WordPress offers many plugins to extend the functionality to do almost anything. There are currently over 16,000 plugins available in the Plugins Directory at WordPress. Many of the plugins have the same function and features as others. How you choose, begins with some of my recommended plugins in this article.
All-in-One SEO – If you want any chance of ranking in search engines this is a must have plugin. All-in-One SEO pack allows you to add keywords, titles and meta descriptions to each page and blog post of your site.
Google XML Sitemap – This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog. With such a sitemap, it’s much easier for the crawlers to see the complete structure of your site and retrieve it more efficiently. Additionally it notifies all major search engines every time you create a post about the new content.
W3 Total Cache – This plugin makes a copy of your web page on the server and by doing so it increases site performance and reduces the resource consumption. It is essential that you have this plugin just incase if your site hits the Front Page of a social media network such as digg or stumbleupon, without this plugin, your server will most likely crash.
CformsII – CformsII offers lots of flexibility in there contact form solution. The plugin provides SPAM protection, Ajax support, multi-recipients, and database tracking.
Flickr Gallery – This gallery allows you to insert your flickr gallery in your web page/blog using shortcodes. The installation is seamless and works great.