Online marketing through blogging is almost an industry standard these days, and it is no wonder that WordPress is by far the most popular blogging platform used. Forget that WordPress, like many of the other blogging platforms is 100% free, and that you can have WordPress up and running in under 5 minutes. The real power of WordPress lies within the thousands of Plugins that allow even the most inexperienced blogger leverage the power of instant information publishing with content tools that tailor how their marketing messages are delivered to their readers.

This is my list of the top 30 must have plugins for WordPress.

All in One SEO Pack
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

Optimizes your WordPress blog for search engines by Automatically optimizing your titles and META tags.

IntenseDebate
http://intensedebate.com/

Replaces default comment system with advanced commenting, threaded replies, karma points (not for individual comments), Gravatars, RSS, ability to reply to comments from email (great to reply from your Blackberry), all in one management from the website for users. It also comes with the optional Intense Debate Top Commentators sidebar widget to display your top commentators, great to encourage commenting (however, the Disqus one below is a lot more comprehensive).

Disqus Commenting System
http://disqus.com

Replaces your comment template with the more advanced Disqus comment system. Disqus is also the only system to support Facebook Connect out of the box. I’ve contacted IntenseDebate directly and they told me there is no current plan to support Facebook Connect. Disqus also features RSS, Gravatars, threaded comments, comment karma, and lets you easily see comments made by the same user on other sites. I prefer Disqus as it offers Facebook Connect support out-of-the-box that could help you tap into the Facebook community. Disqus also features top commentators, recent comments widgets. Also, with Disqus you can enable video comments with seesmic.

Digg Digg
http://www.mkyong.com/blog/digg-digg-wordpress-plugin/

Adds Digg, Reddit, Yahoo Buzz buttons with counters for your readers to easily vote for your posts from your page. I was able to contact the author who also told me Stumble Upon support is on its way as well.

Sociable
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sociable/

Automatically add links to your favorite social bookmarking sites on your posts, pages and in your RSS feed. You can choose from 99 different social bookmarking sites including Digg, Reddit, SU, Mixx, Propeller. You can also add e-mail and print buttons. It also supports TwitThis, but the plugin can be made easier by using TinyURL (or another URL shortening service) and automatically logging the user into Twitter with the URL and Title already shown.

Google Analytics
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/

Google Analytics provides highly advanced website tracking and management information free of charge. Use this plug-in to easily add the code so Google Analytics can immediately begin to track all of your pages

Lifestream
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/lifestream/

Lifestream displays your social feeds and activity from many social sites. Includes support to display your Flickr photos, Facebook feed, Friendster feed, Youtube videos, Twitter updates, any other RSS feed, from your other blogs, etc.

DB Backup
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/

Easily backup/restore your posts and entire WordPress database. Download or send your back to your email.

WP Greet Box
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-greet-box/

Displays different greeting message to your new visitors depending on their referrer URL. For example, when a Digg user clicks through from Digg, they will see a message reminding them to digg your post if they like it. The plug-in also includes out of the box support for getting messages from users coming from Reddit, SU, Facebook, Google (shows searched keywords as well), Mixx, etc. You can also easily add your own custom greeting from people coming from any site you choose.

WP-SpamFree
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-spamfree/

An extremely powerful anti-spam plugin for WordPress that virtually eliminates comment spam, including trackback and pingback spam. I find the plug-in works surprisingly well by eliminating all automated spam. It does somewhat use a bit of bandwidth sometimes.

WP Super Cache
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/

This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts. Some people have complained about compatibility problems with other plugins, so exercise some caution here and follow the instructions carefully. However, the plugin is very good and can save you a significan amount of bandwidth.

Google XML Sitemaps
http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/

Generates a XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog. This format is supported by Ask.com, Google, YAHOO and MSN Search.

Category Posts Widget
http://jameslao.com/2008/04/18/category-posts-widget-13/

Displays any amount of posts you want from a specific category in your sidebar

Contact 7 Contact Form
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/

Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.

Popularity Contest
http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress

Shows your readers your most popular posts based on views, comments, pingbacks, among other criteria. You can also change the weight of each criteria to determine the most popular post.

WP Since Last Visit
http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress

Indicates with a small “New” picture beside your post to users who have not yet seen your post from their last visit. Also works with comments.

Twitter Tools
http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress

Allows you to pull your tweets into your blog (as posts and digests) and create new tweets on blog posts and from within WordPress.

WordPress Download Monitor
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/download-monitor/

Download Monitor is a plugin for uploading and managing downloads, tracking download hits, and displaying links.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
http://mitcho.com/code/yarpp/

Gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site

WP Page Numbers
http://www.jenst.se/2008/03/29/wp-page-numbers

Adds pagination to your WordPress navigation, good for search engines.

WP-PostRatings
http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/#wp-postratings

Allows your readers to vote on how they liked your article. You can also display your highest or lowest voted posts on your sidebar.

WP-PostViews
http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/#wp-postviews

Allows you to display the number of times your post has been viewed.

AdSense Manager
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/adsense-manager/

Lets you add Google AdSense, Yahoo, AdBrite, among other ads, to your sidebar or anywhere else on your blog.

Smart YouTube
http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/wordpress-plugins/smart-youtube

Allows you to easily insert Youtube videos in your post, comments and in your RSS feed

Video widget
http://www.nikohk.com/plugin-wordpress-video-widget/

Easily display videos from many different video sharing websites on your sidebar or blog, including from YouTube, DailyMotion, Google Video, Metacafe, Reever, MySpace, Blip.tv, Quicktime, Windows Media Player, among many others

FlickrRSS

http://eightface.com/wordpress/flickrrss/
Lets you easily display your Flickr photos on your blog, comes with a sidebar widget. Note: Lifestream plug-in also supports this so you may not need this plugin.

Facebook Connect Community
http://www.sociable.es/facebook-connect

Allows your users to sign in with their Facebook account. It also supports comments to be sent to the users news feed, which can draw you some good viral traffic. However, it does not work with IntenseDebate. I just contacted IntenseDebate and they told me they do not plan to offer Facebook Connect support, which is unfortunate because that would make life a lot more easier, especially for people who want all the advanced features of IntenseDebate but also want the ability for comments to be sent to the Facebook newsfeed.

DropCap First Character WordPress Plugin
http://www.rc.au.net/blog/2006/07/27/dropcap-first-character-wordpress-plugin/

What it does is it makes the first character of the post BIG in a magazine style.

Front Page Excluded Categories
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/front-page-excluded-categories/

As the title suggests, it blocks categories you don’t want from displaying on your home page

Subscribe-Remind

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-remind/
Invites your readers to subscribe to your RSS feed below each post

Exec-PHP
http://bluesome.net/post/2005/08/18/50

Executes PHP code in posts, pages, or your sidebar.

There are literally thousands more plugins that offer flexibility and additional features to further customize your WordPress layout. If you have a popular plugin not listed here at it to the comments – Thx

Rob Fleming Can Drive traffic to your website or blog with his powerful SEO/SEM Article Promotion techniques. Find out how by sending him an email with his contact form. -Rob Fleming is a Freelance writer for hire with over 10 years experience in Developing unique website content, Website Marketing, and SEO techniques. He has authored hundreds of powerful articles on building site authority and driving traffic to websites.