After installing and configuring more than 20 WordPress sites, most of which I’m also responsible for maintaining, I’ve narrowed in on a list of six plugins that I continue to use to ensure the security and solidity of each site. Up to the date of this article each of these plugins is stable and compatible with WordPress 3.0. Install and configure these plugins, and you’ll have a bulletproof blog with a solid base including spam protection, full site backups, search engine optimization, and stats.

If you have any of your own to add, please leave a comment after the post.

1. Akismet

   The first point of perfection for this plugin is that it comes preinstalled with every WordPress installation. That, coupled with the easy setup – just insert your WordPress.com API key – makes it a clear necessity. It has captured about 90% of my spam comments, and 100% of the spam comments I would expect a plugin to catch. Sometimes you just need that human factor…

2. All-in-One SEO Pack

   Even though the configuration of this one looks a little complex, simply filling in a few spaces in the main settings page can make a world of difference in how a search engine views and ranks your site. Here are a few tips for using this one at a basic level:

   1. From your Dashboard, go to Settings–>All in One SEO. On that settings page, make sure you enable the plugin, then put some thought into the Home Title, Home Description, and Home Keywords fields. Make sure they include keywords you’d like your site to rank for in search engines, but don’t fake it either.
   2. The Title should be short and to the point (10 words or less). Your Description should be 3-5 sentences that accurately describe what a person and search engine will find in your site. Your Keywords should be unique short phrases numbering no more than 10 or so, that again relate very well to the content found in your site.
   3. More advanced users will fill in all of the details of the All in One SEO Pack module that appears within the New/Edit Post screen, but that is not necessary for the plugin to provide some benefit.
3. Automatic WordPress Backup

   If you’re not currently backing up your WordPress site (both database and files), you should be. Sites get corrupted and lost all the time, and for about 10 minutes of setup time with this plugin by Volcanic (a web design company) you’ll be safe if something corrupts your site. The AWB plugin backs up your entire WordPress site – database and files – to Amazon S3 storage. Set up your S3 storage account with Amazon first by going to Amazon Web Services (it literally costs pennies per month to backup your site), then when you go to configure the AWB plugin you’ll link up to that account. I choose to do daily backups of everything, and to keep monthly backups for a year.

4. Google XML Sitemaps (coupled with submission to major search engines)

   A sitemap is a vital part of your WordPress site that tells search engines how your site is structured, and therefore how to effectively crawl your site. This plugin generates a sitemap.xml file in your home directory, updates it every time you update your site, and pings major search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Ask. This plugin, coupled with submission of your sitemap.xml to those search engines, will ensure your site is seen and crawled and included in search engine results for relavant keywords.

   Note that this plugin is not yet compatible with the WordPress 3.0 Multisite feature, though there’s an interesting workaround proposed here in the second to last post in this string in the WordPress Forums.

   To get you going, here is a list of links to the major search engines webmaster tools areas so that you can submit your sitemap to them. Click through the other options at each of these sites and fill in what you feel comfortable with. Submission of your sitemap.xml file, where they allow it, is most important, though.

   1. Google Webmaster Tools
   2. Webmaster Center – Bing
   3. Yahoo! Site Explorer
   4. Submission of a sitemap to Ask.com happens via a ping. Insert your site’s URL in the specified spot, then paste this into your browswer’s address bar: http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://YOUR_BLOG’s_URL/sitemap.xml . Hit enter, and you should get an Ask.com confirmation message of successful submission of your sitemap.
5. Google Analyticator

   This plugin not only installs Google Analytics tracking code to your blog for you (set up your site first with Google Analytics), but also provides a site stats preview in your WordPress Dashboard. The full report is also available right from the Dashboard widget. Just install the plugin, connect it with your Analytics account in the configuration settings, enable the plugin, and you’ll be good to go.

   I will say that a point of non-perfection to this plugin is the very non-interactive nature of the Dashboard widget stats vs. other WordPress Dashboard statistics plugins like WordPress.com Stats. But, it works for at-a-glance stats, and if you’re like me and always peeling through the full Google Analytics Reports, then this plugin is the way to go.

6. Feedburner Feedsmith

   An absolute necessity if you are at all interested in how many people subscribe to your blog via RSS and/or email, the Feedburner Feedsmith plugin redirects all of your feeds to a single, simple feed address for easy tracking. Start by “burning your feed” at Feedburner. Make sure to enable email subscriptions for your feed by clicking on the “Publicize” tab up top, then “Email Subscriptions” on the left, and ensuring you click the “Activate” button. Keep that tab open for reference when setting up the Feedsmith plugin on your site. This is one of the few plugins you’ll have to FTP into your site (directly into your wp-content/plugins/ directory. Once it’s FTP’d in, it’ll show up in your list of installed plugins in your Dashboard. Activate it, then proceed to the settings area for the plugin and simply follow their instructions.

   Note that if you choose to use another service to manage your email subscriptions, like MailChimp’s RSS to Email feature, then you do not need to activate email subscriptions on your Feedburner feed, but you’ll still need to utilize the Feedsmith plugin to consolidate your site’s feed.

There you have it. Again, feel free to mention your own picks or questions in the comments.

Prefer to hire someone to do this for you? Heather Acton is available.