If you are just staring out with WordPress and wondering which plug-ins to use, listed below are a few you may want to consider.
Prevent comment spammers with the Akismet plugin. Most web hosts are smart enough to include Akismet by default with their WordPress automatic installers. If you don’t have it, I highly recommend you get it.
W3 Total Cache enhances the speed/performance of your blog exponentially. Though it can be a bit server resource heavy. As an alternative you can use WP-Super Cache.
Broken Link Checker checks broken links across your blog on a regular basis. This will be very helpful to have as your site changes over time.
Contact Form 7 allows you to create a customized contact form on your WordPress site. All entries are sent to an email address of your choosing. The best thing about this plugin versus others is that it is AJAX based. So it loads faster and easier on the server. A faster blog is a stickier blog that visitors will stay on for longer periods of time.
You can use WP-DBManager to send you regular backups of your blog by email or save them directly to the server. This is a very important part of managing a WordPress blog. WordPress hacks/accidents aren’t as common as they used to be but they still can happen. You can use Vaultpress as another alternative but it’s a paid service.
If you know nothing about making your WordPress blog more secure then WP Security Scan is an excellent plugin to help you figure it out. It also provides protections of its own.
WPtouch makes it so your website/blog is formatted for any visitor using a mobile device (iPhone, Android, iPad etc.) In this day and age, more and more people are visiting websites from mobile devices so its an important consideration to keep in mind.
