All the plugins in the following list are free and can be easily found by typing their name in the search box for new plugins in your WordPress admin panel. Some of them need an activation code (namely the Maxblogpress ones) and I have linked them to their download pages.

So here you have it, 12 of the most useful WordPress Plugins:

• Headspace 2 (alternative: all-in-one seo): very useful to optimize your posts for Search engines
• cforms II: Creates a very fancy and easy to tweak contact page
• Feedwordpress: useful if you want to add content on your blog from targeted feeds
• Google analytics for WP: unables you to easily add Analytics to your blog
• Google XML Sitemap: creates a sitemap to be crawled by search engines, updates with any changes on your blog
• MaxBlogPress Favicon: To easily add a favicon to your blog
• MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer: (so that you are not flagged as a spammer, especially if you update your blog quite often)
• Max Banner Ads: to easily add and rotate banners in your wordpress blog
• Privacy Policy: it says it all, adds a nice privacy policy to your site
• Subscribe-remind: increases your rss subsribers by adding by adding some text at the end of each of your post inviting readers to subscribe to your feed
• Sitemap Generator: adds a sitemap page to your blog
• Yet another related post: gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site

Of course this list is not exhaustive so feel free to share your favourite WordPress Plugins in the comments below.

• I like to post comments on other’s blogs and like to get some link juice back to my own blog so it is only fair that I allow this on my site as well
• When a comment is constructive and somebody takes time to actually say something about what you have just written I think it is the least you can do to reward them with some backlinking love!

So now feel free to post your comments!!