As you will undoubtedly know WordPress is a great web publishing tool but one of the things that really excites people is that fact that you can extend WordPress’s capabilities with a multitude of ‘plugins’ that give your WordPress site extra capability.  In fact there are so many plugins out there that they is probably one for what you want WordPress to do.  So here are my favourite plugins anyway.

Akismet

This comes with your WordPress download but is really essential in stopping SPAM appearing on your site through your comments.  On the old version of Penny4Them I think that Akismet had stopped about 14,000 comments in about 6 months!

All in One SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is important if you want to get your blog appearing in the search engine ranking near the top.  This plugin handles a lot of the behind the scenes stuff for you.  For example it adds the meta tags at the top of the page and makes your post/page titles and little more search engine friendly.

Google XML Sitemaps

Linked to the above really.  This produces an XML sitemap of your website and the Google can quickly see all the pages and posts on your site in one file.  Really easy to use and setup to.

Dagon Design Form Mailer

This is a really simple plugin that allows you put a very simple but effective contact form on your site.  There are lots of contact form plugins out there but this is by far the easiest to use if you just want a simple form for people to get in touch.

Subscribe to Comment

This plugin allows readers of comments to subscribe through email to a particular posts comments.  That way when someone else comments on the post the reader is informed that there has been another response so they can keep up to date with the conversation.

Breadcrumb Navigation XT

Fewer and fewer sites these days are choosing to use a breadcrumb to aid navigation but I have to say that I am a fan of them and included one on this site.  This plugin takes care of it all for you.  Really easy to use and very effective.

Limit Posts

There have been many times when I have been designing that I want an area of the site that displays posts but I don’t want them to get to long.  Therefore instead of having to insert the more tag (which I found myself forgetting to do) this plugin automatically cuts your posts at a length you specify and that way keeps your design looking good.  I use it on Equal Design and Education Themes.

Flickr RSS

This plugins uses the RSS Feed of your photos on Flickr in order to show your latest photos on your blog.  You have control of which user account the photos come from as well as the size and number of photos to display.

As I have said there are hundreds of plugins for WordPress and there is a good probability that there is a plugin for the function that you want to add to your blog.  Take a look at the plugins available on the Wordpress Website or do a Google search for what you are looking for.