Must Have WordPress Plugins

The Social Crowd Plugin grabs the latest counts of your Friends/Fans/Followers etc from your Favorite Social Networks and then displays them on your Blog. The counts that are reported come raw and without styling, so you can make them look and feel like your website.

Reward your top commenters with a link in your sidebar! Very easy to customize.

Did you remember to write a post for next Tuesday? What about the Tuesday after that? WordPress doesn't make it easy to see when your posts are scheduled. The editorial calendar gives you an overview of your blog and when each post will be published. Make a plan and be awesome!

This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts.

Basically, my nerdy husband says you need this.

This plugin will add a client side generated checkbox to your comment form asking users to confirm that they are not a spammer. It is a lot less trouble to click a box than it is to enter a captcha and because the box is generated via client side javascript that bots cannot see, it should stop 99% of all automated spam bots.

Emails the commenter when someone replies to their comment - whether you or someone else. This allows the users to follow up the comment and expand the conversation if desired - directly on your blog.

This plugin hasn't been updated recently, and while it still works to my knowledge, I'm definitely on the lookout for a better option.

Retrieves a commentor's latest blog posts which they can choose to include at the bottom of their comment when they click submit. Increases community involvement.