The beauty of WordPress is the ability to modify and customize the blog platform to your needs. If you want to run WordPress as a blog or content management system (CMS), you can with the right plugins, template and customization.
The following is a brief list of common and essential plugins we use when building custom websites on the WordPress platform.
Akismet Plugin – Reduce and eliminate spam
Akismet is a spam-fighting service in that it checks the content of the comment anonymously with an online server, to determine whether it is spam or not.
Over time, un-friendly bots scour the Internet and eventually happen upon your WordPress blog. Spam submissions and automated entries are made to your website. Tools like Akismet help reduce these un-friendly entries.
Get it here:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/
All in One SEO Pack
One of the originals for helping you optimize your website.
Remember, a plugin alone will not optimize your website. Content, linking, structure and much more is always important.
What this plugin will help you with is:
- Page and post keyword meta tags
- Canonical URLs
- Custom web page titles
- 404 error web page formatting
- No-indexing for category, archive and tag web pages
- Additional header and footer information
- and more.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
Good over on All in One SEO Pack
Contact Form 7
An essential plugin for lead generation, inquiries and contact forms. There are many contact forms; contact form to email, form to email and database and so forth. This is a simple to install, configure and use plugin. Some of the powerful features include: Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and more.
Download here:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/
If you are simply starting out with WordPress and are looking for a set of plugins to start out with on your website, the ones above are great to experiment with.
Keep in mind, there are literally over 1000+ add-ons and plugins for WordPress, not to mention custom themes and templates.
SiteBuilderOne provides custom WordPress blog development services for websites requiring an additional blog to their existing websites.
Thank you!