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Akismet—Okay, I didn’t need to include this because it comes with the default WordPress installation, but I can’t stress how important SPAM filters are. And, frankly, I haven’t found a better one than Akismet. Basically, this is my shoutout to the Akismet development team. Thanks ya’ll for keeping my blog safe.

All in One SEO Pack—I’m just learning about Search Engine Optimization. I don’t know much about it yet, but I know that it’s important. This Plugin does some basic Search Engine Optimization for you, and it’s highly customizable. Out-of-the-(proverbial)-box this thing comes ready to go, but if you know what you’re doing, you can optimize it for your blog and make it run even better. A great resource for optimizing this plugin can be found here.

CG-FlashyTitles 1—Unfortunately, this is a bit antiquated. sIFR 3 is out and this plugin only supports sIFR 2. But, if you don’t know how to implement sIFR 3 (although there are some really great tutorials out there that will teach you how), then this will do until a plugin comes out for WordPress that allows you to use sIFR 3.

DashBar—This is a really handy tool that allows you to feel like you’re logged into the backend while perusing your website’s frontend (that sounds vaguely sexual). Anyhow, it’s pretty useful, although it can be a bit extraneous at times. It’s not 100% necessary, it just saves you a bit of time.

Exec-PHP—This allows you to put PHP in your posts. That’s really important for the developer of the site. ‘Nuff said.

FeedBurner FeedSmith—So I kinda’ lied. This Feedburner thing is a plugin. But you need to go to feedburner.com and burn yourself a feed, and then add this plugin to your WordPress installation. You’ll be happy you did. FeedBurns allow you to track stats of people who are subscribing to your RSS feed. If nothing else, it keeps people like me busy. I love looking at stats.

Get Recent Comments—I spent a long time searching the web for a get recent comments plugin. This one is hands-down the best. It’s easily customizable and it’s easily customizable. Oh, did I mention that it’s easily customizable? It works well, it works hard, and it’s pretty. I love this plugin. If I were sentimental I’d probably make out with it.

Google XML Sitemaps—This plugin is like the Ronco Rotisserie. Set it and forget it as they say. You install this thing once, you put in the proper inputs (which is why you put them in), and then you hit a button which makes the first sitemap. From then on, you never have to touch it again. It updates automatically every time you update the magazine.

OneClick Installer—This thing saves me a ton of headache. I hate doing FTP. This bad boy lets me skip all that. I can even cut out the middle man and snag a plugin or two directly from the host’s website. Upload this plugin using FTP and then never use FTP to upload a plugin again.

Similar Posts— This plugin crawls the database and finds miraculously finds articles that correlate somehow to the article that the visitor is reading. It truly is magical. When I added this plugin, the average pageviews per visitor increased by .5 pages. It won’t work alone. Along with the Similar Posts plugin, you need to instal the Post-Plugin Library. I don’t know why, I just know you got’s ta’ do its.

Role Manager—This plugin just allows you to restrict user access to certain parts of the site. For control freaks and those with Napolean Complexes, this plugin will make you feel very very powerful.

Themed Login and Register—I wanted to customize my wp-login and wp-admin login screen. All I could find was a the Binary Moon Custom Login Plugin which didn’t really do what I wanted it to. Basically, it requires me to work in order to customize my login. Themed Login and Register integrates my login menu into my theme. All I have to do is load it up. Easy peazy.

WP-Footnotes—It’s never fun when i have to comb through some person’s article and insert footnotes. But this plugin allows you to do it pretty easily, and it’s output is pretty. Right now there is a problem with the out-of-box plugin. It changes all your footnotes to the letter “a” on the frontend and your modifications in the backend don’t get saved. You can find the solution here.

WP-PostRatings—This plugin comes with a nice little widget for your sidebar. WP-PostRatings will add a lot to your site. It’s an ajax rating system and it does all the ratings calculations for you. The ratings are controlled by a custom value in the backend, so you can change the ratings of any post you’d like. Also, it records all the ratings in the backend so you can watch for abuses of the system (if you care enough to).

WP-PostViews—This plugin is by the same author as the PostRatings plugin. It works just as nicely too. Highly customizable, this plugin comes with a widget. Get it! Got it? Good.