The most important thing to do to maximize your WordPress blog is to use the many thousands of free Plugins. There is a plugin for just about everything. Some of the most important ones are All In One SEO, Akismet, and Google AdSense now.

All In One SEO is a plugin to help you optimize your blog for getting indexed by the search engines. You need to be very careful when configuring this plugin because if you put the wrong title or keywords in the boxes you can do more bad than good.

Akismet is a spam filter. Before you can configure the plugin you will have to sign up for a free account at WordPress.com. This plugin requires a special API key which will be issued by WordPress.Com after you create your account. All you have to do is copy and paste the API key in the appropriate box in the dashboard of your blog. Once you put that number in the plugin can be activated. The purpose of this plugin is to prevent people from spamming your comments boxes.

There are many Google AdSense Plugins and all of them have different features. AdSense now allows you to place Google ads in certain locations in your post. You will have to go to Google.com and sign up for a free AdSense account. One’s your account is activated Google will assign you a special publisher ID number. It is very important that you put that number in the proper location in the advertising script. If you do not have that number in the script, you will not get credit when someone clicks the ads on your blog.

Google AdSense is just one of many ways to make money with your blog. When the advertisements show on your page people visiting your blog can click on these ads and you will be paid for each click. The amount of money you get paid will depend on the keywords. This can range from as low as 2¢ per click to as high as $2.00 or more per click.

Many Bloggers make good money with Google AdSense depending on the subject matter of their blog. The amount of money you make will also depend on the amount of traffic that visits your blog. This is where the plugin All In One SEO plays a big part. If your site is indexed by Google it could be on page one or two of the search engine. The higher the ranking that you get with Google the more it will increase the amount of traffic your blog receives.

WordPress has many other Plugins for advertising affiliate products and when customers buy these products you will receive a commission for every product sold. There is even a plugin that allows you to place Amazon Products on your blog. Again you will have to sign up for an associate account with Amazon to be an affiliate for their products.

There are Amazon Plugins that will place Amazon ads in your sidebar or create an entire Amazon store on your blog. With these Plugins you can sell any number of products Amazon offers which can be anything from books and DVD’s to electronics, clothing, Automotive Products and a great number of other categories.