Building your website on WordPress is a popular choice.  The platform is widely supported, flexible, and user friendly.  But, the WordPress installation straight out of the box is not quite enough to give you everything you need to help your website succeed.

Plug-ins are available to give you additional functionality.  There are 5 plug-ins priorities on my list for every new WordPress installation.

1. All-In-One-SEO
2. Google XML SiteMaps
3. Akismet
4. WordPress Firewall
5. Antivirus by Sergej Muller

All-In-One-SEO
This one is very useful because it gives you an easy place to put in your Meta data specific to each page and post.  You can manipulate other options under the configuration panel however, most of the time, the default settings will do.

Gooogle XML SiteMaps
This plug-in really can’t make things any easier for you.  Simply install, activate, and click to build your first sitemap.  A sitemap is very important to include when it comes to getting your website crawled and indexed.

Akismet
This little plug-in comes with a WordPress installation by default.  You must manually activate it and enter your API key.  Just follow the links in the directions to set up your very own free API key.  Akismet helps to filter blog comment spam.  You will get tons of blog comment spam!  Some people don’t seem to have anything better to do.  Comment spam is not something you want on your website or blog.

WordPress Firewall
Since WordPress is so popular it does face security issues.  Writers of malware also don’t have anything better to do but try to hack your server, WordPress installation, and website.  Popularity usually comes at a price which is being a target of more frequent attacks and criticism.  Everybody wants to bring down the big boys!   Install the Firewall as an added protection against intrusion.

AntiVirus
This little plug-in will scan your WordPress installation daily and send you an email alert if it finds anything suspicious.  In addition to using this plug-in though I recommend you always keep your WordPress website updated.   The last wave of malware injected sites came when many folks let their sites age.  Hackers found the vulnerabilities and began their attacks.  But, the users that kept their installations updated were not affected as often.

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1. Using WordPress for Static Websites