Great WordPress Plugins I Can’t Live Without {Part 1}

One of the things I’ve loved about moving from Blogger to WordPress are the WordPress plugins.  There is an area in your WordPress dashboard dedicated to adding new plugins that will improve your blog – so much better (and easier) than anything Blogger has to offer!  Although organizing and choosing your plugins can seem daunting at first, you catch on to how it works pretty quickly, and really appreciate the options you’re given to customize your website.

So here they are – the WordPress plugins I can’t live without (not in any particular order):

Akismet – The most-downloaded comment spam plugin.  It does an awesome job of catching spam before it gets through and putting it in your  moderation queue for you.

CommentLuv – I have a great fondness for this one.  It gives the commenter the option of leaving a link to their last blog post underneath their comment. I love that it makes it easy for me to visit the last blog posts of the people who comment on my blog.  It’s a great way to connect with your readers!

All-In-One SEO Pack – A must-have if you care at all about your site and content being found via search engine.  This plugin might take some research before you get everything , but it’s worth it!

Options page for All in One SEO

You’ll find these options on every “edit post” page.

Greg’s Threaded Comment Numbering – This one not only numbers your comments for you, it puts them in threads and pages – everything looks neat and organized!

NoFollow Free – This is a great way to reward your faithful commenters.  It removes the “nofollow” attribute from the comment author’s links. I have mine set so that after someone has commented (and been approved) three times, the “nofollow” is removed.  (Click here to find out more about what “nofollow” is.)

Subscribe to Comments -  This plugin allows commenters to subscribe to, or be emailed when more comments are made on the post.  I wanted to add this because I frequently reply to comments directly on the post and didn’t want my readers to miss anything.  :-)

And that’s it for now.  I still have quite a few additional plugins to share with you, so stay tuned for part 2 of this series!

Until then, what are your favorite plugins?