Although this topic is changing all the time, it’s like a moving target, but I think it would be useful to list here the plugins I consider useful for a wordpress blog. I’ll modify this post in time, but for now, here you go:

1. Monetize WordPress – Boost your CTR and response rate with more than 30%
2. TweetMe for WordPress – A cool viral plugin to help your users spread the word about your website
3. All in one SEO pack – I consider this one the most important in my list. Why? Because it offers you a lot of SEO options (without having to learn html, of course). For instance, you can have your blog title custom for the home page and custom for all your posts. You can add meta keywords and description (which, by default, wordpress doesn’t offer). In short: get it now, you don’t have anything to lose.
4. Google XML Sitemap For WordPress – it builds a xml sitemap with all your posts, links, pages, etc and submits it to google, msn and others. Multiple options offered as well
5. No-follow Free – it removes the no-follow tag from your worpress blog comments. I don’t know what to say about this one .. the no-follow tag somehow prevents automatic link building and prevents spam on your blog. How ? Well .. knowing that by default wordpress does put this nofollow tag on the links and therefore SEs ignore those links, people won’t spam your blog with comments. However, it’s up to you if you want to use it or not.
6. Google Analytics – allows you to add your google tracking code into your blog without having to modify your theme files.
7. WordPress Polls – allows you to add polls to your website, just like the one you see on my blogs sidebar. Once you create a poll, you have to add it as a widget. Contact me or the creator of this plugin if you need any help
8. Social Bookmarks – with it, your visitors will be able to bookmark your posts and share them with their friends

Well … I personally consider these ones important. Depending on your needs, you may have other “top 5″ or “top 10″ lists. I would be happy to get this list bigger and bigger based on your comments, so, if you have other plugins to recomment, be free to do it and I will add them to this list.

Thanks for contributing.

- Peter

I’m talking about wordpress security and vulnerabilities here and there’s much to say about it, so I’ve started a new category where to post.

The very first and most important thing you need to do to help your blog stay safe all the time is to keep it updated to the latest version. That’s the most safe (at least that’s what they say). Everytime a new bug/security hole is found, the platform gets updated with a fix and then the bug is published. In short words, everybody knows about it.

If you don’t want to mess with ftp and downloads and so on, you might want to use a plugin that does your updating automatically. This way you’ll always have your wordpress blog up to date. I don’t remember the name of that plugin because I don’t use it, but if you wish to install it, do a simply search on google or on wordpress.com site and you’ll find it pretty fast. I don’t use it because I don’t like having too much “foreign” code on my server… you never know what can happen to your database or whatever. Therefore, I prefer to update it manually.

Oh … and by the way, I was talking about plugins. When you get a new plugin, make sure it’s a safe one. Don’t install any plugin just because the owner is saying on his website that plugin  will help you do this or that. Maybe use a test blog to check the plugin, or maybe get a software engineer to analyze it carefully. This way you’ll know it isn’t a threat for you or your business.