Many affiliates choose Wordpress to design their affiliate sites, whether they use it as a simple landing page or as a full-featured affiliate, there are several plug-ins that are essential, which add to Wordpress functionality and ensures that you have the edge over your competition. Without further ado, here they are:

1. All-in-one-SEO pack

Wordpress is a great tool and contains many advanced features out-of-the-box. However, Search-Engine-Optimization (SEO) isn’t fully evolved in the default install. Enter the All-in-one-SEO pack, which allows you optimize titles, generate META data and avoid duplicate content, this plug-in is essential for those search engine rankings.

2. Google Analytics for Wordpress

Tracking visitors and keywords is critical to achieving maximum click-though rate. The Google Analytics plugin is a simple way to add tracking to your affiliate site. The plug-in automatically tracks all outbound links from your site as well as Google Analytics functionality such as visitor numbers, source and much more.

3. Google XML sitemaps

We’re definitely trying to attract that behemoth of a search engine with this plug-in. Allowing you to automatically submit a site map is easy. XML Sitemaps will also update this an inform Google and others when you update posts or pages.

3. Similar posts

This useful plugin allows you to add in similar posts or pages to sections of your blog – very useful for increasing the “stickiness” of your site.

4. Vipers Video Quicktags

Adding in video from YouTube or any of the other popular sites is great way to attract visitors to your site. Using this plugin you can quickly and easily add videos into pages or posts from the toolbar – no more messing with HTML!

5. Privacy Policy

Easily add a privacy policy with pre-generated text – every site needs this and it takes the hassle of writing your own.

6. Contact forms (cformsII)

Another essential for your visitors, quickly add a contact form with CSS styling and complete customisation, including a SPAM protection mechanism.

Honourable mentions

- WP-Cache, if your hosting provider is a little on the slow side or you want to avoid a server crash due to the Digg effect, this plugin is for you (be warned that it’s know to cause problems with Phpbay Pro)

- NextGen gallery for easily management and adding of picture galleries.

Suggestions? Ideas? Feedback? Please leave a comment!

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