1. Akismet

There are many WordPress plugins to checks if your comments look like spam or not. For me, Akismet is good enough, besides this plugin is already installed in every WordPress installation.

2. All in One SEO Pack

This plugin automatically optimizes your WordPress blog for the Search Engines. You don’t need to understand html code to add your meta description or meta keyword. You can also adding different title, description and keyword for every single post.

3. Clean Archives Reloaded

I prefer to have “Archives Page” rather than “archives list in the sidebar”. Check out the live demo in this blog.

4. Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin generates a sitemap.xml for your WordPress blog.

5. WordPress Download Monitor

Manage downloads on your site, view and show hits, and output in posts.

6. WP-PageNavi

This plugin adds an advanced paging navigation to your WordPress blog. Use this plugin to show your readers that you have hundreds of posts.

7. WordPress Automatic Upgrades

With this plugin, you do not need to manually download the WordPress newest version and upload them from FTP. All you need to do is install this plugin, and use the 5 easy steps provided in the WordPress upgrade instructions. This plugin can also run in automatic mode.