The Best Plugins For WordPress
Let’s Get Some Action On Our Blogs!
Yesterday I taught you how to set up a WordPress blog. Hopefully you did that and wrote a post or two. Now we are going to get that blog ready for action. Plugins are little add-ons that you can use with WordPress that help your blog accomplish beneficial things. All of the Plugins that I am going to list below can be installed from directly within your WordPress administration area. I have a total of 11 plugins that I constantly run on my blogs.
How to install plugins on your blog.
Well your first step is to log in to your admin area at http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/. Enter your username and password to get to your dashboard. Now you are going to click on the plugins menu on the left side of your dashboard screen. A drop-down will appear and you can click on “Add new”. Now I am going to give you the names of the plugins that I use. So all you have to do is enter the name of the plugin in to the search box, click the “install” link to the right of the plugin and then just follow the directions to install it. Once it is installed. Click the link that says “activate plugin”. Your plugin should be good to go.
My favorite plugins and what they do…
Akismet – This is the best spam blocker for your blog that there is. After your blog is online for a little bit, people will start commenting on your blogs with nonsense text or ads to irrelevant sites. This will prevent that and help moderate the comments that people post on your blog.
CommentLuv – This will promote commenting on your blog. When you have CommentLuv installed, people that comment will get a link back to their latest blog post. Other bloggers love backlinks and this is an incentive to comment.
Google Analyticator – You are going to want to keep track of the traffic going to your blog. To do this you can sign up with Google Analytics. They will track where people came to your site from, how long they stayed, what links they clicked on and more. With this plugin installed, you don’t need to get in to the HTML of your website to install Google’s tracking codes.
Google XML Sitemaps – This will help Google find your site. When you install this plugin, it will send Google a sitemap every time you update your blog. It basically tells Google, “hey, check it out, I updated my site”.
Platinum SEO Pack – This is another one that will help you with the search engines. You install this and you can edit how the search engines see each individual post. You can plug in keywords that you want Google to associate with your site and with each individual post. This is probably one of the most important plugins you can install because this will get the search engines to notice you fast.
Popular Posts – This puts a sidebar widget on your blog that lists your most popular posts. This is good for the search engines because the search engines like to see you linking around your site. It is also good to keep users on your site because they can see what most people are interested in and dig deeper in to your content.
Post-Plugin Library – This plugin does nothing on its own. It is required to be installed if you want the Popular Posts Plugin and the Related Posts plugins to work.
Sociable – This is a really cool tool that I just recently discovered. If you look at the bottom of my blog posts, you’ll see a bunch of little icons for things like Twitter, Digg, Facebook, etc. This plugin puts those links there so that people can promote your site on their favorite Web 2.0 site. If someone really likes your post and they are on Twitter, they can click the Twitter link and send out the post to their followers. This is great to get your name out there.
Top Commentators Widget – This is another plugin to promote people to comment on your blog. This puts a widget in your sidebar that ranks who comments the most. People like to see theirt name ranked high as a top commentor. I like to turn on the option to post people’s links when they comment as well. That gives them another incentive because it is publicity for their blog.
WP To Twitter -This links your blog to Twitter. Everytime you make a new post on your blog, this program will send out a Tweet telling everyone that you just made a post and it will give them the link. This helps get a nice little surge of traffic everytime a new post goes online.
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – This is another plugin that has multiple benefits. It puts a list of related posts at the bottom of each individual post. Google likes to see your site linking deeper in to itself but it also encourages viewers to dig around deeper in to your blog.
So then what?
Ok. So now you have all of these plugins installed. Just by doing that, you are well on your way to having a blog that the search engines love and that people want to comment on. The next step is going to be getting your WordPress blog looking prettier. I will get to that step in my next blog post. Just by installing the plugins above, you may start see traffic starting to roll in. If you have some content on your blog, Google and the other search engines will start to find your blog.
Are there any plugins that I left out? Please comment if you feel that there is something that is absolutely essential that I forgot in my list.
You may also be interested in:
marcus passey (19)
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Rob Willis (9)
I just installed and activated each of these plugins. We both know that these plugins have pretty much overnight brought waves of new visitors to our previous websites once we implemented them. It almost seems like it’s too easy to get quality traffic from a bunch of search engines!
Joe Fier?s last blog ..Hello world!
I think plugins are essential for building traffic and for making sure people continue to come back to your site. Thanks for the comment!
Mike
I found your blog and I am so glad I did. I am very new to internet blogging. Last year I had tried it but really had the wrong focus. I am picking it up again with a new drive and focus. I have been reading a lot about blogging. Now my focus is really on content. I really want to take this one day at a time and do it right. I know it will be slow at first and I am going to take the time and put the work into it because I know in the end it will be worth it. I have the ambition and I want to make this work. I would love to be a stay at home Dad. I am a working professional (Monday ? Friday) and it is heart breaking at times when your child says to you on Sunday evening I had fun with you Dad can you stay home tomorrow? I certainly know that if I work from home that I do have to work, but currently I drive 60miles one way to work which is a lot of time away from home and family. Anyways I look forward to reading your posts. Good luck with your mentor! I would love to have a mentor to help me get started in the right direction.
I installed most of the plug-ins you suggested.
Have a look at my blog. Remember I am new at this so don?t laugh. I appreciate any comments and help!
Jim Hardin
Cape Cod
Jim Hardin?s last blog ..
Hey Jim,
Your blog is coming along nice. I really think the ultimate goal with internet marketing is to free up the time that you are losing at a day job. You will finally get to focus on the things that really matter in your life. If you keep plugging away and continue to take action, you will get there. Never give up, keep learning, and always take action. I would also strongly recommend looking in to mentoring. It can be the difference between quick success and long drawn out mistakes…
Thanks for the comment!
Hey Matt,
Great work as usual.
Just thought I would share another Plugin I came across recently called “Code Banter”. This Plugin is a Wordpress Autoresponder Optin for Aweber & GetResponse.
http://www.codebanter.com/projects/
It does require a manual install. But it is worth it.
Regards,
Rob
Rob Willis?s last blog ..Words of Encouragement
Hey Rob,
That is a great plugin! I actually have used that in the past on previous blogs that I have done. It really works quite well. I am going to make a tutorial about adding an opt-in box. I think I will throw that in as an option.
Thanks for the comment! Great suggestion!
Added the popular post collection to my blog…had the rest or something similiar already.
Thanks, Matt
Rod Macbeth?s last blog ..Which AutoResponder Does One Choose?
That’s a great plugin. It works well for getting people to dig deeper in to your site, especially if some of your more popular posts are older and have fallen off of your main page. Thanks for commenting!
Hey Matt,
Thanks for this list.
Here’s one more that will increase the functions available on your posts and pages by adding extra functions on the kitchen sink etc. etc.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tinymce-advanced/
Take Care,
Rob
Rob Canyon?s last blog ..Success Leaves Clues?Two of AlexJeffreys top students reveal their Secrets.
Wow! Thanks rob! That does look like a real handy plugin. Thanks for the suggestion!
Hay Matt,
Thanks for the plugin post, I’m building my blog and thought that plugin’s are going to be complicated.
Jeanette Fitzgerald?s last blog ..Hello world!
Hey Jeanette,
Plugins really aren’t that complicated. In fact, I plan to make a video tutorial on pretty much every plugin that’s worth anything. Thanks for commenting!
Just learning this whole wordpress.org blog stuff.
I appreciate all the information. How do you get the retweet icon I see on some blogs that let you re-tweet the blog if you like it. Is that a plugin?
Bryce?s last blog ..How to Build a Profit Pulling Optin Email List Quickly
Hey Bryce,
That plugin that I suggested called Sociable gives readers the option to retweet a post. There is also a stand alone plugin for retweeting. You can find it here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-retweet/
Thanks for commenting!
Hi Matt,
More great information – keep up the great work!
I’m just working my way through these plugins right at this moment.
Speak soon,
Andrew.
Andrew Vaughan?s last blog ..Always Remember ? The List Is KING!
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the informative article. We have spent many weeks integrating the WordPress blog into our “Win a House” website. Feel free to take a look and give us some constructive criticism, the URL is http://www.play4property.com/blog
Regards
Anthony Davis
Thanks for the comment Anthony.
Matt,
WOW. thats all i can say… been meaning to drop by and and say hi since i started this course,.. but im a little behind. Great post im going to work through the list and install the lot. I’ve already got “All in One seo” installed, would you recommend i use the platinium version you mention above instead?
Will be back…. GREAT JOB !!
Richard Hill
Richard Hill?s last blog ..The Journey continues? $500 a day passive income and a single figure golf Handicap
Matt,
What do you think of the SEO slugs pluggin? I had read that that is a ‘must’ but you don’t have it listed. -Norene
Norene?s last blog ..Over-Delivering ? The Key to Success
Hey Matt,
Was watching your free video series on adding the
twitter widget. Blog no longer has this widget, was
it not worth keeping?
Nice Blog through.
Dan
Hey Dan,
That widget seemed to have problems loading often. I have found better twitter widgets and I will be updating that video shortly. Thanks for commenting.
Matt
Hey Matt,
Just dropped by to see how things are going. You had left a message about my blog last week, but for now, everythings on hold – still trying to get over back surgery and can’t sit or stand for more than about 5 minutes – not long enough to try to work on the blog …(need a laptop)… basically I’ve been in bed for about 6 weeks (Killing Me – my bike’s gonna rust down
Had first surgery when I was 22, after they tried to blow me up – bounced right back – sent me home from Nam, but ended my military career.
Another in 97 to clean out scar tissue from the first, and I was back up in less than a week (guardly) …
Wisdom is suppossed to come with age, and I’ve finally began to realize a couple of things. At 40 I was still ‘bullet-proof’ … after 50 I started slowing down (a bit) – but when you reach 60, you just don’t seem to bounce as well as you once did.
Keep Smilin, bro …
and putting out good content
Mike (Maddog) Aslin
p.s. I’ve got 9 more days, and I’m suppossed to be able to start spending some time on my feet, so I’ll eventually get started again.
Mike Aslin?s last blog ..How It All Began
Hi Matt,
Some good plug-in listed there. Thought I might add some of the ones I’ve installed and see if anyone else finds them useful.
Headspace 2 : excellent for SEO
Keyword Luv : Reward your commentators by separating their name from their keywords in the link to their website, giving them improved anchor text.
Link Cloaking plug-in : Automatically cloaks outgoing links in your posts and pages.
Onlywire : Easily post to millions of sites with one button.
WP Plug-in Manager : Lists available free plug-ins, just click to install one.
Ciao for now