If you are just starting a blog, there are many things to take into consideration. After installing WordPress and selecting a suitable theme for your website, the next most important step is installing the required plugins. It can be quite tough to select the best WordPress plugins for your blog, especially if you are new in blogging.

Why are plugins important? Whenever we want to try something on the blog, the first place we turn is WordPress plugins. WordPress has thousands of plugins designed for all manner of functions and it can easily get confusing for a new user. Previously we wrote about common WordPress mistakes and the risks of using WP Total Cache Plugin.

Here is a list of top 5 WordPress Plugins that will make your blogging experience more efficient and enjoyable.

1) Akismet

WordPress doesn’t automatically publish comments and pingbacks. An admin user has to login to approve, delete, or mark comments as spam. While this manual approach is fine, it can get really annoying once you start getting hundreds or worse still, thousands of spam comments. The best solution is to install the Akismet plugin which will help you filter and block spam comments. Akismet allows you to auto schedule deletion of all the spam comments either daily, weekly, or whenever you decide to.

2) Google Analytics

The Google Analytics WordPress Plugin is a plugin that automatically embeds the Google analytics code on your website. This plugin is one of the most important additions to any new website. Google automatically keeps track of users and generates a thorough report on your website traffic, including many important metrics, such as user flow, user demographics, traffic sources, etc.

3) PlugMatter

PlugMatter is a set of professional WordPress Plugins. With PlugMatter, you simply insert a piece of code at the end of your header.php file, then you can design and customize your featured box right from within the PlugMatter interface inside WordPress. This is the only plugin that allows you to create beautiful high converting ‘optin feature boxes’ for your WordPress site. Plug Matter can help you boost your email subscriptions by over 200%.

4) Jetpack

Another incredibly useful plugin from the WordPress team, Jetpack offers many useful tools, all merged into one plugin. Many of the 33 tools are the same as those available to the WordPress-hosted blogs. You’ll find things like contact form, related posts, share tools, and single sign on.
Perhaps the most-loved feature of Jetpack is its built-in analytics reporting. You can check your site stats straight from your WordPress dashboard, without having to log in anywhere else.

5) upRev

This is a very handy plugin, based on the concept that made the NY Times website popular. This plugin shows a related content box when a visitor nears the bottom of a post. The related content can be picked however you choose—the previous article, from a certain category/tag, or a completely random article.

We would like to hear what WordPress plugins made your experience better. Let us know in comments!

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