One of the best features of WordPress as a blogging and publishing platform is its support for plugins. There is a rich ecosystem of plugins for almost every use imaginable. Most are free but the more feature rich and specialized plugins have to be purchased. However, there are some basic plugins that are must-haves before anything specialized should be considered. Here are some of them:
SEO
When it comes to SEO, the best plugin is WordPress SEO by Yoast. This is the all-in-one solution for SEO and has support for titles, description and other on-site optimizations. In addition it has support for XML sitemaps and site breadcrumbs. It is free.
Spam
There is a lot of comment spam online. Even though Google has now all but removed the usefulness of comment links for SEO, spammers still hammer every site with comments. Akismet does a fantastic job of identifying a lot of comment spam.
Caching
Most web hosts now recommend that caching be switched on for all WordPress sites. The best plugin for caching is W3 Total Cache. It is the fastest and most feature rich caching plugin. Caching will improve the speed of your site loading and reduce load on the server.
Forms
The best form plugin for WordPress is Contact Form 7. It supports fully customizable forms with CAPTCHA support and even has its own plugins.
Analytics
For users of Google Analytics, the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin is the one to use. Very easy to setup and it can even download the statistics to WordPress.