After choosing your domain name, the registrar and the hosting company and after installing WordPress 2.5 (the latests) the work is not over yet and that is just the beginning. Now it's time to have a list of plugins that you will need and that will facilitate your work as a blogger.

So, in this post I am going to share the list of plugins that I think bloggers should start with and will also give you a brief description as to why you need them.

Plugins to begin with:

• Admin Drop-Down Menu - makes it easier the navigation by placing a CSS drop down menu, which in turns saves you a lot of clicks and you should have it right from the start.
• Adsense Deluxe - a very useful plugin to insert adsense code anywhere in you blog. Note:I recommend that you write at least 5 posts and submit your site to several directories before you integrate adsense withing your posts.
• Akismet - another plugin without which you will be flooded with spam comments.
• All in One SEO Pack - very usful plugin to make your blog search engine friendly, google likes it.
• Enhanced WP contact-form - when I wanted to create a "contact me" page this plugin was all I needed.
• FeedBurner Feedsmith - do you want the visitors to subscribe to your blog then you need this plugin.
• Google Analytics - instead of having to go through the trouble of finding the right place to place Analytics code this plugin makes that job simple.
• Google XML Sitemaps - you need to have a sitemap for you blog supported by all major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN... you name it) and this plugin does just that.
• Most Commented - you now what it is and why you need it, it will generate a list of most commented post.
• Recent Comments - it retrieves a list of the most recent comments.
• Recent Posts - it retrieves a list of your most recent posts.
• ShareThis - I think this is the best plugin out there that makes it easier for you readers to share with other what they read on your blog. A must have from the beginning. Problogger.net uses it!
• WordPress Stats - with this plugin you can track page and post views, clicks and referrers and much more right from your WP Dashboard.
• WordPress Automatic Upgrade - if you are a complete beginner you will really have problems upgrading WordPress and this plugin is a life saver.
• WP-Affiliate - if you want to start promoting affiliate products right from the start than you need this plugin to mask the affiliate links.
• WP-Amazon - this plugin adds the ability to search Amazon and add Amazon items to your post while you are writing them. You need it if you start promoting Amazon products and have an affiliate account with Amazon (Amazon ID).
• WP related posts - it generates a list of related posts according to their tags.

Of course there are a lot of plugins that you will need as you go on but this is the list of plugins that I think are enough to start with and build on it as you go on blogging.

If have searched the internet for blogs that share the plugins they use and the following are the best blogs I found, each with a very good list of plugins:

1. Slickmania - this blogger has the best list of plugins and with very good description.
2. quickonlinetips.com - has another very good list of plugins that you will need, and
3. Problogger.net - the blog celebrity Darren has shared his list of plugins.

The above are the three best lists I found on the net... I also suggest that you subscribe to the above blogs as they really have good content, especially problogger.net.

I think I have suggested a very good list of plugins that every blogger should start with and even gave you three links to other blogs with very good list of plugins and in case I missed some, and I am sure I did, then feel free to suggest any of them using the comment form below.

Now go to the next post and learn the "Beginners - How to get free blog traffic".