One of the most important factors when using a Wordpress blog is the various plugins that you use to help your blog out.  There are thousands of various plugins but here are some of my favorite ones that I personally use.

Sexy Bookmarks – These go at the end of your post and allow your readers multiple methods to share your content.  You can select which different social networks show so as not to overwhelm your readers when they decide to share.

Backup – There are a variety of different backup plugins that you can use.  I use WordPress Database Backup on my blog and love it because it automatically emails me the back up once a week.   Once installed and setup, you do not have to even think about backing up your blog manually.

Zemanta – This is a plugin that allows you to insert pictures into your blog with ease.  It looks at your post and gives you selections of pictures that it feels goes along with the text you selected.  You can easily search for something different though if you do not like the option that it gives you.

Broken Link Checker – This can be a very important plugin if you post a lot of links on your blog.  I have a blog that lists a lot of different online businesses and so this plugin lets me know if these are not working for some reason and then I can contact the owner of the site to find out what the situation is.