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will be posting my top 10 Wordpress Plugins monthly to let you know which ones I am currently finding most useful. They are in order of which I feel are most important to my blogs with number 1 being most important. I would recommend that you try these plugins for yourselves but do emphasise that you read all documentation and that I take no responsibility for any problems caused by the installation or use of these plugins.If you think there is a plugin worth a mention here or you have developed a plugin

1. Wordpress Database Backup

Go to download page As a Web Developer I have learnt the hard way in the past of the importance of regular backups, not only of your website data itself but also the database. The plugin itself is easy to use with simple backup options including the ability to schedule an email that includes your database backup as an attachment. Genius.

2. Akismet

Bundled with Wordpress and for good reason. Without a spam blocker such as this your comment queue would be full of trash in no time at all. Requires a Wordpress API key to function. If you haven’t got this plugin activated already, do it now!

3. ShareThis

Go to download page A great and unobtrusive plugin that lets your readers email or share a page with others via Social Bookmarking. Get your blog noticed.

4. Google XML Sitemaps

Go to download page If you don’t know how beneficial Google Sitemaps can be to your blog then read my article on SEO. Once set up this plugin will inform Google of any changes or additions made to your site automatically.

5. WP-Ads

Go to download page A brilliant tool this – enabling you to serve multiple ads within the same post or from postions within your template. Once a banner or other ad has been set up, you simply place the supplied tag where you wish the ad or ads to serve.

6. CodeBanter’s Optin Box

Go to download page Lets you easily place a GetResonse or Aweber Optin form within your blog. You can alter the forms appearance within its own admin settings page.

7. Audio Player

Go to download page This plugin lets you add a nifty little audio player within your blog pages or posts. You can specify seperate files for the lead-in and lead-out and the appearance of the player itself can be altered to fit your blog’s colour theme.

8. WordPress.com Stats

Go to download page This plugin allows you to track views, post/page views, referrers and clicks. It requires a Wordpress API key to enable the plugin.

9. Nextgen Gallery and Nextgen Gallery Widget

Go to download page A highly configurable Web 2.0 gallery and slideshow plugin using jQuery to good effect. Also comes with a widget to allow you to have slideshows of your galleries within your sidebar.

10. RSS Includes Pages

Go to download page If like me you use Wordpress as a CMS to build websites as well as blogs you will no doubt have found that Pages are not included in the RSS feed. Well, with this plugin your problems are over. Simply install, activate and voila, your pages will appear within the