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You have an idea for a blog. The job you work does not allow much time to tinker with programs and plug-ins. Slapping up the blog and getting it rolling are your only concerns. If this is you then read on. I won’t bore you with useless trash. This is a short list of absolutely can’t-live-without plug-ins for WordPress Blogs.

1. WordPress SEO

When you don’t know much about SEO, but you want a lot of the advantages it offers you must revert to a plug-in. This is the one for you.

The plug-in settings include General Settings, Webmaster Tools, and XML Sitemap sections. However, each post has a WordPress SEO section that rocks!

In the plug-in settings the General Settings is really almost all visual. You’ll want to mark Use Meta keywords tag though. The Webmaster Tools is for verifying your ownership of the site the webmaster tools of each of the three big search engines. The XML Sitemap is perhaps the most convenient though. It automatically rebuilds your site map and pings the big four, Yahoo, Google, Ask, and Bing whenever you make a new post.

In the post SEO section there is a Snippet Preview showing you what it would look like in the results from a Google search. You can also easily put in basic SEO info like SEO Title, Meta Description and Meta Keywords. Beyond these essentials there is an Advanced button that reveals a slew of additional settings for that single post. These include site map priority for this post, whether to include it in the site map, meta robots index, follow, and advanced, 301 Redirect URL, and a few more.

2. Ad Codes Widget

Many new bloggers get lost trying to insert the ad codes for their ads into a WordPress blog. The Ad Codes widget allows you to put HTML, JavaScript, or PHP into a sidebar. You can place various sizes of multiple ads or set them to rotate through your ads. This widget is flexible and exactly what the doctor ordered.

3. Indoeuropean Translator Widget

If you expect visitors who cannot read such good English or your posts are not simplified English, you really need this plug-in. It lists the names of languages in the language itself. When the visitor clicks on their language your entire site appears in their language to them. It’s just like something from Science Fiction.

The only drawback is that it is drawn from Google Translate, which still isn’t perfect in some areas. I have tested the Polish translation in Poland with some of my Polish colleagues and customers. They can understand what is being translated, though sometimes they laugh at the word order.

4. SexyBookmarks

Of course you are going to want to encourage people to share your posts with their friends on their social networks. That is the time-tested form of advertising with the highest long-term yield: word-of-mouth. So just plop in this plug-in and pick a couple of options that are simple to follow and you’ll have gorgeous pop-up tabs exactly where you want them. You can choose from nearly a hundred social network sites so your visitors see the ones you want them to. It’s beautiful!

5. W3 Total Cache

Speed is very important to any website, but especially so for WordPress blogs. Anyone who has set up one has certainly noticed how sluggish it can get loading a page. W3 Total Cache plug-in does a lot of black magic behind the scenes making static pages, minifying, and HTTP-compressing. In the end you’ll notice an increase of at least 80%. Not only will visitors be happier, Google ranking will improve, since it is based partially on page load times.

The guest author, Ajeet Khurana, is a tech blogger. In the past, he has set up several blogs such as TechnoZeast and TechnoTropis.