There are a few essential steps that need to be taken with any new wordpress install. Obviously not every wordpress blog will be the same but there are some basics that I feel should be done regardless of what kind of blog you're creating.

Moving to WordPress is a really good decision you have already made, however have you made sure to change all the settings for your installation? The WordPress Codex document on Installing WordPress is something you should refer to prior to installation, but there are things you need to do after installing WordPress.

Some people really like that WordPress sends pings from your own site to your own site when you write posts; it lets them easily leave a trail of related posts. Some people do not like this behavior; it clutters up their comments. So here’s a plugin to disable self pinging.  I couldn’t find any prior art, but if you know of any other plugins that do this, please let me know.

This is a simple WordPress page management plugin. The Ajax interface allows you to drag-and-drop the pages into the order you like, modify the page structure by dragging a page to become a child or parent and toggle the page to be hidden from output.

cforms is a feature rich plugin for Wordpress, offering convenient deployment of multiple Ajax driven contact forms throughout your blog or even on the same page.