This list is live and will be updated as I find better upgrades to those that existed previously; so if you find the suggestions useful – just bookmark the page and this post will always provide you with a list of the latest and greatest.

Spam

• Akismet

Navigation

• Page Lists Plus – amongst other things, lets you turn off links in the navigation
• Subpages Extended – displays a list of subpages on any blank pages

Content

• WP-Table Reloaded – full control of tables within content
• SRG Clean Archives – optimised archive page with shortcode

Images/Galleries

• NextGEN Gallery + NextGEN Smooth Gallery
  

Contact Form

• Fast Secure Contact Form
• ONW Simple Contact Form

Links

• WP Render Blogroll Links

Mobile

• WPtouch – automatic iPhone theme; Pro version also supports iPad

Admin Customisation

• Fluency Admin – beautiful admin theme with some customisation options for the logo etc
  

YouTube

• TubePress – create video pages from yout YouTube playlists
• Smart YouTube – easily add YouTube videos to your content with shortcodes, viewer customisation and clean XHTML

Twitter

• WP to Twitter – direct API connection for posting to Twitter
  

Facebook

• Facebook Fanbox Cache Widget
• Facebook Comments for WordPress

Search Engine Optimisation

• Google XML Sitemaps
• Google XML Sitemap for Images
• Use Google Libraries – utilise the Google libraries for jQuery etc.  better distribution of resources and uses Google’s fast servers
• Meta Keywords & Description – creates meta data based on your tags and content
• CSS & Script File Aggregation – combines CSS and scripts to reduce HTTP calls
• Platinum SEO Pack
• Atom Default Feed
• W3 Total Cache – caches and compresses almost everything across the site; should be used in conjuction with Amazon S3 and CloudFront to provide optimal delivery to users globally.

Advertising

• Advertising Manager

Anyhow, installation of this platform is interesting to say the least – but this post is about post-installation. This is a very general checklist of all the things that I found needed tweaking. Some of these are very obvious, but the list also includes those tricky hidden elements that you might only find via customer feedback after launching your site!

Here is the list:

• Find a good theme (if you haven’t already)
• Fix mod_rewrite issue if your SEO-friendly links aren’t working (check .htaccess in Magento root)
• Check file permissions on all Javascript files (loads of issues arise from this)
• Up the php memory limits to 128M or higher (depending on your server)
• Delete all irrelevant country <codes> in magento/app/etc/config.xml (this helps to avoid admin login issues)
• Learn about ‘Magento Connect’ (official plugins/themes from the Magento site use this process)
• All ‘Transactional Email’ templates
• Newsletter templates
• Newsletter cron job (to get newsletter to send)
• Contacts
• Remove all sample data (as long as you are comfortable with customising everything)
• Check/change all text in CMS pages and static blocks
• Setup and test payment methods (Paypal/Google Checkout etc)

Ok, that’s all I have for now but if I remember more later, I will add them.

Good luck!