If you plan to start a blog, or you have a small business that you wanted to take online using WordPress.org as CMS (Content Management System), and you wonder which WordPress plugins to install, this post is for you. Naturally, every site has its why what, and how. Here, I will focus on how and more specifically on the back-end of your online presence. These back-end solutions will make your life easier, speed up publishing process, search engine indexing, and word-of-mouth marketing through social networks status publishing.

And without further bragging, here we go with the list:

• WordPress Importer – A plugin that allows you to import all your posts, categories, tags, comments, etc. from your WordPress.com exported website or a backup you have done earlier on you WrodPress.org based one.
• All in One Webmaster – This plugin will publish your website/blog with numerous search engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo). It will also allow you to input the codes for your Google Analytics, Alexa, Quantcast (if your target audience is in the USA), and Compete. It also allows you to Insert custom-made code in the header and the footer of your site. This plugin is an indispensable tool where it comes to your WordPress Webmaster tools and tracking visitors’ options.
• All in One SEO – Although search engine crawlers (those algorithms that take a picture of your site and make it possible to appear on Google, Yahoo, and Bing relevant search results) are becoming smarter with every new update, Search Engine Optimization is still a must. This plugin will allow you to work with all the major meta tags and customize them according to the content on your website. It comes with presets, so if are not a pro, you will need to customize only very little of the settings and it will work just fine.
• Google XML Sitemaps – The name points out pretty straightforward what this plugin does. It creates an XML map for your website that helps search engines index it properly and rapidly enough.
• Google Analyticator – This plugin helps to hook up your website with Google Analytics and track pretty much everything you want to know about the visitors’ behavior on your site. It is a wonderful tool for analyzing your web traffic.
• WordPress Mobile Pack – A greatly bundled plugin that will allow your website to be accessible through mobile devices. You get the option to customize the appearance and also track your mobile visits. Given the fact that more and more people buy smart-phones and actually use them to browse the internet, it is quite handy to make your website more accessible and user-friendly for mobile visits.
• Broken Link Checker – You link to other online resources (like blogs, corporate websites, Wikipedia etc.). This plugin will be checking in real-time all your links and tell you when there is something wrong and the link you published before needs your attention in order to be usable. Unfortunately, many websites still don’t redirect URLs when they changed their site structure or simply do not use the same permalink (constant link address) structure.
• SexyBookmarks – This is a social media sharing plugin that looks great and its look and feel are customizable. You can choose from many such plugins available at WordPress.org, as long as you have one. It is important to allow your visitors to share your content any time they felt the need to do so. You also need to facilitate their choice of publishing platform. SexyBookmarks allows you to choose from many social network platforms to include in your sharing buttons.
• Twitter Tools – Twitter is regarded as the business social network by most of people. You can also connect it with your LinkedIn profile, so whatever you publish on twitter appears as your status on LinkedIn, too. This is only one of the features that Twitter Tools for WordPress offers. This plugin will allow you to completely integrate your blog or website with Twitter, should you be found of this particular social network as much as I am.
• Akismet – This is a plugin that will help you stay sane. It will keep SPAM comments away from your blog.

It is important to note that there is a difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com. The first offers only CMS software that you can install at your preferred hosting place. The latter is a platform where you can enjoy free hosting, themes but very poor choice in terms of plugin and widget customization. My advice for the newbies is to try WordPress.com first and then, when they feel comfortable enough with the back-end, to go for their own hosting of the software and enjoy the full extend of plugin availability and personalization this Content Management System offers.

Do you have anything to add to this list? Any questions? – Fell free to leave a comment below.

Image source: WordPress.org

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