If you have been reading my blog,  you know I love WordPress and all of its many features.

WordPress’s platform allows for customization on so many different levels.   A Plugin is an extension that adds additional functions to a WordPress Blog or WordPress Website.

Everyone has their favorites – here is a list of 10 Plugins Every WordPress Website Should Have.

1. Google Analyticator – You have to be able to track your web visitors and stats.  In order to easily add the Google Analytics code to your WordPress Website, install Google Analyticator and Activate it.  You are still not done though.  From there, you will need to click on Google Analytics in the left sidebar under Settings.  Here it will walk you through what you need to do to complete the process.

2.  AddToAny – It is so important to maximize your WordPress Website for Social Networking.  One way to get it started is by installing a Plugin that allows for your readers to share on any Social Network!   Why?, you ask?  Don’t you want new readers to have the ability to share your blog post and information with their friends on sites like Facebook – which just hit over 500 Million Users… Yes, that is 500 Million!  Exactly, why would you Not have it!

3.  Akismet – Why Spammers Spam is beyond me…  But Akismet is your Knight in Shiny Armor against the Spam Comments War.  You will need to go and set up an account with WordPress.com if you do not already have one.  Once you set up your WordPress.com account, you can get your API Key that you will need to activate this plugin.

4.  All-In-One-SEO Pack – Some of the Premium themes come with build in SEO options to help search engines to better pick up your site.  If  your does not you can easily install this plugin to add TAGS and descriptions to each page or post to help with your SEO.

5.  Remote WP Database Backup – Your database is vital to your WordPress Website.  There is a plugin that will automate the backup process of your database.  You can even have it send to an email address to keep it safe.

6.  Google XML Sitemaps – If you know anything about SEO, you know Sitemaps help with your rankings and help the bots find your website content.  The Google XML Sitemap plugin easily creates a sitemap for your website.  No need to know any special coding.

7.  TinyMCE – WordPress’s text editor doesn’t give you too many formatting options.  This plugin gives you more formatting options for your text.

8.  WordPress Stats – For quick stats inside of the WordPress Dashboard install WordPress Stats.  This can give you information about what words are landing your visitors on your site, what your most popular post is, and more.

9.  Exclude Pages – Every website has pages that should not be included into the navigation menu.  This plugin makes it easy for you to exclude pages from your navigation within your WordPress website.  Simply click the box on the page that you wish to exclude and that is it.

10.  WP Testimonials – If you are providing any type of service or selling products you should display your testimonials for your potential clients to see.   Testimonials give the potential client a warm and fuzzy feeling knowing that others have had great success with you.  That is a whole other blog post, but with this plugin you can rotate your testimonials easily in a widget on your sidebar.

BONUS – TweetMeme – TweetMeme easily allows readers to share your blog post on Twitter.  They can add #hashtags or whatever else they want it to say when they share it.

I hope you found these Plugins helpful!  Let me know what your favorite WordPress Plugins are!