Five WordPress Plugins I Can't Live Without

In case you don't know, WordPress is one of the best and easiest to use blog platforms out there. If you've visited a blog today, chances are good that it was built on WordPress, which is free blog software that anyone can use.

One of the most attractive features of WordPress is the ability site owners have to customize their blogs and add all kinds of plug-ins to add functionality to their sites. The plugins are created by software developers and coders for anyone who wants to use them.

It couldn't be easier to find WordPress plugins. If you have a WP blog, you can easily search for them right from the plugin section of your dashboard. Installing them often only takes a few clicks of a button. Some require a little customization.

Essential WordPress Plug-In #1

Akismet. This is a plugin that filters out spam comments and requires little maintenance on the part of the blog owner. This is an essential plugin and is already preloaded on WordPress blogs. All you need to do is activate it by plugging your WordPress API key into the program.

Essential WordPress Plug-In #2

WhyDoWork Adsense Plugin. WhyDoWork is what I use to display Adsense advertisements on WordPress blogs I run. It lets you easily insert ad code into blog posts. You can choose to display the ads directly below the title of your post and choose if you want to ad box centered, or pushed to the left or the right. You can display ads in the post or after the post. WhyDoWork gives you a lot of flexibility in how you want to display you advertisements. You can also display Chitika ads, affiliate banners, or any other kind of html link or javascript snippet that fits properly.

Essential WordPress Plug-In #3

Yet Another Related Post Plugin. YARP is a very cool and super-easy to install plugin that automatically adds related posts by keyword to the end of your published blog posts. Related posts plug-ins help your website visitors find other posts about the topic they are currently reading about on your site. This helps increase your pageviews, keeps your visitors on your site longer, exposes them to your advertisements (which can be a good thing especially if you have impression-based ads), and helps your visitors find information they're interested in reading.

Essential WordPress Plug-In #4

All-in-One SEO Plugin. This is an essential WordPress plugin because it sets up your title tags and meta tags, which help in your on-site Search Engine Optimization. Just plug in the keyword you are focusing on and it will be included as a title tag with every single blog post you publish. This will help you immensely in gaining strong search engine positions and to increase your site's ranking.

This will help you gain more readers, more traffic, and more subscribers. If you've been blogging for a while, then you know that getting traffic is key in the Internet marketing game.

Essential WordPress Plug-In #5

Sociable WordPress Plugin. Sociable is a plugin you can easily integrate into your website just by downloading it from your blog dashboard and activating it. It allows your site visitors to easily bookmark your blog posts and save them to social bookmarking sites like Delicious, Digg, Stumbleupon, and even social networking sites like Facebook.