Essential Plugins

Plugins allow you to extend the functionality of your basic WordPress site. The following plugins are essential and will add great features that will make your site safer, easier to use, and more SEO friendly.

Jetpack by WordPress.com

Jetpack is a nifty plugin, which gives you some of the built-in features of WordPress.com that you don’t get by default with a self-hosted WordPress. These features include short-codes, grammar checker, social networking comment system, subscriber functionality and much more. Follow the tutorial above to get it setup. Remember to deactivate the Photon feature once you have it running.

Jetpack Social Sharing Buttons

Jetpack contains many different features that help enhance your site. One of those features is adding social media sharing buttons at the bottom of each of your posts. Follow this video to help your site visitors share your content.

Jetpack Social Related Content

Another great Jetpack feature is displaying related content at the bottom of each post. This helps keep site visitors engaged with your site.

Akismet

NOTE:There are two walkthroughs in this video. The second walkthrough starts at 1m 52s and covers how to connect jetpack without a WordPress.com account.

Akismet protects you from the evil world of spammers. This plugin filter watches over you to make sure no one else is posting advertisements or unrelated comments on your site.

All in One SEO Pack by Torbert

All in One SEO Pack will help automatically optimize your site so that search engines will index/recognize your presence.

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