After starting a new wordpress blog, the next step is to add functionality to it by installing plugins. Plugins are pieces of code which can be customized in the wordpress dashboard to achieve the desired function. Plugins help in optimizing and increasing the productivity of the blog. There are a lot of free and premium plugins available online, but this post will focus on 7 must-have wordpress plugins, which are very useful and are quite helpful for a rookie blogger. They are as follows :

1. Akismet

If you have just converted your blog, you will see a gush of spam comments coming your way. It is hard to tell that how these spam commenters get to know about the blog which has just been created, even when search engines are not aware of it, but they somehow manage. These spam comments make the comment moderation an arduous task. In this situation Akismet acts as a savior and it automatically filters comments which are considered spam and decreases the immense load of spam comments that come your way and reduces the moderation time.

2. Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin generates a XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog. This format is supported by Ask.com, Google, YAHOO and MSN Search and is very important for indexing in search engines and for overall SEO purposes.

3. WP Super Cache

WordPress uses PHP script which is dynamic in nature. As the pages in wordpress are dynamic, they take a lot of time to load, especially if the number of plugins used is huge. WP Super Cache is a static caching plugin for WordPress. It generates static html versions of the dynamic php scripts. As the page is static, it loads faster and so the plugin helps you speed up your WordPress blog significantly.

4. All in One SEO Pack

If you are beginner and don’t have any knowledge on SEO, then this plugin will work wonders for you. The All in one SEO pack automates the work of SEO by automatically adding the Title Tags and Meta Keywords. Though if you want to do the SEO work manually, you can do that easily with the help of this plugin.

5. Contact Form 7

A simple yet flexible contact form plugin. It is easy to use and it requires only a one line code, which should be pasted on a page where you want it to be displayed.

6. SEO Friendly Images

SEO Friendly Images is a handy tool for Image search engine optimization.

7. WP Greet Box

WP is a nice little plugin which displays greeting messages to users coming from different sources. It is a great tool to increase the number of subscribers to your blog.

These are some of the few plugins which are required for the progress of a new blog. There are plenty of options for advanced functions and it all depends on the blog owner’s choice.

Which wordpress plugin is your favorite?