.  10 plugins plus an honorable mention that I feel all Wordpress users should use regardless of what type of blog they are running.  If you are wondering why I didn’t include Top Commentators or any comment related plugins, it is important to remember that not all blogs except comments.  My goal was to cover only plugins that should be used regardless of the type of blog being run.

Is there one that belongs on this list that I missed?  Sound off in the comments below!