One of the most common questions I get asked is “What plugins should I use for Wordpress?”. This article will give you a brief rundown of the plugins I personally use and recommend. This will just be a quick “at a glance” on this list, for those in a hurry, which is most of us!  I’ll write an individual article on the perks of each one a little later.

So, here’s the list, as it stands at present:

• TinyMCE Advanced 
  - gives your editor similar features to MS Word - WordPress › TinyMCE Advanced WordPress Plugins
   
• All-In-One SEO
  - allows you to optimize your entire blog for search engines - WordPress › All in One SEO Pack WordPress Plugins
   
• Advertising Manager
  - allows you to easily add more banners if you want more slots than the ones already in the theme - WordPress › Advertising Manager WordPress Plugins
   
• MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer
  - prevents you from inadvertantly putting out an excess of pings and being marked a ‘ping spammer’ - WordPress › MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer WordPress Plugins
   
• Google (XML) Sitemaps
  - creates a Google friendly XML sitemap of your site - Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress
   
• Dagon Design Sitemap Generator
  - creates a dynamic sitemap page - WordPress › Dagon Design Sitemap Generator WordPress Plugins
   
• Dagon Design Form Mailer
  - contact form with Captcha protection - Secure Form Mailer Plugin For Wordpress Dagon Design
   
• Exclude Pages
  - allows you to prevent specific pages from appearing in your menu which can be useful for sales pages - WordPress › Exclude Pages WordPress Plugins
   
• Vipers Video Quicktags
  - the easiest way on earth to add video to your posts and pages - WordPress › Viper’s Video Quicktags WordPress Plugins
   
• Onlywire
  - after setting up an account with Onlywire you can submit your posts to multiple social bookmarking sites at once - Add the Bookmark & Share button to your blog or website | OnlyWire

Also, you should always enable the Akismet plugin, which is installed by default. You’ll need a Wordpress API key (free) and once it is enabled Akismet will block most of your comment spam.

I’ll add to this list as time goes by and I find more “must have” plugins. Look out also for some more detailed individual articles about specific plugins and how to use them.