Useful Wordpess Plugins

Wordpress has become one of the most popular blogging software systems available. As the popularity of blogs continues to increase, their flexibility and range of functions has also increased. As blogs become more advanced, many plugins have been developed to increase their usefulness. These are 10 of the top plugins every blogger should have.

1. All in One SEO Pack - Bloggers want their blogs to be found by search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. The 'All in One SEO Pack' plugin helps make posts and pages more search engine friendly by allowing Wordpress administrators add titles, descriptions and keywords each time they create or modify pages and posts.

2. Google XML Sitemaps - You can create your own sitemap which is supported by all of the major search engines including Google, MSN and Yahoo! A sitemap makes it easier for visitors to find more information about a blog. It also makes it easier for search engines to spider this type of website and index more of its pages.

3. Sociable - Pages, post and RSS feeds can be shared on social media websites using this feature. Once installed, a blog owner simply chooses the social media sites they would like to share links on. These appear below posts and pages. This makes it easy for visitors to share on social websites like Digg, Technorati, Facebook and Twitter.

4. Tweet This - If you have a Twitter account, this is handy way to share new posts and pages on Twitter. Twitter has become one of the most popular place for online users. When you or someone else reads a post this plugin displays an icon that lets you 'tweet' the particular post or page.

5. WP-reCAPTCHA - Spam is a major problem for blogs and forums. They can recieve hundreds of comments daily from automated sources like robots. However, only a handful of these 'comments' are genuine, and the rest are normally spam. WP-reCAPTCHA tackles this by displaying Captcha's or security questions that can only be input by a real person.

6. WP-SpamFree - Another tool to combat spam, WP-SpamFree detects and help remove comments that are deemed to be spam. This make it easier to approve and answer legitimate comments.

7. WP-Ban - Unfortunately there are users who you will want to prevent from commenting and visiting your Wordpress blog. WP-Ban IP allows you to remove or ban users based on host name, IP, IP Range, referrer url or user agent. This reduces the amoount of time you would have had to deal with these users.

8. Akismet - Another way to prevent spam, Akismet checks comments to see if they resemble spam. To check the comments caught by Akismet, simply view the comments section.

9. Maintenance Mode - If the blog is bein maintained, or you want to let visitors know it is down, Maintenance mode allows you to display a Maintence screen by changing simply changing its settings.

10. One Click Plugin Updater - This feature allows you to upgrade other plugins with a single click. You can also install new themes or plugins and decide ho often Wordpress checks updates.

These are ten useful plugins but there are many more. As Wordpress' popularity increases, even more features are being developed. making blogging with Wordpress an effective way to communicate online.

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