This post in the New Bloggers series covers WordPress plugins. As we discussed in the other posts in this series, WordPress is the software of choice for most bloggers who want their own domain name rather than using free blog sites like Blogger. This allows you to have www.mysite.com rather than www.mysite.blogspot.com for example.
We also discussed the numerous “themes” that you can choose to make customizing the look and feel of your blog site easier. Another tool set you will want to investigate is called Plugins. This is software that is attached to WordPress that gives specific functionality such as building a Google friendly XML sitemap, optimizing your site for SEO (search engine optimization) or managing spam comments. WordPress 2.7 has a plugin installer or they can be manually installed by uploading the files to your wp-content/plugins folder on your server and then activating them within WordPress.
Here are a few I regularly use:
- Akismet. Spam comments run rampant in the blogging world. Spammers look for WordPress blogs that allow anyone to comment. That is why it is a good idea to check the setting that requires an administrator to approve comments before they are posted. Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” This plugin comes with WordPress and just needs to be activated and your API key inserted.
- All In One SEO Pack. Optimizing your blog for the search engines is very important. This plugin gives you easy fill-in-the-blanks for the site and each page and post to assist with this function. If your WordPress theme has SEO built in, you may not need this plugin.
- Google XML Sitemaps. Another important part of your SEO efforts is to have a Google-friendly sitemap. This plugin does the job automatically and also submits the sitemaps to Yahoo and MSN as well.
- Share & Bookmarking Plugins. I’m sure you have noticed that most blogs have the ability for you to bookmark a post or share it with a friend or submit it to sites like Digg or Stumbleupon or even Tweet it in Twitter. I use the Add To Any plugin but there are many to choose from. If you install the Onlywire plugin on your site, you can use their automatic bookmarking service for free.
Hop over to the Warrior Forum to see a great post about popular plugins to consider. By the way, you should join this forum because there is a world of helpful information there and really smart Internet Marketers willing to help.
