The most impressive or should I say advantageous factor in using WordPress as your blogging platform as compared to others, is the enormous amount of plugins available. Every single plugin is unique in it’s own way though many have similar functions. Of course some are really top calss that every blogger should use and some are really lame and writen just for adding mor fun to your blogging experience. One really good example of a fun type plugin is the “Hello Dolly” plugin that comes in default with every WordPress Installation. It’s a plugin that I can’t figure out the use for till today, even after blogging in WordPress for more than 3 years and naturally, it’s the first plugin I delete aftyer every new installation.
Personally, I do not like too many plugins bogging down my blog and I use only a handful which I feel contributes to the usefulness of my blog. My compulsory list will include:
Akismet
All In One SEO
Related Posts
Contact Form
Google XML Sitemaps
Homepage Excerpts
WordPress Automatic Upgrade
WordPress Database Backup
WordPress Thread Comments
Of course then there are a whole bunch of others that I downloaded because some themes need them to run smoothly. When I stop using those theme, I will usually de-activate most of them as like I said, too many plugins running just bogs down the whole blog. Once a while it’s also good to do some spring cleaning and delete all those that you do not use anymore.
It’s really up to the individual’s choice when using plugins, but a good guide as to which are the better ones can be found at Shnkri-La’s post on Top WordPress Plugins. There is a long list of WordPress Plugins that is definitely worth a look and this list should be a good starting point for those who are new to WordPress and can’t decide what is the best plugin to use.
