Ever since I started blogging, I’ve been using only one platform, Wordpress, because it’s the best, no doubt about it. It’s very easy to use, it can be customized in absolutely any way you can think of and it has tons of themes and plugins available. So if you’re still having problems deciding what platform to use for your blog, I definitely recommend Wordpress.

So, after you’ve installed Wordpress, here’s a list of plugins I suggest to use (in my opinion, some of those are absolutely required, while others are optional):

1. All In One SEO Pack. Very good for SEO, it allows you to set titles, descriptions, keywords and more.

2. Contact Form. If you don’t want to be contacted, then you don’t belong in blogging. Of course, you can leave your email address, but this plugin is very good for those that want to contact you and are a little bit lazy.

3. FeedBurner FeedSmith. If you’re not using FeedBurner, I suggest you use it, because it’s a very cool tool for keeping an eye on your subscribers. It also offers email subscription and allows you to place a ’subscriber-meter’ on your blog. The plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber.

4. Google Sitemaps. Using this plugin, Google will be notified of your latest posts and it will index your content faster.

5. Less. If you’re using the “more” tag to break posts, you’ll notice that the link on the homepage will have “#more” attached. That’s not very good, and this little plugin removes that part from the permalink.

6. Most Commented. You can use this plugin and place your most commented posts somewhere in the sidebar or wherever you wish. Very good for drawing attention on some of your most popular posts.

7. Permalink Redirect. The plugin ensures that pages and entries are always accessed via the permalink. Otherwise, a 301 redirect will be issued. This way, there will be only one URL associated with each blog entry. Good for SEO.

8. Show Top Commentators. This plugin allows you to reward your readers, by placing a list with your most active commentators. And because you can remove the rel=”nofollow” tag, you’ll also encourage other bloggers to comment on your blog, because this way, they’ll get a free link. Of course, you can set the number of listings, so you won’t get a lot of outbound links, which might hurt your blog. I suggest you set that number somewhere around 5, depending on your blog’s popularity. The more comments and backlinks you get, the higher this number can be.

9. Subscribe to Comments. This plugin allows your readers to check a box before commenting and get e-mail notification of further comments. This way, the odds of them returning to your blog and engage in the discussions are higher.

10. Wordpress Related Posts. This plugin generates a related posts via WordPress tags. This way, search engines will index your blog better and visitors will maybe check out these related entries, though increasing the chance that they’ll become your readers.

You can see some of these plugins in action here and I suggest you use them, because they’re really good for your blog. What about you? Using any other plugins?