10 Basic WordPress Plugins for a Business Blog

Every blogger you speak with has his or her favorite plugins. And with something like a bazillion out there (OK, so I exaggerate, but not by much), you can find a plugin that will allow you to do just about anything you desire. Here are the ten basic WordPress plugins that I start with when I create custom blogs for my clients.

1. Askimet: a mandatory plugin, Askimet checks your comments and flags them as spam. (If you don’t have this one, go get it now, install it, and then come back and finish reading this post).
2. All in One SEO  Pack: Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog.
3. Google Analyticator: Adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google’s Analytics.
4. Google XML Sitemaps: generates a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog (supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search, and YAHOO).
5. SEO Friendly Images: automatically adds alt and title attributes to all your images, making them w3C/xHTML valid.
6. StatPress: gives you real time stats for your blog
7. Theme Test Drive: allows you to safely test drive any theme while visitors are using the default one. You can even preview the new theme via thumbnail.
8. Twitter Tools: provides a complete integration between your WordPress blog and Twitter. You can bring your tweets into your blog and pass your blog posts to Twitter.
9. Tweet This: adds a “Tweet This Post” link to every post and page. Don’t worry, it will shorten your URL in advance, eating up only 19 of 140 characters.
10. Event Calendar: helps you manage events as an online calendar that you can display in multiple ways.

What WordPress plugins are part of your standard installation? Let us know about your favorites in the comments.

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