What is a Plugin

Some of you might be wondering what a plugin is. A plugin is kind of a software program but it's not standalone. It requires a host program, which in this case is WordPress. A plugin will interact with WordPress to add functionality and extendibility to the core software. In other words plugins allow you to do all sorts of cool things with your blog that you otherwise wouldn't be able to do.

                                                      
There are thousands of free plugins available for WordPress users. I'd like to go over some of the most popular plugins and talk about what they do.

1. Askimet

Askimet is a very useful plugin and almost everybody seems to go out of their way to recommend it. WordPress has packaged the plugin in every WordPress software release since version 2.0.

What Askimet does is combat comment and trackback spam. Askimet captures spam and keeps it in a queue for 15 days and then it deletes it. You might want to check your spam container once in a while to make sure that Askimet hasn't accidentally captured an honest comment.

All in One Seo is a plugin that helps to optimize your WordPress blog. It will allow you to optimize your blog to position well in the Search Engines. You can enter your homepage title and description as well as meta keywords. Then you can also optimize each individual post as well. This is a super handy plugin!

3.Related Posts Plugin

This plugin will show related posts on your page typically after your post. The related posts are found based on whatever keyword your post is focused around. You can choose how many related posts you want to display. You also have the choice of whether or not to show an excerpt and how many words it should be. As a reader I love what this plugin does. If I like an article, I almost always check out the related posts.

4.Subscribe To Comments

This plugin allows your readers to subscribe to individual posts. Basically, when someone comments on a post to which you have subscribed, you will receive the update in your email. This is a great way to stay in touch with your readers. As a reader, I can recall quite a few instances where this plugin came in handy. I love finding interesting posts that touch on exactly what's on my mind. I just subscribe to them and read the follow ups whenever they come.

5. Share This

I see more and more bloggers using this one. Share This is kind of a cross between an "Email this" plugin and a social bookmarking service. Share This allows your readers to share your post through social bookmarking sites like Technorati and Del.icio.us. Social bookmarking as a whole is taking on a lot of momentum and with it this plugin is as popular as ever.

6. SRG Clean Archives

Clean Archives displays your archive list in a nice, neat and orderly way. It will show your articles by month and year. It also displays the title of your article and the number of comments on each post. In my opinion this weighs heavily on the overall appearance of a blog. I don't really like staring at a "messy" blog.

There are so many more WordPress plugins at the official WordPress site. Plugins are useful and fun and also help make your blog more interactive. Did I mention they are free?