Sometimes you just have to do the review of what you have and what you don’t have on your blog. New items are coming out for WordPress so often one can almost get overloaded with plug-ins and widgets. When you look at it with a new eye you can strip down to the essentials making your site more easily accessible and faster loading. This means it also uses less bandwidth, which is an advantage if you have a limited bandwidth available.

Essential 1

WP Super Cache is your number one essential plug-in.  This replaces all other versions which should be removed. There are also certain other files which you need to remove from you WordPress before loading the new plug-in.  Basically, what WP super Cache does is it optimizes your files into HTML without the use of php at all. This speeds things up tremendously and uses up less bandwidth.

Essential 2

Spam in any form is abhorrent.  To overcome this pest from being a nuisance on your site you need to install the next item.  Akismet works to reduce the amount of spam that gets through by using a known list of spammers to stop them from being a nuisance on your website. I have never understood what joy people get out of spam. To me, it is just a time waster. Akismet download.

Essential 3

There is another out there that stops spam dead in its tracks. And that is WP SpamFree. They have an option to save you from receiving spam in your contact form as well and also one to save you from spam comments on your blog. I think there is someone else out there that hates spam as much as I do.

Essential 4

If you have been on the net for any length of time you will know how essential a site map is. This is what leads the search engine spiders around your website. As Google has the major market share of search engine traffic it makes sense to keep them happy. They have offered a free site map product to help you get the most benefit out of doing your blog or website to suit their spiders. Although it is free they do ask for a donation if you can afford it.
This plug-in also pings the major search engines when any new posts are made.

Essential 5

Everyone has heard about SEO and how essential it is. Well, SEO comes to you in the form of the All in one SEO pack. This plug-in even creates the correct Meta tags for your site. It does the goodies to the headings and optimizes them for the search engines, and it works with other plug-ins to extend their functions as well. They do request you back up your data prior to installing. If you really like it you might consider upgrading to the Pro version which is also available. This is available at $39 as a special right now and is advertisement free.

Essential 6

Page navigation is always essential on any good website. And to make it an easier task WP Page-Navi plug-in is available. It does require that your server is running PHP5 to work correctly. It can be installed automatically by using the WordPress admin section.

Wishing you happy blogging

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