The Wordpress publishing platform has taken over the blogosphere over the past few years — and with good reason. It’s fast, free, easy to use, and most importantly: scalable.

Community support for Wordpress is outstanding! I stumble across a new plugin or two everyday! Now, not all plugins are created equal and neither are websites.

Scalability Matters

Wordpress may not be the best Content Management System on the planet right out of the box, but with some tweaking you can create some really special things.

With that said, I’ve compiled a list of the top 8 plugins I absolutely must have activated as soon as I publish a new Wordpress site:

1. Optimal Title - This plugin allows you to have your site’s name added to the end of your page title — rather than before it (wordpress default setting)…this should be #1 on your list if you’re serious about establishing an SEO-friendly foundation.
2. Akismet Comment Spam Killer - The name speaks for itself! Although this plugin comes pre-installed with Wordpress, a lot of users neglect it and leave it deactivated. Bad, web user! Bad! Trust me, it will make your life a whole lot simpler.
3. Feedburner Feed Replacement - This plugin will direct all of your feed traffic right through FeedBurner, ensuring that you will always receive accurate statistics about your subscribers.
4. RunPHP - This one is for coding maniacs or those who only want certain plugins or pieces of code to take effect in a particular post. I find it highly useful, but casual users may not.
5. Google Sitemap Generator - As a web professional, the word “Google” gets your attention. Now it’s time to get theirs! This plugin will generate a brand new sitemap for Google to use every time you update or add fresh content to your site.
6. Wordpress Database Backup - This is another one that comes pre-installed with Wordpress but is often ignored. *Smacks bad webmaster on the head with a newspaper* C’mon you should know better! Backing up your vital data has never been easier. Simply activate the plugin, select “Backup” under the “Manage” tab and select the desired method of backup. You can even schedule Wordpress to automatically do this every hour, day, week, month…whatever you like.
7. Sociable - You can see this plugin in action right below this post. This plugin can be very useful in getting your content out there for more users to read.
8. The Excerpt: Reloaded - I use this a lot when I need to specify how many words *exactly* a certain post preview needs to be. This is especially useful on some homepages where you’re pressed for space.