What are you going to use the blog for? Personal or business

There are many plug-ins to choose from, depending on what you need.

WordPress has many themes to choose from. I think it comes with two. Just type in WordPress themes in your search bar. WordPress.org would be one, but there are many websites where you can get themes for free.

We need to know how you are going to use your blog, to give you more info.

There are indeed lots of plugins, some very good. But there are also some that slow down site load times, cause clashes and create other problems.

You almost certainly will need some plugins, depending on what you want to do with your site, but don't use them unless you really need them.

This article expands further on that:

http://www.wealthydragon.com/blog/20...d-that-plugin/

Cheers,

Martin.

Wordpress without any plugin, nowadays, is surely
a DEAD website. You absolutely need certain
plugins, to get the best from using wordpress.

Kingsley

I love the customization which the Thesis theme offers, however it is a premium theme and runs between (i think) $80-160 depending on if you need a developers license. Their support forum is also out of this world! I love it...

A few plugins I like to use for a basic wordpress site with no Thesis is All In One SEO, no Self Ping, Objection Redirection, HTML on Pages, Breadcrumb-Navxt, Nofollow case by case, seo slugs, seo image, subscribe to comments, seo smart links, permalink redirect, google sitemap generator, search pages, and robots meta.

Good luck, i highly recommend Thesis, tho.

I wouldn't use Wordpress without plugins to be honest. You'll get better ranking and better results if you use at least a few basic plugins. One of the being a plugin that improves your on page SEO, for example all in one SEO. There are more plugins that do that, but this is the one I use personally.

Leslie

I provide Wordpress solutions, and here's my standard for a client looking for a web presense (no ecomm):

Replace the default theme obviously - I try to find a free one that matches their niche, or a look and feel they like. If I can't find a free one, I'll go premium and pass the cost along.

Bear in mind I'm building these for clients who )eventually) want to manage thieir content

Capability Manager - lets me customize account permissions, create new accounts with different default permissions

Clean WP Dashboard - get rid of dashboard clutter

Custom Admin Branding - I brand the install with my own logo

Disable Wordpress Core Update - I don't want clients wondering what teh hell that is and trying to do their own updates

Events Calendar - if the client wants to scheduel events

Login-Logout - ad widget for easy login

My Page Order - easy page ordering

NextGEn Gallery - phot gallery for those who want one

No Self Pings - don't ping yourself!

Post Notification - let users subscribe to get notified about new posts without having to register

Tiny Contact Form - simple/easy contact form

WP Super Edit - adds additional button to the post/page edit bar (font, size, etc)


If you're building them for yourself, I suggest

Easy AdSense - i like this because I can add more than just AdSense code to my posts.

All in one SEO - obviously....

And on GoDaddy sites I have to add WP SMTP to get mail to work....