Wordpress plugins for newb friend

I just installed wordpress 2.3 for a friend who loves to write. I've been nudging her for quite some time to give it a shot. Wordpress seemed like the easiest way to enable her to post her stuff. I've also started another new site where I plan to run the same theme and plugins.

Anyway... as with any CMS I've reached the point where the basics are there and I'm staring at the candy store window looking at all the fancy themes and plugins, dreaming about all the cool stuff I could pull off. Fortunately I have good reason for restraint this time! I need to keep it simple so she isn't run off by complexity or buggy problems.

So with this in mind. What would you call the "must have" plugins and what best themes for this situation? I want it to be robust and have good SEO.

She may want to include images in her posts and will have little patience or understanding of uploading images and inserting urls.

Comments will be enabled and I've activated Akismet.

 

This will be, what you are looking for:
WordPress Plugins - The must-have A-Z

 

Wow I was looking for the bare essential must have plugins for a newb and they just happen to start with each letter of the alphabet.

 

well duh. I haven't used wordpress for a while and the image upload, then "send to editor" button is pretty nifty. Anybody can handle that! I'll just need to make sure she understands the visual editor and how to make categories etc.

So unless someone can think of anything else helpful to a newbie blogger, I'll limit my plugins to SEO and maybe a couple other non-obtrusive goodies.

• All in One SEO Pack - Haven't used this but it looks like a good choice. Automating much of the seo for her.
• A sitemap generator?
• Similar Posts
• Share This

Theme Kubrick? i3Theme would give plenty of options extra block she may want later...

 

Sorry I would give links but still too new here to post them:

* All in One SEO Pack - Yes, Yes, Yes
* A sitemap generator? Google (XML) Sitemaps
* Share This - Yes, or Gregarious if there is a version compatible with 2.3
* Smart Update Pinger
* Subscribe To Comments

 

Thanks I'm onboard with all those except Smart Update Pinger. Not sure what the value of that is yet. Is pingspam prevention a big issue?

 

Even with my rules of restraint I'm up to 11 plugins already...
adman or adsense-manager
akismet
all-in-one-seo-pack
feedburner-feedsmith
google-sitemap-generator
share-this
Similar_Posts
sociable
subscribe-remind
subscribe-to-comments
wp--db-backup
Haven't decided which adsense plugin to go with. something that automatically injects it into posts would be nice.

Another point on the image upload section. I wonder if there is a way to cause a hspace and vspace default value when using the send to editor button? I dread having to explain how to do that. If I can keep her completely out of the code window that is best for now. Wouldn't hurt to have a default align as well.

 

If you're looking for an adsense plugin that inserts ads into posts, you can give my plugin a try.

Inserts ads at the beginning, in the middle of posts or at the end, alone or surrounded by text . You can even have different ad setting for older posts if you want to monetize them more aggressively.

 

Thanks. That looks like what I want.

 

Check out the Top Wordpress Plugins I use.

 

The new version of the Smart Update Pinger - see WP Smart Update Pinger