If you're looking to start up a new blog — or switch from an existing blog software — then I can't recommend WordPress enough. In my opinion it's the best open source blogging platform out there, it's easy to use and highly flexible.

There are so many great aspects to WordPress that I could write about it all day, but maybe another time. Today I will be focusing on it's Plugins feature and how you can customise your blog with third party tools. There are thousands of plugins for WordPress, so I couldn't comment on them all, I'll just be looking at the top 5 SEO plugins and how these can benefit your blog.

1. All-in-One SEO Pack

To kick things off, I give you the All-in-One SEO Pack. This is a great place to start because it covers all the basics with a whole range of new options for you to play around with. The most important section gives you the ability to manually create a page title, meta description and meta keywords for each individual blog post.

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The other part of this plugin allows you to edit the title / meta tags for your homepage too, as well as loads of other goodies including the 404 message, noindex options and auto page title formats.

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2. Akismet (Comment Spam Filter)

This one is great. So great, in fact, that it’s included in every WordPress installation — it’s just not activated by default.

Akismet is a spam filtering service that filters out link spam from your comments section and has proven (having blocked over 1 billion spam posts) to be an absolute essential in dealing with WordPress spam.

You'll find Akismet in your Plugins page. Once activated, you’ll need to register over at wordpress.com for your free API key.

When registering, remember to choose just a username.

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3. Social Bookmarking

You've probably seen these buttons on at least 5 other blogs you've read today. They're a useful way to encourage users to promote your blog post via the web's most popular social media / news websites.

Sociable gives you a selection of over 70 media / news websites to choose from. It gives you the option to display 1 or all 70+ buttons on your blog and it even lets you choose their order.

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There are many plugins for social bookmarking buttons, but I've chosen this tool because of the above and beyond extra features that it comes with. Plus the author has taken the time to make sure it looks good and stays unobtrusive at the same time.

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4. Google Analytics

If you have any interest in SEO, then you have a Google Analytics account already. What the Analytics plugin does is automatically adds in Google's tracking code (customised with your own UA string) to all pages without the need to mess around in the source code to add it yourself. Very handy and saves you a lot of time.

5. XML Sitemap Generator

With help from XML Sitemap Generator, the XML sitemap will help you get the best out of the search engines' webmaster panels, as well as give the spiders an extra source of information. The fact that it's XML means that it’s flexible enough to be used in other ways besides a sitemap. I'll leave that to your imagination.

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URL Structure

This one isn't a plugin, but I thought I'd add it in as an extra bonus. If you didn't already know, it's possible to change your URL structure to something a bit more relevant and user friendly. By default, your post URLs will look like this: http://www.yourdomain.com/?p=123, but with a little customisation in the control panel, you can rewrite these URLs to look more like this: http://www.yourdomain.com/category/post-title

To achieve this, go to Options > Permalinks in the admin section, select Custom under the Common Options header and enter the following into the text box: "/%category%/%postname%" (without the quotes).

There are many custom tags you can use to change your URLs. You can see them all on the official WordPress website, under Structure Tags.